Swimfan

8 minutes ago, BillyBobzTeeth said:

Why are people so worried about the amount of covid cases?

 

The only numbers that should matter are the survival and death rates.

 

We are almost at 54,000 cases of covid BUT look at the survival rate it's averaging at 99.6% and the death rate is LESS THAN 0.5 % 

What is all the fuss about???

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/thailand/

 

 

If you had been taking any notice through out the pandemic you would now know that deaths start increasing about 4-5 weeks after a spike in cases. The fact that people are already dying from the current spike is a concern and probably demonstrates poor medical intervention on the part of the Thailand medical establishment. 

2 minutes ago, SoilSpoil said:

 

Probably yes. Been there at least 4 times, and I haven't found them. Unless you walk through a resort or restaurant, that is. Compare Samui's beach boulevards with those of the likes of Ao Nang, Patong, Naithon, Kata, Prachuap, the beaches in Chumpon, Ban krut, and I can go on and on. Samui is maybe stunning if you are in the know, but most visitors stay a couple of days and are clearly not in the know.

I agree with the boulevard statement re Patong and Ao Nang etc. But those beaches themselves have nothing in comparison to the majority of beaches in Samui. The water in the beach at Patong is nothing short of a garbage dump 

On 4/23/2021 at 10:12 PM, SoilSpoil said:

Hard to find a secluded beach on Samui. The island is overbuilt, and completely in decay. We spent 8 days on Samui last week, and can not imagine to retire there.

You must be blind if you can’t find a secluded beach on Samui. 

1 hour ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

This has been a conundrum throughout the pandemic...how to distinguish and thus count Covid deaths in people with pre-existing serious medical conditions or just plain advanced age. One can make the argument that but for contracting the coronavirus the 99 year old lady in the nursing would have lived another 2 weeks...or the morbidly obese 45 year old with hypertension, diabetes, and liver failure would have lived 6 more months if he hadn't caught the virus but who really knows. In any case, what we do know is that elderly people in general, the sick elderly, and the medically vulnerable at any age are at significantly increased risk if they contract the virus. For others, the risk of serious health consequences from virus exposure are is minimal. I think the details provided above concerning yesterday's deaths bare this out.

Maybe you should do some research on how many years on average a person who died from Covid would have lived for if not infected. And that number is increasing as more and more healthy young people succumb to the virus. 
many people people with underlying issues can have reasonable life expectancy with ongoing support and treatment. 

3 hours ago, pagallim said:

I said to my wife yesterday, that the full ramifications of allowing national travel during Songkran would take up to two weeks to manifest itself.   I believe it plausible that daily cases will rise to 5000/day by the end of this week with stricter measures/lockdowns being introduced.

 

 

I am afraid you are probably correct. It unlikely any measures other than a complete lockdown will have any major effect now. 

19 minutes ago, kotsak said:

An interesting video regarding vaccine efficacy

 

 

Two days ago from the Moscow Times 

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/04/20/russias-claims-of-976-sputnik-v-efficacy-under-the-spotlight-a73669

8 minutes ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

I guess none had any symptoms (asymptomatic) as they were in no hurry to get tested.

Incubation period can be up to 14 days. Nothing states they were asymptomatic. They were told he would be moved to hospital for isolation as hospital stated. They waited for days and the said help never arrived. What chance did they all have ? 

The Chinese won’t be going anywhere while their vaccines are only 50% effective. 
They will probably need a booster every 3 months

39 minutes ago, taxin said:

Not according to these stats. Some provinces are down on cases, CM quite significantly.
 

Panic over everybody, doomsayers can go back to their sad lives of misery and doom.
 

 

Bangkok -- 350 (up from 293)

Chiang Mai -- 116 (down from 197)

Chonburi -- 82 (down from 98)

Samut Prakan -- 60 (down from 82)

Pathum Thani -- 57 (up from 19)

 

Surat Thani -- 47 (down from 42)

Nakhon Ratchasima -- 47 (up from 35)

Phetchaburi -- 43 (up from 35)

Prachuap Khiri Khan -- 41 (up from 23)

Gotta love Surat Thani. Nothing like an upside down place ????

1 hour ago, PGSan said:

Which country do you speak of?

Thailand #4

3 hours ago, rabas said:

Do you mean these people were first placed in quarantee because they were high risk, then tested positive? That would make sense to me but I don't know.

I Think you are right. My interpretation is known close contacts testing positive after entering a quarantine facility

14 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

There are MANY reports of Au citizens leaving Oz and arriving in Thailand.

The advice as to reason for travel is "long term holiday/stay" from reports seems to be best option.

The affidavit comment is surely a joke.

Many reports ? Care to share sources ? Exemption to travel is based on compassionate grounds. Long term holidays hardly fits that criteria. I have not heard of a single case of people being granted exemption for general travel. 

37 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

I'm Oz and I'm not kicking up a fuss. Australian new cases is very low.

The one month lockdown in Melb Au was when the daily numbers for that city reached almost 1000. Now they are zero or minimal. The situation in Melb was 100% due to returning citizens/residents.

Along with lax hotel quarantine.

Cherry picking facts to suit your narrative. The Melbourne lockdown was not one month it was 112 days or 16 weeks. The original case was from hotel quarantine but the major issue was that people were not isolating after testing positive. The majority due to the fact they had no available income support so continued to go to work. 

Just now, pookondee said:

 

Im pretty sure New Zealanders are also not allowed international travel, so there are probably no flights.

 

And I dont think Australia would allow it to be that easy.

If travel out on N.Z was even doable, i wouldnt be surprised if Australia have some agreement with N.Z immigration to not allow Aussies out on international flights.

 

Its absolutely wrong and i can't for the life of me fathom why Australians aren't kicking up a huge stink about it.

New Zealanders have been free to leave the country since the beginning of the pandemic. There is a strong do not travel warning but no official travel ban.

Mandatory quarantine upon return. 

As off today you now have the option of flying to New Zealand as no exemption or quarantine is required. You could then fly onwards to Thailand from there. 

First step would be to apply for an exemption to leave Australia. Everything else is moot till you have done that. 
I have a friend who was granted permission to leave to visit his partner in the UK. Had to pay for his own quarantine upon return. 

55 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Happened to come across this interesting Q & A with a COVID researcher in the Infectious Disease News website.... including the following excerpt, which again makes me wonder where the Thai MoPH is getting their 60% figure from:

 

"The HIT is the fraction of people who need to be immunized to stop the virus from spreading. Researchers have estimated that this may be 70%, 80%, or even higher, and that we can achieve herd immunity only if we reach these high levels of immunity everywhere. If there are pockets of low immunity — for example, in children, disadvantaged communities or subgroups with high levels of vaccine hesitancy — then we won't be able to stop the virus."

 

https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210413/qa-what-is-herd-immunity-and-what-will-happen-to-sarscov2-if-we-reach-it?

 

There was an interesting Covid documentary on BBC a couple of weeks ago. They showed the formula of how they calculate the herd immunity figures. One of the key references in the formula is the R number of the prevalent strains of virus. They estimate for strain like B117 also known as the UK variant the R is as high as 4.5. With that as a reference they calculated that it would require vaccination rates of 94% to achieve herd immunity