maqui

23 minutes ago, MiclB said:

I hope your are correct but the website says visa are only valid for 90 days after application is approved.

Single entry.

But multi-entry O-M visa are valid for 12 months. They show "Enter before " with a date 12 months after the "Date of Issue". 

E.g. "Date of issue 04 Oct 2020", then "Enter before 03 Oct 2021".

Does anyone know whether the first entry has to be made within 90 days even on a multi-entry visa, despite the "Enter before" date 9 months later?

On 11/10/2020 at 3:49 PM, treetops said:

If you use the Bangkok Bank (and maybe one of their other partners?) and specify the reason is for a long stay visa here it will show up as an international transfer due to way they do their transactions

correct, I also see my Transferwise transfers to Bangkok Bank as "FFT" in the bank book, since 2019

1 hour ago, S0S said:

The embassy issuing the visa will not be delayed to suit the departure date, as long as the booking is within the 3 months validity of the visa. It will be issued within those 15 days; actually likely within a few days if the papers are in order.

Some embassies now advise that applicants who do not have a valid non-O visa should apply for the visa first: 

Step 1: visa application in person. at the embassy 

Step 2: Then booking the flight, ASQ and buying health insurance. Then the CoE application via their online system. 

https://thaiembassy.ch/files_upload/editor_upload/VISA/1604498447_3-updatedinstructions-coe-thai-spouse-children---28oct-coesystem.pdf

Unless I misread their guidance, the CoE application (and the flight?) could be 8 or 9 weeks after receiving the visa, just before the visa expires after 90 days?

Or: They already want to see a flight booking on the day when you apply for the visa. But the CoE application can follow at a later time.

A multi-entry Non-O visa based on marriage is valid for arrivals within 12 months. So the CoE application (and flight?) could be even later than 90 days after getting the visa?

Was anyone able to apply with a time lag of several weeks or even months between visa and CoE?

On 10/28/2020 at 5:48 PM, RichardColeman said:

If Biden wins I think the dollar will plummet - $ will not do good under far left Biden if he carries through all his policies.

You mean: The Great Orange Leader of the Free World should offer Master Class courses as his next career move: on "responsible fiscal management"?  Starting the afternoon of January 20: "Learn from the world´s best" https://www.masterclass.com/articles  ?

He´s collected quite a resume and should give lectures on the art of the deal: 

- the US trade deficit grew by 21%  between 2016 and 2019 during his trade wars 

- on Feb 11, US national debt eclipsed $22 trillion for the first time; since 2017, Trump had added $2 trillion of debt - even though the US economy was humming along during his 3 years office at the same rate as it had between 2012 and 2016

- 4 casino bankruptcies, 1 airline, 1 university, Trump steaks, vodka, and golf courses and hotels that ate up the 400M of income he had earned posing as a very stable biz genius in The Apprentice, with 400m of debt due over the next 3 years

Granted, deducting the 130k for Stormy Daniels as business expenses was a shrewd move few among us would have dared to make. Only the audacious win the girl, and then pay her afterwards out of the mergers & acquisitions budget.

On 10/28/2020 at 12:30 PM, nomad2019 said:

With the political situation in Thailand and all the protests what will happen to the Thai baht in the future I know every country is facing turmoil but I would like to know what will happen to the baht   

Short-term? Probably not much, or else it would have happened some months ago. Anyone whose crystal ball can make accurate short-term predictions would have set up his ownnhedge fund and delegate TV posts to a swarm of bikini-clad executive assistants.

Long-term: The THB will certainly grow stronger in future years

Thailand pursues a beggar-thy-neighbour economic policy: high trade surpluses, helped by high customs tariffs that shield its national economy from more competitive imports. That was an idea hatched 500 years ago, under the powdered wigs at the courts of Elizabeth I and Louis XIV. By exporting more than your country imports, collect as much coin as possible from those grubby foreigners so that the local elite can invest in fancy castles and luxurious coaches. 

But this results in a permanent trade surplus, in Thailand even in summer 2020.

Thailand's trade surplus increased to USD 2.23 billion in September of 2020 from USD 1.28 billion in the same month the prior year but less than market estimates of a USD 3.55 billion surplus. This marked the eighth straight month of trade surplus, as exports fell by 3.86 percent, to USD 19.62 billion while imports dropped at a faster 9.08 percent to USD 17.39 billion. Considering the first nine months of the year, the trade surplus jumped to USD 20.62 billion from USD 8.16 billion in the same period of 2019

Foreigners that buy from Thai companies need to change their local currency to THB. This increases demand for THB. So the exchange rate of THB will rise relative to USD, EUR, GBP. The Thai exporters could accept payments in foreign currency. But to pay their own bills to other Thai suppliers, they would have to exchange the foreign currency into THB on their own. And their managers and shareholders would want THB to buy their next luxury condo or a Mercedes for wife no. 3. And they will have to pay taxes in THB to fund the army.

As long as Thai government policy is focused on exports while making imports expensive, the THB will be under pressure to appreciate. Like China´s economic strategy of the past 2 - 3 decades.

When tourists come back, perhaps in 2022, they will contribute to the pressure: they will bring more foreign currency that will never leave Thailand because these Euros, GBP or USD will magically be transformed into empty bottles, medicine for sick water buffalos, massage services, bar fines and slowly decaying condos built above demand. After a decade or two, when the THB has become too expensive, the trade surplus will subside. That may be at a rate of 30 THB per GBP and 20 per USD. Perhaps less if Thai exporters struggle to remain competitive if their currency becomes 10% more expensive. 

35 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Once again, people die in the village, no autopsy is performed, they are then cremated, never tested, so we will never know.  It is not a conspiracy theory, it is just plain old fact. 

Only in villages with a population of 100 or 200? Because an epidemic in a densely populated city with 8M inhabitants could hardly go unnoticed. That would be an epidemic more typical of the remote rain forests in New Guinea or the Congo.

Would the suppression of information be so perfect that, out of thousands of doctors and nurses in city hospitals and private clinics, not a single health worker could even mention a shortage of PPE, ICU beds and dead bodies piling up in hospital basements, either on Facebook, Twitter, TicToc or Line? Even if it were not Covid - an equally high caseload of pneumonia would also make the news.

If the government were able to keep a so perfect lid on unwelcome information, they could have done a better job to curb political protests. Hard to believe that a conspiracy works perfectly to suppress unwelcome public health information, but all other aspects of public life follow the usual Monthy Python playbook of ineffective bureaucracies.

13 hours ago, GeneH said:

Thailand does indeed have covid19 in the country and Thailand is not doing nationwide testing so they can prove they're virus free.

Probably there are border-crossers that carry the virus from Myanmar or Cambodia into Thailand. But being illegal border-crossers, they will have limited contacts with the Thai population. Not many of them will start to work as Uber drivers in Bangkok within a week after they arrive. Probably not many as waiters or waitresses in a restaurant, either. They can become spreaders if they ride trains or buses without masks. After 10 days, they would no longer be contagious, but either immune; or, in 1% of all cases, dead, without being registered in a hospital which would remain inaccessible to them.

So the viral reproduction rate among the border-crossers probably is substantially below 1.0 because they have to practice social distancing for lack of a valid work permit. If lower than 1.0, they will not cause waves of infection among the Thai population, so they may continue to fly under the Covid radar. Whereas tourists would be in contact with a multitude of other tourists and Thais working the tourism sector: virus reproduction rate of 2.0 or higher. That happened in July in Spain, Florida and other vacation spots and led to renewed exponential growth.

TH does not need to prove that they are virus-free, except for propaganda reasons. They only need to keep the case load low enough that the health system is not overwhelmed, like in Italy in last March. That would be hard to hide from the public: 100,000 Thai nurses and doctors would not all keep their jaws shut while they are running out of PPE and ICU beds.

6 hours ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

Nonsense! Sweden has plenty of cases, but not deaths, Denmark has plenty of cases, but nearly no deaths. Why don't people understand these simple graphs??

You understand that deaths follow infections with a time lag of 3 - 5 weeks? Sweden's case rate has more than tripled just since mid-October and will double again within another 2 weeks. You will see the death curve rise after mid-November.

If the death curve does not rise some weeks after the infection rate has tripled, only 2 explanations would be possible:

1) Darwinian lottery: The most vulnerable patients were already removed from the lottery between March and June, when Sweden´s mortality rate was 8 - 10 times as high as in Finland or Norway. Good for the hardened younger Swedes who will now show to the virus that real vikings do not roll over and show their bellies to tiny germs.

2) New treatments: Swedish hospitals can now offer new treatments, like Trump's experimental drugs, to most of their future patients in November and December. Can they?

3 hours ago, NightSky said:

Why not allow foreigners to go to their homes purchased in Thailand and initiate strict tracing rules for the full 14 days..

Remember the Egyptian soldier who strolled through a department store the day after he arrived, in last July, rather than staying at his hotel?

That´s why.

23 minutes ago, The Now Factor said:

One thing you can't dispute about Sweden's approach, they haven't committed economic hari kari.

3 hours ago, Flying Saucage said:

big indoor parties of Arab and Turkish families with hundreds of participants

The same Arab and Turkish families had parties in Spain in July? And they have now spread all over France, the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Germany?

Hm - they must have been celebrating the stealthy Ottoman conquest of Europe, 5 centuries after the last attempts of the Turkish sultans had failed near Vienna.

And now they bring the Christian occident to its knees by using a Chinese virus? Sneaky b*st*ds. Somebody should alert Qanon: the global conspiray extends far beyond the pizzeria in Washington D.C.

2 minutes ago, Flying Saucage said:

 

This is not correct and a completely false narrative:

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238339&type=printable

 

https://jvi.asm.org/content/88/14/7692

 

In fact, there is a very stron dependence on temperature, relative and absolute humidity. But the whole processes of transmission are very complex, and also include density of population, wearing of maskes and other things. But, the climate plays a very strong role.

Are you kidding: 

"Experimental studies in guinea pigs demonstrated that influenza virus transmission is strongly modulated by temperature and humidity." 

A study on (1) influenza using (2) guinea pigs, published in (c) 2014?

And a study published by Egyptian Al Shams university, (a) received on April 08, 2020?

There were hardly any cases in Egypt in March that could be investigated, certainly not with changing weather patterns. 

( b) It was a meta-study: not based on their own patient data, but a review of other science papers published in the Prospero database. Those other articles must have been based on medical data that were collected in January and February. That was a little better and more scientific than just reviewing Wikipedia articles in last March and early April - but by how much? 

If we add some hand-waving: "The interplay of temperatures and humidity may reduce or increase the viral reproduction rate", then we are where we are now:

We see that a warm-climate has had no discernible effect on India, the Middle East, Spain, Brazil, the Philippines, etc. We could say: "perhaps, without a warm climate, the infection rates in these countries might have been even worse." 

What do we do with this information? I'd certainly still ask all international arrivals to present a negative Covid test before boarding; and would make a second rapid test upon arrival at BKK airport. And I would require that also Thai citizens are subject to negative tests before boarding. Then a maximum of 5 days of ASQ and a third test. That should take care of the vast majority of risks. But warm weather and humidity is not an argeument on its own.

1 hour ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

Here in Denmark we opened nearly totally up two months ago, and now we have 125 hospitalisations, 18 in intensive care, and 6 in respirator. We are six million people in this country. We have around 2-3 deaths per day from corona

Denmark has 9,700 active cases at present. DK's death rate is the same as Germany's, 125 per 1M. 

Exponential spread means: once you have suppressed the infection cases via distancing measures, the number of daily new cases remains low for a number of weeks, like between July and August. Then, with relaxed distancing and without a vaccine, the curve will start to rise, more and more steeply. The curve below  shows that active cases in DK have doubled within 2 weeks, since October. It´s almost vertical now. So DK will see tens of thousands of new active cases in November.

Only a fraction of them require hospitalization, perhaps 4%. 4% of 10,000 is 400. 4% of 100,000 is 4000. How many spare beds for infectious cases does DK have? 4,000? 8,000? With a doubling time of 1 week, you would reach the capacity limit after a few weeks. That´s exponential growth. 

The mortality rate rises with a time lag of several weeks. First, people go through 5 - 14 days of mostly symptom-free incubation time, then 1 week of sickness, then hospitalization for some of them; then exitus, 3-5 weeks after the infection, for the most severe cases. So the rising infections in late October will only become visible as a rising death curve in the second half of November. You don´t seem them now because the exponential death curve starts with a time lag.

In last March, DK had less than a 1,000 active cases, which grew to 4,000 by mid-April. What makes you think that 10,000 active cases in late October represent a better a starting point for November and December?  

1 hour ago, Flying Saucage said:

And also it is quite clear that European tourists, if tested negative, would not pose a big danger when arriving to Thailand, as the Thai climate helps to prevend a spread of the virus even if one is tested false negative.

The theory that warm weather would stop the spread (as also propagated by the Great Orange Leader of the Free World in March and April) has been debunked - by reality. Or else, India, Brazil, the Philippines would not claim top spots behind the US. The July surge in Spain was not caused by Scotland-typical drizzle and fog, but by the peak tourist season. These hot-climate countries don´t report so many cases just because they test 10 times as many persons as the US. They don't. Rather, the opposite: a surge in cases despite warm weather and despite a lower test rate.

It´s the degree of coordinated social distancing, mask-wearing and tracing new infections that results in either fewer or more infections.

In Europe and the US, the curves started to rise again 2-3 weeks after the start of the vacation season when people believed that the virus wildfires had burnt out. But even a few leftover hotspots in the underbrush (like the handful of initial infections in last February, to say nothing about 50 daily new infections per 100,000 population) suffice to incinerate everything again when politicians declare that "we have rounded the corner" and, with great fanfare, de-emphasize distancing or, in some countries, even politicize masks.

1 hour ago, maqui said:

Because PCR tests reportedly can have false negative rates of 2 - 33%. 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30453-7/fulltext

 

 

Most tests reportedly have good hit rates (true positives) and good true negative rates: 

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-emergency-use-authorizations-medical-devices/eua-authorized-serology-test-performance

But these good rates must be based on proper samples. If the nurses in the ASQ hotels fumble some of the nasal swabs, the false negative rates may climb to 20 or 30%.

Let´s assume that the Frenchwoman caught the bug when she was on the plane: Thai co-passengers don't need to show a test result before boarding, so the chances for an infection during the flight are certainly higher than zero. If that chance is just 1%; and the true positive hit rate is a good 99%; and the false negative rate is as high as 30% due to shoddy swabs - then even 2 tests would miss 9% of all infections (3 tests would still miss 2.7% of all infections). Most ASQ hotels do only 2 tests, around day 3-5 and day 13.

Among 10,000 ASQ inmates, there would be 100 with an infection they caught between their pre-flight test and their arrival at Swampy; of these 100, 9 would not test positive even after 2 tests in their ASQ hotels.

Of these 9, as many as 8 would not feel symptoms and leave ASQ without a hint that something is amiss. Thus, out of 10,000 arrivals, only 1 case eventually pops up as a false negative: that of the Frenchwoman.

1 hour ago, Nanaplaza666 said:

in quarantine people are being tested at least 3 times in those 14 days . So why didn't they have any positive tests during that period ??

Because PCR tests reportedly can have false negative rates of 2 - 33%. 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30453-7/fulltext

17 hours ago, bermondburi said:

So is this actually official? I'm planning on doing quarantine over Xmas so any days off the 14 is a bonus. 

I'd expect that this proposal, like the travel bubbles, will go through 5 to 10 iterations over the next 3 months. Then it will be limited to arrivals from nominally Covid-free countries: China. Perhaps ANZ as a bonus.

11 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

12 hours ago, webfact said:

Unless there is government help this will expand to 193,415 properties worth 956,086 million within the next six months. 

what happened to a trillion baht in the headline?

956 thousand million? Close enough to 1 trillion

Many countries don't yet allow to bring pets, not even as cargo or in checked baggage, e.g. Philippines, European Union apparently not for non-EU pet owners.

The TH customs guidelines for importing pets on the official websites (TH embassies, Department of Lifestock) have apparently not been changed since the beginning of 2020 (import permit, import license, vaccinations, fit-to-fly certificate, etc).

But did anyone in the forum import a dog during the past 6 months and can confirm whether new hurdles have been imposed such as a quarantine not "at home", but in a government quarantine station?

7 minutes ago, robsamui said:

Yes, there are many others in the same boat. But they're not usually allowed to manage nations.

The most powerful and most orange leader of the free world for the past 44 months being an exception to this rule?

14 minutes ago, robsamui said:

The *vast majority of Thais are primitive and superstitious, believe in the reality of ghosts, are grossly undereducated and know nothing of science or world history.

"The *vast majority in the Bible Belt are primitive and superstitious, believe in the reality of ghosts, are grossly undereducated and know nothing of science or world history."

fixed that for you

8 hours ago, webfact said:

*They will have to be followed around 24/7 by Covid minders to ensure they don't stray and are healthy

If I can choose from a beach-fashion line-up the minder who's to entice me from not straying, I'm willing to negotiate

7 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

There must be some who attend these discussions held behind closed doors who want to smash their heads against the wall. 

I imagine a bunch of pointy-eared, orange-eyed orcs that have invaded the TAT basement from Mordor, have been put into alternative state quarantine, and now serve as its oracle, sitting in a circle on a dirt-encrusted carpet in a dark cellar, drawing from a bong. Whenever a poor TAT assistant is sent down to the basement, every other day ("Ask the oracle to come up with a new idea"), and knocks on the heavy door and asks them in a quavering voice ("O wise ones, what shall we do?"), the orcs inhale, giggle nastily, and then the orc speaker of the day announces, in a booming, hollow Charlton Heston voice, a new phantastic concept to the pilgrim.

After all, even orcs have to earn the ASQ fees.