carlf

I take your point, BrianThainess, and it is an interesting observation. But personally, I think that in addition to the extreme consequence of dying, there is also the probability of getting a severe enough case that causes a lot of suffering and often hospitalization. I think that those figures (which I think are much greater than the death probability) also need to be compared and taken into account when making a decision about the interest of taking the vaccine.

My Japanese wife tells me this is because the Japan policy is to vaccinate all with mRNA, mostly Pfizer, I believe. But I think that they ordered some AZ originally "just in case", and as they roll out more Pfizer, they probably just need to get rid of that excess AZ.

No worries. They can just reduce the amount of testing in order to reduce the number of found cases.

Maybe time to reverse the Phuket restrictions. No longer allow anyone to LEAVE Phuket (for the mainland or other islands) unless they get a PCR test? 555

Yes, I think it does matter. I, too, would really be curious to know what pourcentage are real tourists vs. Thailand residents. You're right that they all spend money, but those who are residents would have probably spent the money anyway in a Bangkok ASQ, so this whole operation is just moving money from Bangkok hotels to Phuket. No extra revenue for Thailand. Granted, as a Thailand resident, I'd far prefer to do 2 weeks in Phuket rather than in an ASQ, but if Thailand isn't making extra money, I wonder how long they can keep up the Sandbox.

Thanks for this info. Interesting.... troubling. It's in contradiction with a recent article that I read in Le Monde (https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2021/07/29/peut-on-transmettre-le-covid-19-en-etant-vaccine_6089910_4355770.html ... sorry, in French).

I'm not an expert either, but the articles that I've read suggested that those who are vaccinated with "effective" vaccines that protect the patient from getting a serious (dangerous) case of COVID also do NOT spread COVID nearly as much as those who are not vaccinated. I've read estimates that non-vaccinated people spread COVID 3x to 5x as much as those who are (well) vaccinated. So therefore vaccinations would slow down significantly the spread.