Berti

12 hours ago, Daveyh said:

As a foreigner we all know that you will always be a guest in Thailand irrespective of how long you've lived here. There will always be someone such as Khun Anutin with xenophobia & Thai society has it's fair share of these people. Foreigner's plight here has always been at the whim of government like it or not & you should have thought it through before making your decision. The risks of living here have always been known & well documented. If you are not "thick skinned" then this is certainly not the place for you ..... fact. No one will champion your cause here & unless you can "suck it up", get on with your own life & enjoy every minute of it then life can get pretty stressful for you here. It's a beautiful, wonderful country to live in & if you do not fall foul of the law, immigration or do anything really stupid life can certainly be a beach here .................... I can hardly wait for the sun to rise again tomorrow & live another fun filled day here. 

I have to repeat this post. Well said.

So many expats in Thailand have a problem that they have no "citizen-like" rights.

I try to lower my expectations regarding this and try to enjoy the life there.

If I could only go there LOL

55 minutes ago, sjaak327 said:

And look how it helped. In typical Trump fashion, he neglected not only a futher 40.000 Chinese that entered the country after the "ban" but he forgot about all the other countries. As is very clear from the evidence, flight bans don't work. and certainly not limited flight bans. That's exactly why this being picky who can enter the country is not going to provide additional security. Enforcing social distancing all over the country will be much more effective, and would economically be much less disastrous. 

 

It would have helped if the whole world closed their borders to China in January.

But at this time it was "politically incorrect".

Now it is incorrect to open borders. Changed fast LOL

8 hours ago, meechai said:

Claiming wait for a vaccine is fine IF one comes & IF it works & even then there is the usual percentages for whom it will never work or worse harm

them same as any vaccine in history has done

Nobody will care about deaths after a vaccine is available. And nobody will care if it does any harm to people.

International travelers will be forced to get vaccinated. No other choice for us.

5 minutes ago, bkk_mike said:

No they didn't - because other than the few people who were repatriated from Wuhan or who came back from the Diamond Princess, nobody in the UK got properly quarantined.

You had "self-isolation" where you're supposed to stay at home and not go out. But if your self-isolation is in a house with other people who didn't travel with you, they can still go in and out unless you come down with symptoms. And it's not been policed. How many people on self-isolation without symptoms popped out to the corner shop for milk or a loaf? But it's the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people spreading the virus that are why this virus has spread as much as it has in such a short time. (If you only had to steer clear of people coughing, it would be relatively easy - that's why the first SARS didn't spread all that well).

 

There is a reason why the UK's death toll has passed 40,000 when Thailand's death toll is 58 - when Thailand got the virus first, and the two countries have a similar population.

 

Part of it is the wai rather than shaking hands.

Part of it is that there's a lot less public transport over the country as a whole.

Part of it is that everyone in Thailand is wearing a mask.

Part of it is that they spray your hands with alcohol gel when you enter 7-11.

But the biggest thing is that they controlled arrivals. They started scanning people arriving from China in January, and eventually stopped most flights, and only allowed in Thai nationals (and even they get quarantined for two weeks before they can move around).

 

Thailand has had one person die from Covid-19 in the first half of this month. I would definitely take that over what's happening in my home country.

Maybe you are right with the arrivals, but I am not so sure.

Of course a country should block entries from other countries with very high current infection numbers. But most European countries did quite well with self-isolation. I think Germany repatriated about 250,000 people in a short time and they had only self quarantine. It worked.

Mask wearing seems to be critical:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2020.0376

Mask wearing alone can lower the R-rate below 1 and the virus disappears over time.

13 minutes ago, andre47 said:

You are quite arrogant...are you a Thai citizen? If yes, then you can judge, if not then you can stay in your home country if you don't like the Thai rules.

It's a discussion forum. Different opinions should be allowed.

Would be no discussion if we don't discuss different possibilities.

1 minute ago, Traubert said:

But unfortunately not tens of thousands of airplane seats.

See flight radar

3 minutes ago, Traubert said:

See your doctor about this recurring thought based on nothing but fancy.

Wouldn't you contact the government of your biggest tourist country? Just normal.

1 minute ago, Traubert said:

See your doctor about this recurring thought based on nothing but fancy.

Sorry to hurt your opinion.

2 minutes ago, andre47 said:

Times are changing. Nobody is crying if expats are leaving. The last 10 years Thailand changed so much. They don't need the expats anymore and many Thais also don't want them. When I look at many Farang here in Pattaya I can understand them.

They will need them again. Economy continues down.

8 minutes ago, unheard said:

Every room must be certified as being up to the quarantine standard e.g. no carpets allowed or a requirement of a partnership with a hospital which will work with hotels to bring the rooms up to code before a Ministry of Public Health inspection.

The participating hotels are gradually expanding the number of certified rooms.

I know.

But some rules are ridiculous. The virus does not live a long time on surfaces. There were horror stories at the beginning, but they found out that even if you can prove the virus on surfaces, it cannot reproduce anymore.

By the way, when did you lick the carpet in a hotel room the last time (sarcasm).

11 minutes ago, tomauasia said:

It not need to be in Thai. That's not true

It was only some sarcasm.

I don't think they can be so choosy if they want tourists back. They have to make it easy, then they will return.

3 hours ago, andre47 said:

But Thailand don't want the virus. Is this so difficult to understand???

The question is: Who is Mr. Thailand?

They are 70 million individuals.

If you don't have enough to eat or can't offer your children any better future, you will decide differently.

3 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

The 14 day quarantine is a sticking point. Understandingly a necessary one without a viable alternative.

 

In the UK I have taken a Covid-19 test (48 hr result). If these tests were available for arrivals I'm sure people would be happy to pay for them instead of having to do a 14 day quarantine.

 

If arrivals were to take a Covid-19 test on arrival followed by a 2-3 day quarantine while awaiting results the arrivals 'back-log' would be streamlined.

If the testing efficiency could be improved the arrivals 'back-log' would be limited to the airport.

 

Remember - This is not about eradicating Covid-19 but keeping the spread rate down such that the spread rate is limited while the economy can continue.

 

Absolutely agree.

But Thailand will never follow this strategy and try to combine tourism and containment/limiting of the virus.

I'm convinced that they spoke to the Chinese government a couple of weeks ago and the Chinese told them, as soon as you have no new cases we will open the borders to Thailand again. They can't get this out of their heads.

Welcome to Thailand,

if you are from a certain country, and we expect you to be rich and spend a lot of money, but wait you have to get some medical treatment first then you are welcome. Oh I forgot you need some medical certificates before you enter the plane, but we don't tell you where you can get it. And insurance is necessary but maybe we don't accept your insurance, except you have a notarized translation of your insurance policy to Thai.

So, welcome to Thailand.

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

You don't need an agent.

 

Send an email to TE letting them know which membership plan you want.

They will email some documents back which you need to print out, fill in and scan back into the computer.

You then make scans of the relevant pages in your passport.

Email it all back to them for approval.

 

Once approved they ask for the payment, if it's not approved for some reason then you pay nothing.

 

After payment is completed you will get a 'welcome email' at which point you can decide on how to get your visa inserted into your passport.

 

If you're in the country already then that can be done at Chaeng Wattana immigration, maybe other offices too but they will be able to confirm that.

 

Having the visa inserted at the airport by appointment on arrival (they meet you as you walk off the plane at the gate) is also an option, when the airports are open.

 

Thank you.

Are there any talks if Elite Visa holders will be able to enter Thailand earlier or at the same time than holders of retirement and/or marriage visas?

I'm not married (yet) and not retired. So this would be my only option.

Are there fraudsters on the market?

On the official site there is a list of agents. These should be trustworthy??

https://www.thailandelite.com/agents?locate=en

2 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

He has a valid point. Why allow people to enter from known contagion hot spots?

Russia, USA, Brazil have mismanaged their pandemic. New Zealand, Denmark, Norway Taiwan  have  managed well. Do you  believe that intelligent people from Denmark or Norway wished to be exposed to infected people?  The infection in Canada was brought back by travelers who had  visited the  USA, Caribbean and EU. That is why the  travel corridor to those regions remains closed today.  Thailand is going to do what Canada did and what other  countries will soon do: Exercise prudence.  If BoJo, Putin, Bolisaro, Trump et al, wish to mismanage  the infection, up to them, but the rest of the world should not have to suffer.

But Denmark and other "well-managed" countries are part of the EU.

Governments and health authorities are now much better prepared than in February March.

It is definitely possible to restart travel and tourism and contain the virus at the same time.

The only question remains if governments are clever enough to use the weapons which are available.

I am amazed that there are still a lot of people who believe that the borders can be closed and at the same time an economic recovery will take place.

It is obvious that Thailand is not able to balance health and economic interests.

2 hours ago, ukrules said:

Ahahaha, you think this is about a potential second wave?

 

This is about 'THE ORIGIN' of the virus.

You don't really know the Thai people. LOL

It was a joke, by the way.

2 hours ago, Blumpie said:

What they're doing is trying to look like they are doing something.  It's interesting to see Thais and foreigners alike buying into this.  But you cannot blame the government for at least attempting it.  The amount that people in this industry are hurting all over the world including Rome, Japan, Thailand are staggering.  And it is not coming back.  

It's top tourist season in Europe and where are the tourists?  They're at home.  

On 15.June borders will open within Europe except Sweden, UK and Spain.

Spain probably on 1. July.

No doubt the tourism industry will survive in Europe this summer. I'm not so sure about Thailand. There is not even a thought about a good containment strategy including tourism. Only total denial.