cormanr7

The EU covid digital passport does not show your passport (read travel document) number, neither is it required for travel to Europe when showing a paper vaccine passport. More importantly, when travelling to Europe, many countries will NOT recognize the Siam Bioscience AZ vaccine as it has not been approved by the EMA (confirmed by, for instance, the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok), though some countries may follow their own rules. The officially approved vaccines are shown below (https://www.government.nl/topics/c/coronavirus-covid-19/visiting-the-netherlands-from-abroad/requirements-for-proof-of-vaccination). According to AZ-Thailand 'the company is currently applying for a registration of the name Vaxzevria for use with the COVID-19 vaccine. The name Vaxzevria has been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and several other countries.' (https://www.astrazeneca.com/country-sites/thailand/press-release/travelling-with-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-made-in-thailand.html). This website claims that the Thai AZ product is accepted in France and Germany but the links are not very clear. Note that if a particular vaccine is not accepted, this can seriously limit your ability to travel to/within Europe and require additional PCR tests and the like, so check carefully. The vaccine you received must have been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or be on the Emergency Use Listing of the World Health Organization (WHO). This is currently the case for the following vaccines: Astra Zeneca EU (Vaxzevria) ; Astra Zeneca - Japan (Vaxzevria); Astra Zeneca - Australia (Vaxzevria); Astra Zeneca-SK Bio (Vaxzevria); Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine - United States of America; Pfizer/BioNTech (Comirnaty); Johnson & Johnson ((COVID-19 Vaccine) Janssen); Moderna (Spikevax); Serum Institute of India (Covishield); Sinopharm BIBP; Sinovac.

Update. Registered for mor phrom which is easy as the input fields are in both Thai and English. Input the 13 number ID that is displayed on the slip you got after your first vaccination and choose password, get an OTP. When the app opens it is all in Thai but not difficult to comprehend. The first clickable link (with the syringe) takes you to a page that displays details of your first shot. Click arrow at the bottom, this will take you to the next page where the date for your 2nd shot will appear. Mine is Sept 7th in the morning, one week earlier than the original appointment (Sept 14th). Still no notification by SMS/email.

I also had my first shot at Phyathai 2 on June 22nd with the second shot scheduled for Sept. 14th. Unlike some others, haven't heard anything yet (either by SMS or email).

Today (Sept. 1st) and according to flight tracker sites (like flightradar24), there have been a number of domestic flights. For instance, Vietjet Air, Bangkok Aw and Thai Smile (to Suvanabhumi) and Nok (to Don Meuang) had a single flight from BKK to Phuket vv , whereas Vietjet Air had one to Surat, with another by Nok later this day. So frequency is low and it appears that this morning Nok had a DHC-8 rather than a B737 on a DMK flight to/from Chiang Mai. In the case of Phuket, Thai Lionair and AirAsia are supposed to start on Sept 2nd and 3rd, respectively. So there are some domestic flights now, flying TO Bangkok is presumably easy in terms of restrictions but the other way may be problematic, in particular to Phuket. I would book late as nobody knows what will happen in a few days and getting your money back (and then maybe only just in the form of a voucher which is not really useful) maybe difficult.

As of today various airlines show flights to/from Phuket (initially starting with very low frequencies) from early September. For instance, AirAsia is supposed to have one HKT-BKK flight/day from September 3rd, Thai Lionair one flight a day from Sept 2nd., etc. However, Phuket makes it own rules, and flight schedules sometimes change by the day. I guess we'll know more in a few days. Other domestic flights are also supposed to start early September.

I have gotten a Sinovac shot 11 days ago and now I'm offered Phizer tomorrow, can I take it? The standard method here appears to be an interval of 3 weeks for an initial Sinovac shot followed by either AZ (I have a Thai friend in Phuket who got this) or Pfizer. I think this is loosely based on the standard 3 week interval between two Sinovac shots. As one shot of Sinovac reportedly offers very little protection I think you should be OK. However, did you inform whoever is given the Pfizer shot that you had the Sinovac less than two weeks ago? They could/should have better advice, don't hide the details of a previous shot!

That depends, it is possible that those that tested positive by an antigen test are subsequently tested by PCR.

KLM had originally planned to start direct AMS-Phuket flights in October. This plan has now been cancelled according to luchtvaartnieuws.nl (in Dutch), which tends to be well informed. Reason given (freely translated): 'present conditions do not warrant starting flights on this route' Finnair will operate (seasonal?) flights to Helsinki from Phuket starting Nov 1 with frequency ranging from two to four flights per week depending on the period. For the moment, planned flights to Krabi are also still on, starting end of Nov (source finnair.com). Whether these flights to southern Thailand will actually take place will depend on the covid situation.

It seems to be difficult to upload vaccination data to the IATA pass (possibly due to the endless number of national vaccine passports and the difficulty of varying these data). If you have a EU Digital COVID Certificate (DCC) or UK NHS COVID pass you can now upload it to the IATA pass app https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2021-releases/2021-08-19-012/. But what happens if you arrive in Europe with a sheet from a hospital and/or the 50 Baht Thai COVID vaccination passport (assuming that they have let you board in the first place). After arrival they scan the QR code and then get something like 'website not available'.

I think that yesterday there were about 50,000 tests so the positivity rate is more than 40% which must be one of the highest in the world. Various data are shown at https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/, the number of tests is the last bloc in brown.