mstevens

Because what happens in gogo bars between customers and staff (especially outside of the bar later in the evening) is a whole lot more risky than what happens between customers and staff in a supermarket. Further, what's the best most gogo bar staff will NOT be wearing facemasks whereas those in supermarkets do.

All it needs is for Covid to rip through one of the bigger, popular bars and there will be a knee-jerk reaction from the authorities and bars will be closed. The Delta variant spreads so easily and the nature of the bar industry makes it a most fertile breeding ground. It is not my intention to be negative or overly pessimistic but I do wonder how the bars will cope given it's an environment where Covid will thrive. Close and at times intimate contact between customers and bar staff means Covid will run through the bars fast. How will bar staff / customers / government officials respond when that happens - and it will happen! How will you feel if you read a headline alone the lines of "25 staff and 8 customers in A1 Bar on Walking Street infected with Covid19, spread suspected in other bars"?

I see this is now a big story in the mainstream news with hundreds (or more) people reporting multiple withdrawals from their account in rapid succession. Seems to be an issue with these digital wallets too.

I would not be surprised if at some stage in the not too distant future that vaccination becomes a requirement for visas / extensions of stay also.

I respect your viewpoint, even if I personally disagree with it. What does make me wonder is what the students' respective parents would make of the foreign teacher who refuses to be vaccinated. My feeling is that this is not something many parents would readily accept and they might well put pressure on "Paw Aw" to pressure said foreign teacher to get jabbed, else find a new foreign teacher.

First dose I was fine for 9 hours and then my arm became quite sore to the point that I couldn't move it much and couldn't lift it above my shoulder. After a good night's sleep I was fine and the pain had gone. Second dose my arm was just a little sore. However, I woke up at 2 AM (I'd had the second dose the previous morning, so about 15 hours earlier) with a raging headache and a fever. I don't like to take medicine if it can be helped but this headache was really bad so I took a couple of Tylenol and an hour later felt much better, the fever was coming down and I fell back to sleep. By the time I woke up I felt fine again.

Give it another month or two and, sadly, the number of Covid deaths in New Zealand this year will likely exceed the number of deaths due to the vaccine.

I wasn't in favour of the vaccine initially, because I prefer to avoid medicines / drugs / chemicals etc wherever possible. I figured as someone who is generally healthy that I would be ok if I caught Covid. However, Delta came along and it made me think. Then, a friend in the medical profession said to me that the odds are sooner or later we will all get it. He didn't add anything to that - that comment alone was enough. Having seen the terrible effect Covid has had all around the world, I figured that I'm better off being vaccinated than not - and so now I am double-jabbed. Also, I feel that anyone who wishes to travel but is not vaccinated will face various challenges. Not being vaccinated will become problematic when it comes to international travel, I expect.

Even when Thailand has a high vaccination rate (let's say 85%+), I expect new daily infections will still be producing significant numbers (in the thousands) and deaths (in the dozens). I believe this will be the case because A) Thailand has used a lot of not particularly effective Chinese vaccines B) The efficacy of even the mRNA vaccines subsides over time C) Thais are very social people and I just don't think they will adapt well to social distancing. At the risk of being negative, I don't see the vaccines as the answer. Even with the best vaccines and a booster program where people get a booster shot every 8 or 9 months, COVID is going to run rampant in Thailand. Due to this there will be all sorts of hassles travelling such as PCR tests before departure and on arrival as well as various other restrictions - all of which will increase prices - and as such I think this is going to put the vast majority of people off long-distance travel. Until there is either an even more effective vaccine or an effective medication to treat COVID, I think tourism as we knew it all around the world is on permanent hold.

I seem to recall that rental income was taxed at a 15% flat rate, irrespective of how much rental income was received. And it was only the supposedly actually rental income that was taxable.....so rental contracts would often stipulate a fee for furniture and fittings, a fee for security etc. A condo rented for 30,000 baht / month might be broken down in the contract as 10,000 for rent, 10,000 for fixtures, furniture & fittings and 10,000 for security. That way the owner would only pay 15% rent on 10,000 baht (the rental portion of the total 30,000 baht). This is how I believe it was some years back. No idea if this is still correct or not.

I'd be VERY surprised if at some point in the next year or so that proof of vaccination against Covid-19 isn't added to the list of requirements for extensions of stay.

I think a really major problem Pattaya faces is the girls being scared to contract Covid and not being interested in going with customers. I am not in Pattaya but a couple of friends who live there year-round tell me that many girls have left Pattaya. Most because they couldn't make money but plenty are scared of contracting Covid and figure they are safe back in their village. Those girls who have remained in Pattaya will happily go on cam streams to make money but many won't meet anyone in person as they are scared of contracting Covid. When the bars do eventually open, whenever that may be, there will be men from all over the world inside bars which are small, and women meeting many men from all over the world every day. Even if everyone is vaccinated, there will still be Covid infections, especially given that some vaccines aren't that effective. It all makes me think the future of Pattaya, at least as we knew it, is very, very uncertain.

I imagine there are going to be many foreign business owners who feel that way. I hear that some Soi LK Metro bar owners are still paying rent at this time despite being closed for months and in all likelihood no chance to open for many months to come, followed by so much uncertainty. You'd have to be a real optimist AND have deep pockets not to walk away!

I think baked beans are like a lot of food items, we tend to prefer the version we grew up with. Growing up in New Zealand, I prefer Watties. If you grew up in the UK or the USA or Australia, you might not find Watties to your taste and likely prefer the version you grew up with. My American friends all swore by Heinz but when I tried it, I preferred what I grew up with, Watties.

To answer the OP's original question about traveling to NZ, only New Zealand citizens and resident holders can travel to New Zealand at this time (and maybe Australia citizens too?). For everyone else, you need a compelling reason which could be anything from humanitarian grounds to a job offer in NZ. In a nutshell, it's complicated and not particularly easy.

It is easy to leave NZ. Just buy a ticket and you can leave. Getting in to Thailand is not too difficult - a friend flew out from Auckland to Bangkok two weeks ago on Singapore Airlines which had an 11-hour stopover at Changi Airport. He said dealing with the Thai embassy in Wellington relatively straightforward. He just got annoyed at the cost of COVID tests prior to departure.

Err, that's odd because Watties tomato sauce has, as far as I am aware, always been made in New Zealand. Not sure what sauce was being made by your friend at that factory in Australia but it was not Watties.