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All of which is moot to the majority of the population who DON'T livein the 17 places they've selected. What WILL happen is if they open the bars and clubs there will be a tidal wave of unvaccinated heading into those areasfor a night out.

Yep, next week's news, government official coordinates with Polish government to recieve 1.5 million doses of Moderna.

"TAT you should do the calculations again otherwise the teacher will give you a bad grade." And therein lies the problem, they all went to schools where, even if you got the answer 100% wrong, your teacher wasn't allowed to give you 0 points. So what we have here is the uneducated, preaching to the invaccinated the unachievable.

Or test negative on arrival but sat in the seat behind someone who tested positive.....

Narnia????

Realistically, no, but since when have TAT and the government here ever dealt in reality?

Particularly one so much in need of tourists. All those "gap year" students he's scared off as well as the retirees who, pre covid, might have planned coming here are now looking elsewhere to countries that DON'T go out of their way to make coming and staying here an expensive pain.

If they have already indicted him why do they need another month of investigating? I would have thought that one look at the shipping documents and a sample of the received gloves would be enough. Then again, they probably get extra duty pay for such investigations and all have their eyes on a new Toyota for Christmas.

The problem is, they need to be testing the tourists.If they don't those testing teams would have to be employed elsewhere testing Thais and that would show the real levels of infection here, and that just would not do!

Odd then that they wait until a week before the "Grand Reopening of Thailand" to raid it. Someone get passsed over for promotion perhaps?

Yes, wouldn't be overly surprised to see an uptick in cases, caused by an increase in testing in order to justify further lockdowns and control measures. Let's face it, the people deciding on all these measures are not affected by them in the slightest (if you want to go out after curfew and get stopped, just wave your government, police or army ID at the checkpoint and continue on your way). As for the people who are affected, well, they don't really matter to those in power anyway, that is fairly evident by their slow response to vaccination rollout, slow and meagre response to financial aid to the population and pretty much eerything they say and do. (Of course making sure to pass the buck for any failures onto whoever they can find, preferably farang)

With most locals claiming to be Budhist while they sit on the steps outside a 7/11 downing 560ml bottles of Leo. Yeah, like all tea-total religions they pay lip service to religious stipulations regarding alcohol on religious days then get <deleted>faced every other day.

That thought had occurred to me too. USA, UK,New Zeland, Australia all kicking off about vaccine mandates and passports creating a 2 tier society, how about here!?!? No mandates or passports but we are already about to create a 2 tier society, on a far larger scale. "This area does not require a curfew (because tourists might want to come here), but that area does. This area can serve alcohol (because tourists will go there) but this area can't." Hardly doing much to remove the xenophobic attitudes of some locals and government officials.

Well, yes, Delta+ has been found in Massachusetts, London, Beijing, Bang Sai, and inner Mongolia so far, and those are just the cases that have been picked up by random testing. I think the idea that there is only 1 case in a country whose mass testing is woefully inept is kinda off the mark.

From the way the article is written I think we can see how the government WANTS the Thai population to think it arrived: "He did not elaborate about the case, but said that the Department of Medical Science will hold a press conference on Tuesday to provide more details. Dr. Chawetsan said that, over the past 28 days, Delta Plus cases in the United Kingdom have increased, accounting for 6% of all the infections involving other variants, mostly the Delta variant." Dirty farang to blame again. Odd that they failed to mention that Delta+ is also causing chaos in China. I wonder why??

I think that most here would be happy to see the tourism industry retun to its past glory to help the Thai population, particularly those who were dependant on it such as restaurants, bars, small hotels and hostels. It's not that anyone wants the tourism industry to fail (well, appaently the government and TAT seem to). People are simply pointing out that if you want to rebuild the industry you have to do it logically and in such a way as to tempt people here. You don't rebuild an industry by scaring off the very people you need to survive. Many places have managed to reopen and are seeing tourists arrive. I have family just back from a 2 week holiday in Greece with their 1 yar old. Short flight, good weather, no quarantine, no overpriced testing and no applying weeks in advance for a certificate that may or may not be granted after you've paid for everything. If they really want the tourists and to help the Thai population they need to rethink all the bureaucracy. Focus on what tourists come on holiday for. Not everyone is going to want soapy massages and go go bars but they do expect to be able to travel about in a country and know they can have an alcoholic beverage with their evening meal wherever they are. They don't want to be told that if they want to visit a particular town they have to be in their hotel room by 11pm because that area still has a curfew. Theydo not expect to be told tht their family travel insurance plan they have forked out for is not sufficient and they need MORE insurance, or that, on arrival they will be tested at their expense and may find their holiday ends up being in an SHA+ because someone on their flight tested positive. (A point that the proclamations from the government have been noticably lacking in detail about.).

To clarify: Tar ball covered beaches, dual priced temples/waterfalls/parks, and restaurants where a glass of wine/beer with your meal may/may not be allowed. Yeah, I can see a lot of draw there for 2 week tourists.

I like the way they phrase it that "Interestingly, most of the respondents said that a ban on the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants would not put them off visiting Thailand. " I'm sorry? how do you work that one out? 47% said no, 35% said yes and 18% undecided. Thats 53% which is bigger than 47% so therefore they are wrong. That being said, mathematics has never been TAT's strong point.

Agreed, the Chinese can't wait for the Thai authorities to bulldoze all the bar and nightclub districts so they can do exactlywhat they doo in China. They build thousands of Apartment buildings that no one can afford to live in that then just fall to bits because they don't maintain them. Where I used to live in Sichuan the last 15 minutes coming into the city was just row after row of empty apartment buildings. They hacwe built entire cities that no one lives in but they don't care because they have already been paid to build them and have shipped the money out of the country. They'll do the same here at the drop of a hat because it'll be easier to get the money out of the country without Uncle Xi seeing them do it.

I'm of retirement age but can see no obvious advantage to retiring here compared to somewhere like Ecuador, or Colombia where theonly requirements for a retirment visa is a lifetime pension of $900 a month or more, you get a 2 or 3 year visa, no 90 day checks, and after your second renewal you can apply for citizenship/PR. You are also entitled to use the medical facilities just the same as nationals. They still have similar weather to here and lovely beaches. Some may argue that south American countries are prone to revolutions and crime, but then HOW many times have they had juntas take over here? This survey is being pushed out there for PR in the hope that people will see the headline and not actually readthe article.

Yes, but those other countries have not been working for decades without an "in your face sex industry". Thailand, on the otherhand, has been renowned for decades for that very thing. It has played a major part in bringing in the tourists. Unlike those other countries Thailand has not focused so much on the non-sex based attractions, other than to allow such attractions to instigate dual pricing to elp fill their coffers whilst also putting off potential tourists who don't want to be treated as a walking ATM machine just so they can look at a waterfall. At least being treated like a walking ATM machine in Soi Cowboy there's a good chance you'll get something inreturn (hopefully curable with antibiotics admittedly). If Thailand truly wants a booming tourism industry without the sex trade involved they have to accept that it will take a long time to mature and ONLY if they begin by cleaning up, not only their act but the whole country.

Well be fair, those ASQ and SHA+ hotels paid a lot out in brown envelopes based on the figures provided by TAT as to how many million tourists would arrive. Now they're out of pocket so the powers that be (many of whom probably are shareholders) want to make sure they don't lose out completely. Keep them sweet by the promise that if someone on a flight tests positive on arrival they'll quarantine the whole flight manifest.

The curfew issue is going to cause quite a bit of resentment. Especially from the Thais whose xenophobic levels have been pushed to max by the likes of certain health ministers and the zones being withdrawn from curfew requirements are predominantly places tourists nwant to go. Having said that, does it really matter if there is a curfew or not? It's not like there's much in the way of late night entertainment venues since the bar ban is still in place.

I would agree that the PCR test is possibly more accurate, however, we are talking about fully vaccinated people who tested negative prior to the flight. Now, assuming the flight crew are all tested and negative and fully vaccinated that only leaves the arrival and departure points as areas of possible infection. The PCR test is capable of picking up any infection but only 4 to 5 days after infection. So the test either has to be used days after arrival (hence the testing regime at ASQ's) or it will not show any infection even on the infected. Hence you may as well just use the ATK test if you only want to keep people isolated for one day.

Yeah, not sure about the efficacy of this selective curfew lifting. So the curfew gets lifted in Muang Cha Am so you can keep your restaurant open until whatever time in the morning (unlikely since you can't serve alcohol - legally) but your staff live outside Muang Cha Am. So they will be typing up exemption letters for people who need to travel home to areas where the curfew still occurs. Also, how is this going to look to the Thai population in general? "Oh, so they can lift the curfew for places where the farang want to go but not for us natives!" Yeah, that's really going to help with Thai/foreigner relations!