Kwaibill

On 10/14/2021 at 7:19 PM, clivebaxter said:

Remember its not where it was last time, they moved last month

Yes, have the map. They were pretty good about publishing the change.

Wonder how long for the new building?

23 hours ago, Zikomat said:

Yes, I am afraid to die. Life is all we have. Death does not exist : it is what we call when there is no life anymore. It is not a transition from one state to another, it is a transition from everything to nothing, from 1 to 0, something our mind is not ever able to grasp, accept or reconcile with. I try to be honest with myself and not to claim understanding or wisdom where there cannot be any.

Sounds like you described "Nirvana", the escape from samsara. Accepting Gautama's precept that "life is suffering" makes it seem good.  I like a good, deep sleep. Just not ready.

I don't think they were "penniless" upon arrival. I seem to recall having to demonstrate a certain amount of funds first time in.  Easy enough to blow up the budget, I guess, even in Thailand these days.

8 hours ago, Rampant Rabbit said:

Im speaking for the majority I reckon

Depends, in part, how much they'll charge for the "on arrival" test.  Also might help if they organized a subsidized baic health insurance plan for foreigners. I don't believe the story about them driving up  big health care bills. I've neen admitted several times and had to pay every time on discharge, even had to borrow a couple g's from my girlfriend when I had a stroke. (Very short term until I was back "home" and could arrange a transfer.)

7 hours ago, Thaiwrath said:

Photocopies make tremendous revenue at immigration, some charging 5  baht a copy !

I can't see that being stopped in a hurry. 

Just wondering about that, since due to hit Samut Prakan Imm. for marriage permission to stay renewal. Tambien Bahn copy has been one of the requirements. Mice if they would unload some of the rest of the junk.

15 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Correct, China isn't even issuing passports to its own citizens anymore.

 

'No Ordinary Passports to be Issued': China Restricts Overseas Travel to Curb Fresh Covid Outbreak
https://www.news18.com/news/world/no-ordinary-passports-to-be-issued-china-restricts-overseas-travel-to-curb-fresh-covid-outbreak-4044824.html
 

Thought I remembered something to that effect in the article about low turn out for the "Golden Whatever" in Chinatown.

10 hours ago, ezzra said:

Can't be done.. i tried.. not possible, into a bottle though, different story...

LOL! That's what actually happened, " stuck in a bottle opening". They simulated the "rescue" on television, with one chap holding a finger in the bottle neck while another "operated".

Saw this on telly tonight, with a couple of first responders simulating the "rescue" with a finger stuck inside a bottle neck, whith a pixillated still of the guy on a gurney, obviously pantless, shown on split screen. I asked my wife, "This isn't about somebody got their finger stuck, is it?" Broader than usual Thai smile in response.????

39 minutes ago, 248900_1469958220 said:

One jab for the boys is what I have heard. I would like that confirmed though. Yes, I am concerned about this. My son is 14....right smack bang in the middle of 'potential' problems. He has been home for so bloody long.

One jab per Thai government plan?  May be okay from my reading of some doctor's thoughts.

Here's one guy I like who might have info helpful in making a decision with your son, if it is ok to post the link:

https://zdoggmd.com/myocarditis/

The "powers" just don't appreciate the seriousness of this epidemic. Kids were much less susceptible to the original strain, but that has changed with the Delta, and a school environment is a veritable Petri dish for viral transmission.

I am concerned about the cardiac side effect reported in young men with the Pfizer mRNA "jab". Let just a few instances surface and watch hesitancy skyrocket. 

This has been reported as more prevalent after a second dose.

A mixed vaccine dosing schedule has shown some promise re: increased efficacy. I wonder if it might not prove salutary in the cardiomyopathy incidence, as well?

So many factors!

The cardio effects have been seen as rare and mostly self resolving in Western experience. I am concerned about the arguably less well educated public here, but recent reading about hesitancy and outright BS in the States and Oz may require re-assessment of that concern.

Responding to one suggestion, I have several times been the only other person in some of these small town massage studios. Very possible that nobody was there to hear the poor woman. I also don't find the suggestions about payment for extra services very enlightened. Many massage ladies are just that, especially upcountry. They would probably be in someplace like Nana if they wanted that kind of custom.

8 hours ago, BobinBKK said:

Did anyone think to check the expiration date? 555

Yes, and have a record of it.

A might slow getting started maybe, but it was there. In fact I turned down an invite from a second venue to come in. They sent an acknowledgment thanking me for letting them know I was covered.

I really never thought this would work as "planned."

Far too many rules and uncertainties to make it worthwhile, at least for me.

I might have a different opinion if I were not already here with my wife. It might be worth the hassle in that case. I did skate through on the last day before everything tightened up. 

.

I have to say I don't really "get it".  I don't drink much anymore due to health, but really enjoy my very occaisional beer or wine. Actually had a shot or two of Regency via video last week with family and friends we cannot travel to just now.

If the "powers" want to limit booze to, say, three drinks at a restaurant, maybe that would make sense. Outright prohibhtion doesn't ever seem to work well. Even in many Islamic venues it is possible to get a drink.

6 hours ago, meechai said:

But....I see no benefit either because Moderna like Pfizer was designed to accomplish its goal thru two doses

They being mRNA are teaching your immune system to react to covid

 

So if that is how they were designed what would be the thinking in boosting a viral vector vaccine like AZ

which is not mRNA & instead used a spike protein to condition your immune system?

 

The single dose Moderna (or Pfizer for that matter) would appear to my mind to just be

a incomplete set of mRNA  instructions ...useful or useless?

There are several aspects of the immune system that react to different "types" of pathogens. Several vaccines require multiple doses to offer varying degrees of protection. Influenza is one most people are familiar with, needing an annual "tune up" for best effect. My personal experience includes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and rabies prophylaxis, both requiring a three dose regimen at specific intervals, as I recall.

Covid 19 is also called "novel Corana" as in new. Not sure if it is known, yet, why antibody response fades with time, but it does.

Combined regimens seem to work. Canada has been using a combined Pfizer and Moderna schedule to good effect.

Moderna seems, from what I've read, to mount a slightly more robust response. As an "at risk" type I'll take all the help I can get.

8 hours ago, TooMuchTime said:

6 month effectiveness for a vaccine sounds like a poorly designed vaccine.  All the ones I took last decades or a lifetime.

I still can't get an answer on how much injections are needed to provide immunity.  Usually that information is available before release.

Tetanus and influenza are two examples of vaccines that do not confer long term protection.

25 minutes ago, Caldera said:

I see no harm, but potential benefit, in getting a Moderna booster shot after having had my two AstraZeneca jabs.

 

I don't mind that I need to pay for it, I already did. In fact I would have preferred for that option to be available earlier this year.

Yes, my wife signed me up for and paid for what the local hospital said would be Moderna, then the government got it together and I got two free Pfizer jabs. The Moderna is tentativly scheduled for end of November, about right timing for old(er) fogey "boosting". Happy its been working out.

One of my  sisters, a retired RN and Colonel in the USAF, just got released from the hospital with Covid. She's home with oxygen because of Covid induced pneumonia, and she says its been a rough go and everybody should get jabbed. She had had one shot, so far, and was very grateful or probably wouldn't have made it.

3 hours ago, djayz said:

It has nothing to do with being frugal. People with that kind of wealth are not going to invest/decide not to invest in a country because of the price of booze. 

How do you know?????

Let's see what difference it makes.

I might start taking a glass of red...for my stomach's sake.

One of the biblical suggestions I approve of.????

On 9/15/2021 at 10:16 AM, worgeordie said:

OK go there, but you will find it a lot more expensive, just leave

things the way they are ,if they start making changes we could

end up a lot worse off.

regards Worgeordie

I think the point is that the people intended to be "lured" in this scheme can afford to live in other oriental paradises with, among other things, more stable governments. Revolving juntas don't inspire confidence in the well to do, particularly.

A friend's well to do family from Myanmar lost most everything when the ethnic Chinese got the boot.

Could it happen in Thailand?

On 9/10/2021 at 2:51 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

That's true, but when I reached the age it was difficult to get medical insurance I left. I might get free hospital treatment here, but anything before that ( GP, physio etc ) costs a heap. The NHS is the ONLY reason I'd like to live in the UK.

Similar with the US medicare. The "co-pays" and "uncovered" expenses were bankrupting me. Good care at Sirikit after my stroke ran a bit under 14,000 baht. They did not do the promised "home visit", but I staggered out under my own power, so no foul in my opinion. I figured out what had changed and what to do on my own. Wandering around Paris a couple of months later with the doc's ok.

Working on my wife's visa, so when the time comes...

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

The asymptomatic cases - or the gray number, as it's also called at some places - have been known about since the beginning of the pandemic. A good questions is, do they matters?

 

Denmark is the nation that has performed the highest number of test in their population, in fact the number equals testing the whole population of 5.8 million population more than 12 times, and still there are about 20% Danes that has never been near a test station. If you need to find all asymptomatic cases, you need to test the entire population with a very short time frame; a good questions is, if can change anything?

 

It's mentioned in the media that Covid-virus can still spread even from vaccinated people - what about those that have already been infected, can they also still spread the virus? - and a number of countries now says that Covid is something we are going to live with in the furture, just like influenza, but only few will get sick if the majority of the population have been vaccinated.

 

One of these countries is Denmark with 70+ percent of it's population vaccinated, and now fully reopened with all restrictions removed. But Denmark still reported 557 new cases yesterday - 10th Sepember, no numbers yet for today, time difference - which relative to size of population would equal 6,700 new cases if it's population was of Thailand's size, i.e. 70 million; Thailand had 14,403 new cases yesterday. Denmark still has 8,725 active cases, i.e. 105,000 if it's population was 70 million - Thailand has 141,602 - of which 29 are serious or critical cases, i.e. 348 if Thai-size population, Thailand has 4,387 serious or critical cases, which might well be caused by a much lower rate of vaccination.

 

Looking at fatality rate, denmark has 448 deaths per million - Thailand is so far only 199 deaths per million - and a total of 2,608 deaths with Covid during the epidemic, which started in February 2019, so during 1½ year. A serious influenza season in Denmark takes about 2,500 lives within a year, a normal unfluenza season takes around 1,500; it 2018 there were 2,118 deaths. For comparison, vulnerable people are offered influenza-vaccination, there were no vaccine available in the first half of the Covid pandemic. The effects of lockdowns and use of face masks are unknown, they probably had great protective effects, but in numbers Covid has not been worse than influenza.

 

For comparison I quote from World Heath Rankings: According to the latest WHO data published in 2018 Influenza and Pneumonia Deaths in Thailand reached 44,549 or 9.11% of total deaths. The age adjusted Death Rate is 47.82 per 100,000 of population ranks Thailand #70 in the world.

Note that 44,579 died from Influenza and pneumonia in 2018, so far 13,920 have died from Covid.

 

My modest point is, that massive testing in search for some asymptomatic cases at this point of the epidemic might well be waste of resources - they might just be a fairly useless number in the statistics, if not the whole population is tested within a very short time-frame - whilst vaccination efforts matters to reducere serious and critical cases. The local outbreak on Koh Samui, the so-called "Black Club cluster", showed that vaccinated people only got mild symptoms or no symptoms - i.e. they were not really sick - and it was both those vaccinated with Sinovac, and those with only one jab AstraZeneca.

 

We might have to get used to that Covid exists, just like influenza.

 

Source links: WorldOMeter; World Health Rankings.

 

Yes, Sars 2 is likely to become endemic as have influenza and the common cold.

Influenza and Covid have similar profiles; both are respiratory viruses transmitted almost excusively via interpersonal contact, and with multiple "variants", making the annual forecast of which vaccine combo will be most effective a bit of a <deleted> shoot.

Fewer people would also die of influenza if they bothered to get that jab, each year.

And pneumonia. One of my best friends, a robust trucker and Vietnam vet, died of pneumonia a few years back because he wad tough, and thought he just had a bad cold until too late to be saved.

Get your jabs!

Protect the "herd".????

11 hours ago, ukrules said:

Wow, someone talking sense, maybe there's hope yet.

 

They will 'recover' within 1 to 2 weeks if they're asymptomatic, how many iterations of future infections will it take until this exhausts itself?

 

They truly are walking a different path now.

 

More asymptomatic cases will  speed up the arrival of the poorly understood "herd immunity", but at what cost? Better to gain endemic status vs pandemic by achieving 90% vaccination than allowing up to 19+%(Yemen) mortality in affected individuals.

Source:

"COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country