JCP108

Still waiting for wife's final interview to get scheduled at U.S. embassy in Bangkok (submitted final documents 7 weeks ago). Seems that rules about what vaccines immigrants can/should have are in flux. Anyone have recent experience with that?

18 hours ago, IAMHERE said:

I'd imagine also the delay in donated vaccine will cause the quicker use of the China/Russia vaccine. Thai's seem hesitant to get the China/Russia stuff, it would seem.

Right. They compare 50% effectiveness with 97% and want to wait for the Western vaccines. Must not anger the Chinese friends.

19 hours ago, konaboy said:

my wife and I had the same Amphur problem and gave up. Got married in Hawaii!

did they want a tip?

We didn't offer a tip. Perhaps that would have solved it. We were already married in the U.S. Just trying to get our marriage recorded as official in Thailand in case I sought a marriage visa rather than a retirement visa at some point. 

My wife and I have average total expenses of around 50k/month (including health care and insurance though not including travel) though we save a lot because we live in Lad Prao (which you prob wouldn't choose unless you speak Thai). 

10 hours ago, mancub said:

The only success of the Sandbox is to show that there is no need to fear, quarantine and repeatedly test fully vaxed foreigners.

As with Phuket, the Covid no's rise due to the internal population movements to profit from them, both in terms of employment and financially.

Can they admit that and make reasonable policies that reflect those facts while saving face?

3 hours ago, khunjake said:

From the time that we were "Documentarily Qualified" from the NVC, it took approximately 5 months to receive the appointment email from the embassy. The interview was scheduled for 4 weeks after the email was received and 2 weeks prior to the interview, we received another email informing us that our appointment has been delayed due to a resurgence of COVID-19 in Bangkok. The interview was pushed out 5 more weeks. So all in all, about 7 months from NVC approval up to the interview. My wife was approved by the friendly immigrant visa officer compared to being refused a visit visa by the unfriendly non-immigrant visa unit 3 years prior.

Thanks for sharing. Was that post-Trump in the Biden era or during the Trump debacle?

I, too, am interested in reports from anyone filing a family/marriage/fiance visa who can report the wait time from getting all the documents to the U.S. embassy in Bangkok and getting the final interview scheduled. We submitted our docs three weeks ago and have yet to hear from the embassy. 

10 hours ago, The Man Who Sold the World said:

JCP108, you asked for recent news. I cannot provide recent.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing. I think what I need to hear is from someone in the fiance or marriage visa process who has recently gotten an interview scheduled.

37 minutes ago, onekoolguy said:

My friends GF has been waiting many months? I think its pretty slow right now? You can check the embassy web page for current wait times.

I looked all around the embassy web page and couldn't find any place where they note wait times. Did you see that there somewhere?

We submitted the final documents for wife's marriage visa to the U.S. 15 days ago. Haven't heard anything from the embassy. Anyone have recent experience who can report wait time from final document submission to notice of scheduling final interview? 

2 minutes ago, oobar said:

My wife and I are two of them.

I'm remembering the first part of the pandemic when only Thais were allowed on public busses. Government was fine with that. Wat Pho barred non-Thais. Government was fine with that. The government did demand that a restaurant owner up North take down a sign he had put in the window that said "No Chinese." So, they sometimes don't support it.

I almost spit my drink into my keyboard when I read the headline.

12 hours ago, WineOh said:

must be really frustrating for the government not being able to blame all this on those 'dirty foreigners' anymore.

 

They only have themselves to blame.

 

Maybe that urge to blame foreigners was part of the motivation to implement the sandbox?

I hope they don't use the same investigators that they sent to Pattaya to look for prostitution.

And, why don't they follow this same procedure or international arrivals?

2 hours ago, ukrules said:

No, there is no decline.

 

What you're seeing here is likely due to limited testing capacity.

 

 

...or, dishonesty. If you look at the charts of daily cases prior to their reaching 9k, it was increasingly steep. Then, at a little over 9k, it just flatlined. Real data doesn't do that. If it were limited testing, it would flatline at the testing amount which seems to be more than 9k. 

1 hour ago, GrandPapillon said:

you guys are getting excited over those low numbers, wait until it reaches 20,000 cases per day (if they have enough tests for it) and 10,000 in ICUs next month

They will keep that from happening by not testing, I suspect.

1 hour ago, impulse said:

When the rest of Thailand is testing positive at 20% and delta is already running rampant, vaccinated, tested (and tested again) tourists are the least risky people in the country.

 

Next time you go out, look around.  Now think about this... One out of every 5 people you interact with would test positive (if they could get a test).  Now figure the Sandbox statistics...  1 tourist out of 2100 tested positive.  That's 0.05%.

Who would you rather share a meal with?  Or more pragmatic, whose money spends safer?

 

So, shouldn't be long until the entire country has herd immunity!

2 minutes ago, LivinginKata said:

Not operating during these covid days

Makes sense to have stopped it when tourism on the island tanked. Would have been a smart thing to restart it once they expected those hoardes of travelers to the sandbox. 

Just let people ride the public bus that goes from the airport all the way down the west coast of the island. You pay a pro-rated rate depending on how far you ride it and even if you go all the way down to (or up from) Raway, the fair is only around 200B.

The Thai officials could somewhat save this by testing all these people a second time and, if those follow-up tests are negative, letting them go back to their sandboxing adventure. It could have been a false positive. Even if the original person tests positive on follow-up, the other people should be let out of their new prison if they each test negative on follow-up. If they did this, I wouldn't be so reluctant to come back to Thailand via this wacky scheme. 

1 hour ago, impulse said:

 

 

And it will be interesting to see if he gets retested and perhaps released if they figure out it was a false positive.  Still too early to know just how bad his situation is...  

 

 

This is a very good point. As someone who very much doesn't want to travel there and get caught up in an undesired 14-day hospitalization or quarantine, I want to know that they do a follow up test to confirm the first one and, if the second one is negative, they reverse the mandatory measures and allow the traveler to resume the sandboxing. However, the past behaviors of the Thai officials have not seemed to be so smart. If they did the smart thing, they would reduce the reluctance of people like me to travel to Thailand where we would spend a bunch of money.

1 hour ago, Polaky said:

Still unclear how the guy from uae tested positive, how is it possible?, unless the test he had before leaving was fake, which would also raise the question is his vaccination legit?, surely if you board a flight and the stewardess has it and passes it onto you, it would be too early to detect as positive, it needs time to ingrest itself into your system, something is not quite right with this case, the boys from tat should investigate more thoroughly.

Could be a false positive. No test is 100% accurate.