JCP108

30 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

Funny that Thailand is getting only 3% positive results from testing, whereas Indonesia, Philippines and Italy have 17-19% positive rates. Could it be Thailand's claimed number of tests carried out is somewhat exaggerated?  We are certainly not seeing widespread testing in Thailand.

It's higher than 3%. Prior to this recent release of new tests, there were about 24k tests performed and about 2,200 positive cases. So, that's around 10%. We can't do a new calculation with the new test number of 74k until we also get the data on how many positive tests were in that additional group of tests. If you keep that hidden, you can't do a recalculation with the prior number of positives.

The positives/tests performed ratio changed a lot when they tripled the tests performed but didn't allow any of those additional test results to be counted in the positives. 

27 minutes ago, Alidiver said:

1030 per 1 million
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/thailand/

Some observers have speculated that: a country shouldn't count tests if they also have a filter that would prevent most of those results from being counted once the tests were performed (say, for example, a rule that the only results counted would be those which were simultaneously done at two specific labs and any tests done at any other lab wouldn't be counted). If we do that, we'd go back to around 25k tests done in Thailand so far. So, around 300 or so per million. 

1 hour ago, Sharp said:

They have already banned alcohol for a week or more in many provinces and i'm guessing a Provincial or even Tambon  travel lock down is definitely on the cards just to stop the die hard Songkran revellers.  

Would have been simpler if people just wouldn't sit close together and share glasses while drinking and break curfew to do it. Will they also consider banning food to get people to stop dipping their individual spoons into the common dishes?

1 hour ago, meshborg said:

the acceptance of falsified figures is quite staggering on this forum

I'm staggered for sure. Based on the responses in this thread, I conclude: no matter how small a bump in the increased death rate in a given month in Thailand (say, one extra person dies [in a hospital or at home] compared to the average), some posters to TV believe that they will magically become aware of that death. 

40 minutes ago, tuktuktuk said:

 Thailand is almost 30 to 1 ...

You can't divide the Thailand positives by the new number tested since they only increased that tested number but didn't allow in any of the positives from the increased tests (since they weren't double-confirmed tests that included two at the two approved labs). You have to divide by the old number before we jumped from 25k tests to 72k tests performed. If they add in the positives from those additional tests in the data that's being released, then you can use that higher number. I think the Thai ratio is around 0.09 if I remember when I did that division. 

8 minutes ago, Tingnongnoi said:

Somehow it is happenening in Thailand, but everyone is magically unaware of it? 

Not magically. Just simply unaware of it. 

Let me ask this...

Could the monthly death rate in Thailand increase 2% and it go under the radar of TV posters? Or are posters on here sensitive to even small fluctuations in the Thai death rate (say, even as low as 0.5% and 1%)? How small a percentage of an increase could the monthly death rate be that might go unnoticed by posters here?

If your answer is: Okay, the rate could go up 2% and (if not openly reported by the government and new sources), I might not be aware of it...then, that would mean that an extra 950 people could die monthly without your necessarily noticing. In the first there months of the year that could be (3 x 950) 2,850 extra deaths. 

2 minutes ago, offset said:

But you forget that over half of the infections are in BKK so I would think if the figures are not true BKK hospitals ICUs would be over loaded by now 

Also more hospitals in BKK.

2 minutes ago, shy coconut said:

 

 

No health care system in the world has the capacity to expand its ICU beds by 10-15% which

is why the field and temporary hospitals are being set up.

 

If the hospitals in Thailand had been overwhelmed with the kind of numbers you are suggesting

then that would be visually obvious and impossible to paper over.

 

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to quote Dinsdale, I was replying to JCP108's post.

If ICU beds aren't running at capacity, then a 10% increase in business might still be within their normal capacity. I wouldn't assume that they were running at 100% full prior to this. 

I still say that a 10-12% increase would not be "visually obvious and impossible to paper over." I think that kind of fluctuation happens all the time and we don't see it. I get that you and others are convinced you would (and, so I'm going to stop trying to make the opposite point). I just don't think we would. 

8 minutes ago, LeamchabangLarry said:

 

 

Do we agree that Bangkok is more concentrated than any 5 other provinces put together?

 

...probably...not sure, but I would accept that. I still think wherever hospitals are concentrated or not, a 10-12% bump in business could happen without our seeing it. 

Think about it this way, data in the real world (to the extent you can measure it) is usually lumpy, not smooth. That means if we ignore that we're currently focused on this virus, the death rate fluctuates probably by a fair amount each week. People don't die on schedule in even numbers each day. So, you and I don't get notified nor do we become aware of 10-20% fluctuations in the death rate in BKK or the country. But, such fluctuations happen all the time (my assumption). So, I apply that same thinking to this situation and think that neither you nor I nor any other poster on here could or would be aware of such a fluctuation in the Thai hospital business or in Thai deaths in general (considering all the ones including those outside the hospitals). 

17 minutes ago, LeamchabangLarry said:

  It should have blown up and spectacularly by now.

 

 

 

 

...and, we should all be magically aware of it. I don't think I did a good job of getting my point across. 

If you ask me: Did 10k, 20, 30k, 40k, or 50k people die in Thailand last month? I simply don't know and neither do you or any of the other posters on here. We don't. 

If an extra 5k people died in the country over the last four weeks, that represents only a 10% bump in business as usual. Since the beginning of the year, an extra 15k people could have died with only a 10% increase in deaths. So, basically the same number of raw deaths that have been reported in Italy could have happened here with about a 12% jump in the Thai death rate. Why, why, why do you think that if deaths in this country increased by 10-12% you and I would have to see it? Why?

4 hours ago, Guderian said:

There's a good piece on the Bangkok Post website at the moment, but we're not allowed to quote it here so you'll have to look for it yourself, about the CCSA defending the tests. South Korea has carried out almost ten times as many tests as Thailand, yet the overall rate of infection found among those tested is roughly the same as Thailand's (2.19% versus 2.8%) so it doesn't look like they're missing vast numbers here. Of course, it would be nice to test far more people, and they probably will as the pressure to do so mounts. At the moment, though, their limited, targeted testing doesn't seem to be doing too badly. Keep in mind that no country knows the true numbers infected, it's not just a Thai problem.

You can't divide by 71,860 (the new number of reported tests) since the filter in place (see others' posts explaining this) doesn't let the positives in that group get counted unless they meet the tighter criteria. So, you can only divide by the 25k that was reported before we bumped it up to 72k tests. Therefore, the hit rate would be 0.0969 for Thailand. Also, the logic that the Thai hit rate resembling another country's hit rate being evidence of valid measures in Thailand is not sound. 

9 minutes ago, LeamchabangLarry said:

I don't know. 

I can only report on what I see.

I have driven by Bumrungrad, Samitivej, Phaya Thai 2, BNH, Thainakarin, and a couple others.

The government is not censoring my eyeballs

 

I get your incredulity at our worry. But, I think you and some others are making an error when you assume that it would be unavoidably obvious and not able to be hidden if an extra 5-10k people were dying each month in Thailand. But, consider that, on average, 48k people die in Thailand every month. How many of those did you see? If 48k turned into 58k, why do you somehow believe that we would all develop magical powers to see all those deaths?

I got back to Thailand at the first of Feb. So, was here all that month as well as March...and, now into April. So, statistically about 100k people would have died of all various causes in Thailand while I've been here. I directly know of two people who died of old age. I've seen the reports on the news about the handful who have died from C-19. Other than that, I'm oblivious to all the thousands of other deaths and so are you. I have no idea if there was a 10-20% bump in the monthly average number of deaths. That data is not being made available and none of us has magically become omniscient. Not me. Not you. Stop thinking you'd see all those deaths simply because it's a big number. 10-20k sounds like a lot of people dying. But, spread that out over a few weeks in a country of 70 million and you simply: do. not. see. them. You don't.

3 hours ago, nkg said:

 

 

 

I don't have any theory as to why temperature (and/or humidity) would affect death rates so much, but the numbers are startling.

 

 

 

 

 

Could be that heat/humidity place a role. I agree with Dr. Turner that your breakdown generally (other than Australia) also sorts countries generally into those with and without more robust and valid testing and reporting mechanisms. We need better data from the hot list. 

8 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

 

 

The tests number that was published, 70k+ was the amount of tests not the amount of people tested, I'm not sure how many people would need two tests or if thats a requirement?

 

 

Right. We don't get to count all those extra tests to make 70k+ if the criterion still exists that a test is only a test (meaning the pos result will only get counted) if it is tested at both of the gov test centers. Those extra tests were elsewhere and the pos results aren't being officially counted. So, for example, if you go to Worldometer/covid... then you see those extra tests in the right-hand column. However, none of the pos results of those tests are included in the far left column of number of cases for Thailand. Right?

26 minutes ago, teddybeer said:

see here: https://covidtracker.5lab.co/en

But, covidtracker only includes the official cases. That doesn't tell us what's really happening.

39 minutes ago, UbonThani said:

Only 30 deaths. That's so low. Are these numbers right? Maybe it's 300 but still low.

Maybe it's 3,000 or 30,000 and we still wouldn't know. I know people insist that it must be about as low as reported since if it were a lot higher, we'd be seeing social media stories about it or bodies lying in the streets. But, that is based on some misguided assumptions. The U.S. CIA Factbook states that the annual death rate in Thailand (see link below) is 8.3/1,000. That means in a country of 69 million people, 573k people die every year and that translates into almost 48k/month. So, 48,000 people died in Thailand last month. Did you see any of those deaths or hear about them? If you saw a mention of a death on social media, did you see 48,000 unique deaths mentioned?

If there was even a 10% increase in the death rate in the first three months of this year (meaning an extra 15,000 deaths), I'm guessing most of us would still not directly notice and neither would the average Thai person. So, yes, one can simply not report the numbers (by not testing or whatever) and none of the rest of us truly have a mechanism to refute it. And, worse, this misguided set of assumptions that certainly we would notice an extra 10,000, 20,000, or 30,000 deaths this year actually bolsters that ability to obscure it if it's happening. 

I'm not saying all of that proves that it really is happening that way. But, I am saying that the confidence that we would see it is totally fabricated in our heads simply because it's hard to believe such large numbers could die and we wouldn't know. But, think about it...large numbers are dying all the time and we are not directly aware. 

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/th.html#field-anchor-people-and-society-death-rate

So, how many people are really positive if we include all the positive tests from those extras he's referring to?

7 minutes ago, transam said:

Take a look at climate temperatures at the start of the virus outbreak between countries that have been hit hard and those that have not.

Think about actual people physical contact differences from the countries that are hit hard and those that have not been. Rarely see a cuddle or a welcoming kiss in LOS, for instance, in the UK it is the norm..

But in the UK (and other Western countries), people don't use their individual spoon to dip into a common food dish the way that is done in Thailand. That seems significant. 

One thing I noticed is the disparity of the ratio of positive cases per number of tests performed. Per Worldometer, Thailand has 2,258 cases for 71,860 tests. That's a hit rate of 0.031. The U.S. has a hit rate of 0.192 and Italy of 0.179. If Thailand had a hit rate comparable (say, 0.18), then the tests performed here so far would have resulted in 12,934 cases. Why would Thailand have such a different hit rate compared to other countries?

1 hour ago, Sametboy2019 said:

There is a doctor from one of the best hospitals in NY talking about ...

Have a link to the source?

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My observation in my area of BKK (Ladprao) is about 80% of people are wearing masks over past couple of days (on the street, not in my complex). Not many non-Thais here so all people not wearing masks were Thai. I wear mine 98% of the time though when I go out early in the mornings (5:00 a.m.) to do some vigorous walking around the complex, I don't as it's not comfortable to breath through them when exercising and I'm not close to others at that time. I do see people in the mornings and 75% of them are police officers since they live in the complex near me. So far, nobody has quibbled with the morning lack of the mask. Hopefully that remains so. Of the police and their family members inside the complex, they wear masks about 25% of the time.