Unify

I've been thinking about this a bit. It's too early to tell if Omicron is more or less deadly than Delta. I've seen intelligent arguments for both cases by people that know a lot more than I do. SA demographics skew young, and there were lots of Delta infections there, so these are confounding factors. We'll know a lot more in a few weeks.

It would be nice to know when it will hit Thailand the hardest, so I can time my booster for maximum protection ????

That's assuming a third shot's effectiveness wanes over time. Throw into the mix that they may tweak vaccines against Omicron at a later point, and it might be better to wait a bit.

I'll probably get a booster around the new year. Other than that, I don't think about it much. Life goes on.

Which country is he from, and where will they live, in Thailand?

Make sure these emails don't go to spam.

I haven't been able to successfully register, but for those who have, I suggest you take a simple step to make sure you get the emails n the future.

"Whitelist" the email address, or domain.

This tells your email service to not put any emails from this particular address or domain, in the spam folder. The procedure varies for different email providers. You can search for "Whitelist hotmail" or whomever.

For Gmail.

• Open an email from the address, and click the 3 little dots above the subject line
• Select "Filter Messages like these"
• Click "Create filter"
• Select "Never send it to spam"
• Click "Create filter"

You can also click the little star next to the email to mark it as important.

1 hour ago, brucegoniners said:

Good! It's about time the lousy cabs here had competition! When I lived in Thailand the thing I hated the worst was taking taxis. They were constantly trying to rip you off in a variety of ways, especially in the tourist areas like Nana and Soi Cowboy.

 

Uber had been discriminated against for awhile and now they've made it totally legal. I say it's about time!

 

It's a much more dependable and cost effective service.

Uber won't be coming. They've left the area. Whether I live, Grab is currently the same taxi drivers you see on the street anyway. Let's hope it expands to be more Uber+like -- especially with the pricing.

2 hours ago, bkk_bwana said:

No vaccines prevent transmission. When was that ever a claim?

Almost all vaccines reduce transmission. I don't know of any that eliminate it completely.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2107717

17 hours ago, cclub75 said:

Cool. They're going to find many "new cases" ("85% of new infections being asymptomatic").

 

Perfect timing for the all the "reopen" campaigns.

 

Of course, only a few will ask this question : how come ? Phuket has a very high vaccination rate... and has even started the third dose ! ("66,383 people in Phuket had received their third-dose ‘booster’ shot").

Several reasons. If you'll note, many of the new cases are asymptomatic. There are relatively few deaths in Phuket, from covid. Why? Because many people are vaccinated.

As more people are vaccinated, the percentage of people who are vaccinated and get covid will go up. But most will not have severe symptoms, and many won't even know they have it.

Another reason is that they weren't exactly accurate with the number of people in Phuket, in order to reach the 70% vaccinated milestone. And they also moved the goalposts with that one. Suddenly, 'vaccinated' meant one shot.

Like many places in Thailand, there are shadow populations that don't show up in many official tabulations. These include the 'sea gypsies' in Rawai.

These populations tend to live in close quarters, and also tend to avoid dealing with the government, if they can.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but a Thai friend of mine initially couldn't get a vaccine, because she didn't have a house book in Phuket. She eventually got her boss to claim she lived with her, so she could claim residency and get a shot.

In other words, if you don't live here officially, you're not counted in the population, and lower population makes it easier to hit 70%.

I just got my second shot, and I will say, it was very well organized and they were moving people through very efficiently. I was in the vaccination center for less than 1 hour, including the 30 minute waiting period.

15 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

Do not stay in a country without insurance if you do not have the money to pay. If you can´t afford insurance. Stay home!

My insurance back home was $500/month with a $5,000 deductible, and they only paid 80% after that. Much cheaper here.

Staying home was not a good option.

8 hours ago, JCP108 said:

If you believe that the PCR tests carry a false positive rate of 0.5% (I do) and each sandboxer will have a 1.5% chance of getting a false positive, then out of every 1,000 travelers, 15 of them will get a 14-day stay in one of the two field hospitals they have set up on the island. One thing I wonder about: if an asymptomatic person gets a false positive test result and ends up in the field hospital (read hospitel or forced quarantine in a hotel), how much will they have to pay out of pocket? I can't imagine their insurance policy paying if they aren't symptomatic and aren't put in an actual hospital to get actual treatment. 

Firstly, the probability of a .5% probability event, repeated 3 times, is not 1.5%. You don't just add the percentages together.

If you think it's correct, ask yourself that following question. If you flip a coin twice, is it 100% probable that one of the tosses will be heads? That's a 50% probability plus a 50% probability. 100%, right? No.

Secondly, it would make sense to give someone another test, after a positive test, to see if the initial test was a false positive. Not that I would count on a logical procedure being in place, here.

22 minutes ago, clivebaxter said:

why does it have a drop down list of provinces, districts and sub districts then?

When you get to the section that's supposed to let you choose a date for the vaccine, you must select a hospital, and only three are available: Vimut, Medpark, and Phyathai2. I'm assuming those are all in the Bangkok area.

Also, no dates are available to choose -- all greyed out.

It's my understanding that people coming into Phuket will have to stay 7 days at an SHA+ approved hotel.

They're going to inject 14,000/day for 10 days and that will add up to 200,000? Did I read that correctly?

Maybe multiplication is different in Thailand.

4 hours ago, d2b2 said:

It is widely available for free for everyone (except perhaps young children as there haven’t been completed studies) .
I have a Thai friend (26 years old) who travels between  bkk and San Francisco/Chicago  as a courier and he recently walked into a CVS drug store in San Francisco and received the vaccine of his choice without reservation or cost. 
available to anyone upon request for free.

It did not start that was in the US. First were health care, and other front line workers, as well as others at risk because of age and medical conditions.

Vaccinations only opened up to most everyone, after there began to be surpluses available, and the at risk groups had already had a chance to become vaccinated.

5 hours ago, sammieuk1 said:

Let us pray the virus can wait until June the 9th ????

Second week in June for the first shot. A few weeks later for the second shot. The peak in immunity doesn't come for another couple of weeks after that.

Oh, and July 1st opening.

Hopefully they'll get the vaccinations rolled out as quickly as possible, and the first shot will provide a decent level of protection.

It appears to require a Thai ID number.

19 hours ago, Moonlover said:

 

And at that point I'm afraid your logic breaks down. Because being vaccinated does not prevent anyone from contracting Covid, it only reduces the impact. So your vaccinated G/F could still catch Covid and pass it on to her father.

This is false. While vaccines don't prevent 100% of transmission, a recent study showed 89% effectiveness in stopping transmissions.

"The Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE Covid-19 vaccine appeared to stop the vast majority of recipients in Israel becoming infected, providing the first real-world indication that the immunization will curb transmission of the coronavirus."

Stops 89% of transmissions, and almost completely eliminates serious Covid complications. Other vaccines may differ in efficacy, but I don't think they've studied one that doesn't prevent some transmission.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-21/pfizer-biontech-shot-stops-covid-s-spread-israeli-study-shows

46 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

Although deaths will continue to climb for a bit, it appears that the epidemic has reached a plateau.

What makes you think that? New infections hovered at just under a thousand for a few days, and then around 1400 for a bit before jumping, if I remember correctly.

My friend with a bad cough, who lives in Rawai (an area in which some of the known infectees from Patong visited) was turned down for a test yesterday.

At two hospitals, one of which would have charged her 2,300.

13 hours ago, Phuketshrew said:

"The reason for the notice was that a person now confirmed as infected with COVID-19 had confirmed being on the bus during the times given, the PPHO reported".

The times were for 2 journeys, from airport to Phuket town and the Phuket town to airport. Surely there would only be two people making both trips - the driver and the bus conductress?

They may have felt there was danger of the material in the bus being infectious for a short time. So, the infected person was probably on the earlier run. After the later run, it had been too long for the virus to survive on the seats, or wherever.

Either that, or they're just making it up as they go along ????