James105

Their scenarios/predictions have bounced the UK Government into shutting peoples businesses down, closing schools and are indirectly responsible for much of the damage done to the UK economy and deaths related to lockdowns (undiagnosed cancer etc). They are dangerous and irresponsible. If England had locked down in December Imperial College would now be claiming that England did not suffer so many deaths because of the lockdown. I don't think they should get a free pass as people in power have listened to them and caused immense harm based on the lockdowns implemented on their bad advice and exceptionally poor modelling.

Imperial college? Not sure this is a trustworthy source of information. Take this example from 17 December 2021: "His team at Imperial College London found that even in a best case scenario, there could be roughly 3,000 daily Omicron deaths at the peak in January without further curbs — much higher than the previous record of 1,800 during the second wave." Yes, that is 3,000 deaths a day in the UK from Omicron in the best case scenario! It has averaged less than 100 with Omicron despite peaking at 190,000 infections in a day. I wouldn't take anything they say seriously. They are hopelessly wrong every single time.

So there are no scams in Thailand on tourists? Good to know.

You literally just did comment on something you have just admitted you have no understanding of.

1. I am not your "mate". 2. Please feel free to enlighten everyone with your PCR test wisdom if you disagree otherwise your comment is as pointless as you appear to be.

Most likely she had covid in the UK some weeks ago and like many had no idea she had it as has better things to do than test herself everyday if she doesn't feel ill. The CDC say that people can test positive for up to 12 weeks after they have it. She then gets an inconclusive test so they most likely ramp up the cycles on the next one to guarantee a positive result. Sounds to me like another innocent victim wrongly convicted and sentenced to 2 weeks imprisonment at great expense to either her or the insurance so someone can make a bit of money. Do they include the number of cycles used in the results? I suspect not.

If you are so scared of the virus - and you give the impression that you are absolutely terrified of catching this variant (AKA sniffles) - then why are you going out to these places? Surely the best place for you is triple masked alone behind your sofa with the door locked and barricaded?

If they close everything again and go back into lockdown AFTER the vast majority have been vaccinated this raises the following questions: 1. How does this ever end if the vaccines did not change anything? 2. Why would anyone who hasn't had the vaccine bother getting it if it doesn't change anything?

So you went out with your GF with the full knowledge that she was feeling ill and then you decided to come on here and preach to others about what they should do to dampen the spread. Right.

I won’t test positive as I will not be enabling this madness and getting tested when I am not ill. You must be living in a different place if you think police here will be enforcing this. The bars that are not allowed to be open are open in plain sight of the police already so this is just something else that won’t be enforced, probably as it is difficult to get bars to pay protection money if they are closed. 200,000 was a guess/exaggeration or whatever but it is not free. Perhaps you can take one of the free government tests and let us know how it goes and the exact costs if you test positive.

South Africa was 25% vaccinated and didn’t have a problem with this variant so why would 70% vaccinated Thailand have a problem? People with no vaccines didn’t have an issue there so unless the Chinese vaccines amplify the severity of this variant why on earth would it be an issue here? Why do so many people ignore the science and data from South Africa so they can work themselves into a fear frenzy with this?

How many have died from Omicron specifically vs how many have had it and can you back it up with a link? Note the word in bold is "from" and not "with". I don't think there is a single example of anyone in the world who has died "from" this variant but happy to be corrected if you can supply the evidence for your claim that people are dying from Omicron.

It's great that Thailand is doing its best to keep Omicron (AKA sniffles) from entering Thailand. Rational thinkers would probably suggest that it's a bit pointless as it is already here but as we all know by now, it is not really about preventing or controlling the virus (as this is impossible), it is to look like something is being done no matter how little benefit it has compared to how much it costs. Well done to all involved in this momentously pointless bit of decision making. I personally am looking forward to seeing what comes out of the covid decision making hat next. We haven't had walking backwards around supermarkets yet so hopefully this will be picked soon as I feel it is long overdue.

They can all happily claim ignorance at the moment until the police tell them otherwise. Technically the bars are not even allowed to be open but due to the advice from BiB they went ahead and did so anyway even though the rules did not technically allow it. It's all a bit confusing since these new rules only apply to "restaurants" as these are the only places officially allowed to open and sell alcohol so the bars will just be flouting another rule on top of the rules they are already flouting. If the police have the power to not enforce the rules, then does it really matter what the rules actually are?

Now I normally love a freebie, but this is a hard pass from me. I have better things to do than get carted off to a 200,000 baht 2 week sentence from a dodgy test. This should make the smaller bars that do not enforce this busier, which should increase the spread of the virus in Pattaya and hopefully within a few weeks Pattaya will have herd immunity! Quite a good plan really from the governor who clearly just wants to get this over and done with as fast as possible.

Anyone who is not obese or over 60 has nothing to fear from this milder strain of Covid, especially not if they have received the vaccines. What they do have to fear is poverty. You say it is a difficult choice for them but where is their choice in this? You have a choice not to frequent the bar etc if you are scared, but where is their choice if it is closed down?

Ask any bar girl, service staff or waitress if she wants to be out of work and unable to pay her rent or buy food due to the fears of the biggest bedwetters in society. It's only the overweight, old white men who generally speaking are financially unaffected by lockdowns who want lockdowns again. Mild symptoms do not cause havoc, its the over reaction to them that causes the most harm.

I wonder if the doctor saying this has a mask business like this doctor in the UK? You can buy these useless pieces of cloth from her online shop at £12.50 a pop, but just make sure to swap it for something slightly less useless when encountering other people.

Sigh. My point remains that Wales had a mask mandate and England did not. If masks were effective then Wales would have a lower case rate than England would it not? Anyway, I get it. You have bought into the mask narrative. It is pointless arguing as no matter how clear the data is that shows they are ineffective, you will never, ever believe the numbers and will always believe the narrative so I am not going to continue arguing. All the best.

If masks made a difference it would be easy to point at countries that implemented mask mandates and infer a clear distinction from these countries vs countries that did not. I simply used Wales / England as a case in point since they have similar climate / demographic, and in this case the country with higher infections per 100,000 people is the one implementing mask mandates. You don't seriously believe China sell directly to consumers and health organisations in countries such as the UK do you? This is the kind of thing I was referring to and I expect this type of story is repeated in most governments the world over: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/16/michael-gove-backer-won-164m-in-ppe-contracts-after-vip-lane-referral There is profit to be made by forcing people to wear a piece of cloth/plastic over their faces.

Germany mandated medical grade masks in Jan 2021. It didn't make any difference there. Why would it make any difference here? These things are so ineffective it is impossible to tell the difference between covid transmission rates where countries have mandated masks vs countries that have not. Since July 2021 England did not mandate masks but Wales did. No prizes for guessing who had the higher transmission rates? Hint: It wasn't England! The only logical reason I can see for mask mandates is that the people imposing them have financial interest in the companies that make them.

So the goalposts are shifting on masks for the new variant. Has the size of the pathogen changed? Has the mode of transmission changed? Or is this an implicit admission that anything that cannot block omicron also cannot block any other variant? Pseudo science.

Since you accuse others of not supplying evidence - where exactly is your evidence that the majority of these people will take it? In the UK the people who worked in the health service were the highest priority to be vaxxed so have had ample opportunity to take it. Since they work in the health service there is a very high chance they have already had covid and probably do not see the point in taking a pointless risk of taking the vaccine on top of already having natural immunity. You sound a bit unhinged with your anti vax name calling. I have had 2 jabs but I had them voluntarily - I see no medical or scientific reasoning behind vaccine coercion and as per usual with the likes of the covid nutjobs, you provide no evidence of how many lives will be saved by losing (potentially) 100,000 health workers in the UK.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/covid-vaccines-compulsory-nhs-staff-b965120.html try a quick google search next time so you don’t look silly… and try a better argument than name calling as most people have been vaxxed, its just that rational minded people don’t like to see coercion related to this sort of thing.

Everyone in the UK who wanted a vaccine has had a vaccine. Those who wanted a booster have had a booster. They now have to deal with a variant of a virus that is 50-70% less deadly than the previous one with just 5% of hospital beds being taken up with covid patients. Other than for tyrannical reasons, why exactly would they need to prevent people from going to watch the football? They are so unconcerned about staffing levels in the NHS in the UK that on 1st April 100,000 unvaccinated staff will be fired if they do not get the jab. Any employer who can afford to lose that many employees is clearly overstaffed. The UK sees the most numbers as they test the most, especially in the lead up to Christmas as no-one wants to unwittingly infect granny at Christmas dinner even if she had 5 or 6 hits of the vaccine. You can expect the "cases" to drop drastically by mid January as everyone stays in to recover from the post Christmas/new year hangover and just won't bother testing at all unless they actually feel ill.