maqui

12 minutes ago, Loiner said:

As a proud British patriot my given locale at any particular point in time has no influence on my opinion.

 

English family members who don't want jobs as nurses and plumbers??? Surely you jest, or have never been to the UK because you obviously have no idea. At least our departure will ensure there is no second wave of EU job thieves and freeloaders, as their own economies disintegrate under additional covid and EU support costs. 

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/if-all-the-immigrants-go-back-who-will-work-in-the-meat-factories-and-do-the-<deleted>-jobs-1.4178908

You mean: other British patriots are waiting in line to happily take low-wage jobs for low-skilled workers, but unpatriotic employers prefer foreigners?

Additional covid costs? I´m not sure any countries will have a reason to gloat during the fall and winter season. But Trump-of- the-Thames´s covid crisis management seems to be on a par with Trump-of-Mar-a-Lago's.

1 minute ago, Mama Noodle said:

 

That is called a straw man. 

 

Who did you used to be? 

Can you explain why the interpretation of 4 judges of "well-regulated militia" was unconstitutional? 

After more than 200 years of discussion, it seems the interpretation was not self-evident.

17 hours ago, Loiner said:

The whole family is leaving you. We’re like that, blood is thicker than water and family comes first. Unruly kids sulking again but what else is new?

And as a proud nationalist of Little Britain´s family, you´ll be riding it out in - wait, Thailand?

I guess it´s all worth it as long as the Polish nurses and plumbers no longer take away jobs from all the English family members who don´t want these jobs.

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

This is important, because it clearly shows that the hard lockdowns, mask requirements and all the other government policies that have destroyed economies and livelihoods are unnecessary, unwarranted and useless, as well dangerous and counter-productive.

So masks, social distancing and lockdowns since mid-March had nothing at all to do with the decrease of the excess death rates in Q2? And the flare-ups in June-Aug had nothing to do with the relaxation of social distancing during the vacation seasons, e.g. in Spain? What strange coincidence that the curves seem to follow the imposition and relaxation of distancing measures with 4 weeks of time lag.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&country=ESP~DEU~GBR~FRA~ITA&region=World

22 hours ago, TommyL727 said:

I will tell you something that the media do not. There is a very specific reason for that. I have family in Sweden (as all Norwegians do lol), and they have first hand knowledge about this. Sweden has had a massive influx of immigrants the last 20 years or so, and especially since 2015. What happened was, that a lot of these got a job in the health care sector, and mostly in old peoples home care facilities. Now, the majority of these people were never met with any demands of any sort, so they did not bother learning the countrys language. They worked, could only understand their home language, or in best case some very basic English. So when corona hit, they had no idea what was happening, and they infected thousands of those old people, before the Swedish Government understood what was happening. They later issued corona material and advice in their native languages, but it was too late.

 

This is the true story of the massive deaths per capita in Sweden, and you will never hear it in main stream media. And im not trying to place blame, just stating facts. It could easily have been us, if we did not have had a stricter immigrant policy, with language demands.

Filthy, stupid farangs, eh? Uh, foreigners.

Did you volunteer to take on the job of one of them in a nursing home?

12 hours ago, Rockhound said:

Sweden is the first country to put CV-19 behind them.  Give me the name of any one of the 200 or so countries in the world which imposed lockdowns which can say that it was successful?

So Sweden vanquished Covid by - doing nothing? Other countries prolongated the pandemic by masks and social distancing? How did that work: the virus saw that the Swedes just rolled over presenting their soft underbellies, and it thought: "Boring! Let´s make a trip to the UK, where they will at least try to come up with some half-hearted counter-measures. I'm loving it when they act coyly before they spread their trachea for me."

9 minutes ago, farang51 said:

Even more so in Denmark. I believe, we for some weeks have had fewer restrictions than Sweden; however, it turned out we went too far when opening up. It is mostly young people getting infected at the moment due to school start and partying, and longer opening hours in the nightlife. Now, we are back to closing at 22 (10 PM).

19 minutes ago, scammed said:

more specifically it illustrates that governments should refrain from policies altogether, they should give the data as far as they understand them to the people, and let each individual make his own choice 

Scammed, please refer to Farang51´s text above, regarding the effectiveness of individuals making their own choice

10 hours ago, Logosone said:

So Sweden among the most successful countries in containing Covid19, now considered for special visas.

 

No masks, no lockdown. 

 

How did the Swedes do it? Oh that's right, no masks, no lockdown.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Sweden has 200+ new cases per day.

8,000 total cases per 1M population: 1.5 times as many as the UK, more than 2 times as many as Germany. 

The TAT chief probably lumped together all the Scandinavian countries, which have Covid mortality rates a fraction of Sweden´s, so the Swedes could conveniently hide the cough behind the back of their Nordic relatives when the family picture was taken by TAT.

Making fun of all the odd TAT ideas for attracting tourists but citing a TAT interview as evidence that masks don´t work seems a bit inconsistent.

2 hours ago, nev said:

Some on here have turned it into a debate about being a political agenda I have no leaning to any side of politics.

If they cannot see by this graph that there is many ways to die and covid19 is very low, So why wreck the whole world's economy and force vaccines on everyone even if your healthy.

1) The Covid death rates are low ("only" 954,000 deaths as of today) because there have been only 30M infections.

2) There have been only 30M infections because the whole world implemented social distancing rules, from temporary lockdowns to masks. Neither heart disease nor dementia propagate at exponential speed like an airborn virus does. Not even Fox News-induced dementia or rage strokes do. #

In April 2020, excess mortality in the US was 1/4 higher than in preceding months. The April deaths were caused by infections in March, before social distancing rules were followed. Without restrictions, Covid-19 would have filled one quarter of the pie chart, same as cancers and heart disease. If, on the other hand, everyone had worn a frigging mask since April, it would probably be over by now because enough chains of infections would have been interrupted, even if masks do not provide 100% safety. 

The fatality rate is 954k / 30M = 3.1% so far.

Herd "mentality", to cite the Great Orange Leader of the Free World, would require that >50% of the world population gets infected. At 3%, that would be 117M dead bodies, twice the WWII casualties. Or, if your stance is that just those with pre-existing conditions die off, in a proper Darwinian way, then the fatality rate in 2021 will perhaps decrease to just 1%. That would lead to just 40M deaths, like the Spanish Flu in 1918. No biggie, right? 

3 hours ago, Kaopad999 said:

"Paul Martin Laurence Weston is a British far-right politician"

So, what are his medical expertise? 

It´s still mind-boggling to me that a global pandemic has become a symbol of tribal identity, apparently globally. If you have (far-)right political leanings, you have to condemn masks, social distancing, vaccines as conspiracies of the deep state, the world government and jack-booted goons in black helicopters, to demonstrate your far-right bona fides to your tribal members?

Immigrants bring dirt, sickness and crime? Whereas an airborn virus that has already killed hundreds of thousands is a scamdemic? 

4 hours ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

proof that vaccine will be totally ....USELESS

And is that a satisfying conclusion? "There, we showed it to the scare-mongers and scientific egg heads!"

What do we do: stop doing all research for any vaccine immediately, even for something like seasonal flu vaccines?

Or better find out if that man has been infected with 2 different strains of Covid-19?

Or, as in other cases in recent months, investigate whether his cells still contained inactive, "dead" virus fragments which the test flagged? Then better tests would be useful.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Number of US excess deaths. The excess mortality in 20Q2 was despite the imperfect social distancing measures. The spike in April results from infections that had happened by mid-March before most distancing measures. Without them, the weekly deaths would have stayed close to 80,000 instead of the pre-Covid rate of less than 60,000.

Of course, you can claim that the CDC belongs to the "Deep State"; and is in the same global conspiray with all other governments and health agencies.

4 hours ago, nev said:

About time this scamdemic is stopped.

Do your research and you will find it is scaremongering.

 

Watch this one first and make your own opinion not what the government and news channels give you.

So the 200,000 Americans who have died so far (and the 400,000 who will have died by early 2021) are just Darwinian chaff? If they had not turned blue from Covid, then, because of their pre-existing conditions, they would have (or should have?) jumped from the cliff without the virus nudge? 

200,000 have died despite partial, imperfect social distancing. The herd "mentality" approach which Agent Orange promotes (after apparently abandoning his "bleach injection therapy" suggestion) would lead to >2 million if all social distancing and mask recommendation would be abandoned.

https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/comparing-covid-19-impact-in-the-uk-to-european-countries?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_IW-qdTo6wIVTuh3Ch0iAQhUEAAYASAAEgKHePD_BwE

The excess mortality in 20Q2 rose and fell with the degree of social distancing measures. Was there a secret other pandemic instead of the "harmless" Covid-19?

15 hours ago, Don Mega said:

So if the foreigners are catching it on the plane from infected untested Thai's this goes to prove social distancing and face masks don't work.

Da world guvment and its jack-booted goons in black helicopters make me wear sometin that takes away my freedom and constricts my ability to breathe. 

But after 40 years, there are still road deaths. Clearly, seatbelts don´t work. Free-riders - join me against the constrictions by ineffective seatbelts!

And also speed limits. After 120 years there are still road deaths. Clearly, speed limits of less than 200 km/h on city roads are a consequence of the nanny state and its wanton restrictions of freedom.

2 hours ago, nev said:

https://lockdownsceptics.org/radical-uncertainty-and-government-innumeracy/?fbclid=IwAR1WuRDU-5l5iA5EqN9fm6Lbl-EhIAvPYo7ROgD9RZHmT30YFdPh3y8ypPE

 

This is a long read but well worth it, The numbers they are declaring is well out of wack from the real numbers due to false positives.

There is no need for vaccines and these mad lockdowns ruining many lives and businesses.

If you explain away most of the positive cases (denominator), how will you explain away the numerator: in the US, not 6.7 million cases, but only 1 million - ok, let´s compute with 1 million cases. But 200,000 deaths, thus fatality rate is 200k/1m = 20% = 200 times worse than the seasonal flu? Why would this be better?

Or do we also apply a convenient trick to explain away the fatal cases? Any condition that makes a patient more vulnerable to Covid complications must be reported as a cause of death other than Covid itself, which uses these conditions as lines of attack? Infected with Covid but older than 70? Clearly, cause of death was senescence, not Covid attacking an aging immune system. Infected but BMI > 30? Clearly, cause of death was morbid obesity, not complications from Covid. Hypertension? Clearly. cause of death was hypertension, not the strain which Covid exerted on heart and lungs. In the end, only a few men and women of steel would remain. If they succumb while being infected with SARS-COV-2, it must have been coincidence and the real cause of death must have been kryptonite. So Covid is as as harmless as the seasonal flu, q.e.d.

The mortality rates in 20Q2 in most countries were much higher than during months before Covid. In the UK, by 100%. https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/comparing-covid-19-impact-in-the-uk-to-european-countries?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_IW-qdTo6wIVTuh3Ch0iAQhUEAAYASAAEgKHePD_BwE 

The excess mortaiity rates demonstrate that SARS-COV-2 had quite a substantial impact. It cannot be explained away by labeling the excess deaths with other reasons. Was there another, secret pandemic that drove up mortality for a couple of months before social distancing curbed the infection rates? Or did people die in droves because they were immobilized in front of their TV sets during the Q2 lockdowns? 

8 hours ago, Tounge Thaied said:

Testing, Testing, Testing. More testing more "Cases". Remember the VAST majority of "Cases" are asymptomatic, that's right no illness. "Cases" go up in countries that test... that's not rocket science. Imagine if we tested everyone for the flu? We could declare yet another pandemic. Remember the Spanish Flu? People forget, historically the flu is orders of magnitude more deadly. Btw, pick your poison (pick which of the myriad of other coronavirus') that you want to test for... those will also be at pandemic levels. 

By the 4th quarter, the US will have 300,000 fatalities, a little bit less than 1% of the population. Now you might say that, since 99% of the population will survive, a death rate of 1000 per day is pocket change and should be ignored as the new normal. But the US also chose to go to war for 20 years and spent 4 trillion USD after 3000 casualties on 9/11. If that reaction was not ouf of proportion, then Covid would justify 2000 years of war and 400 trillion of costs or lost GDP. Personally, I believe it was out of proportion and the US government reaction to Covid has been meh, probably because SARS-COV-2 does not wear a beard and a turban, so it cannot incite a rally-around-the-flag effect. Too bad for the 1000/day, for whom the Trump government cannot be bothered to make much of an organized, national effort. 

The seasonal flu has a fatality rate of 0.1%. Not every seasonal flu is as dangerous as the Spanish flu. Covid: 198,000 / 6.7 million cases in the US = 3% fatality rate, 30 times as much as the seasonal flu. So this is a once-in-a-century event. The Spanish flu, which probably neiter you nor I "remember", also led to (imperfect) lockdowns to get it under control. 500,000 to 850,000 US citizens died. Agent Orange´s competent management has only caused half as much so far, but only half a year has elapsed. By 2021Q2, if no fast-track vaccine can be widely distributed and at a rate of 1000/day, he will easily catch up to 500,000, 1.5% of the US population. You consider that pocket change?

19 hours ago, Sharp said:

Yeah 'highly' contagious and deadly 

How does this square with the statistics every country worldwide publishes:

World 27.5m cases, 890k dead = 3.2% fatality rate

US 6.5m. 193k = 3.0%

UK 350k, 41k = 11.7%

FR 329k, 31k = 9.4%

DE 253k, 9k = 3.6%

Italy 279, 35k = 12.5%

Sweden 85k, 6k = 7.0%

For rates like 0.01%, the number of unreported infections would have to be 30 times as high. Did 200m Americans get the infection without noticing and despite 80m tests? Did the U.S. hospitals that rented cooling trucks, allegedly to store dead bodies, in reality store ice cream and beer there for the roof pool parties with doctors and nurses? Did Iran and Brazil, were ditches filled with body bags were visible from space, in reality just bury fertilizer bags for reaping a particularly good potato harvest? Did in nursing homes in the Italy where, allegedly, military trucks transported the bodies off to the cemeteries (Northern Italy), in reality just suffer from an epidemic of food poisonings?

Looks like a table from the DJTIT, the Donald J Trump Institute of Technology, a department of reputable Trump University.

7 hours ago, Will2011 said:

Since when did we stop the entire world for just the flu?

 

Cigarette smoking kills about 480,000 people per year in the United States alone. I didn't hear anybody say we needed to stop the world because of that.

 

Bigger the lie, the easier it is for people to believe in it...

The difference is: You are free to take risks with your own health. In most Western countries, you can spread tobacco-based aerosols only in secluded zones ("quarantine spaces"), where others who don´t share your oral fixation for carcinogenous substances will not be affected. Outside your vicinity, they will not continue to spread through the population at exponential speed because only people who choose to stay near you will inhale your smoke. You will not appear symptom-free while you exhale these aerosols because others can see and smell the smoke, so they can opt to give you a wide berth while you act as a spreader of unhealthy particles. 

Agent Orange recently put another propagandist on his Covid taskforce, Scott Atlas, who reportedly favors the "herd immunity" approach. This would mean: 65% of the US population or 250 million would have to get infected, some of them with lasting health damage, and 1.5 - 2.0 million fatalities. Much work to do to get there, after only 6.2m infections and 187,000 casualties. 

At Frankfurt airport, a private lab company offers Covid PCR tests with a turnaround time of 4 hours instead of days.

Test 1 week before departure. Test on the day of departure. Test upon arrival and again 1 week later. Provide all those dangerous tourists with a tracker wristband to deal with cases in which the incubation period might be longer than the week between the first test and the test upon arrival. Release people from their quarantine hotel "cells" the next morning. Fine any tourist who does not wear a mask 10,000 Baht, as in a couple of European countries, to support the learning curve - masks reduce cross-infection risks by >85%. Problem solved.

The tests, combined with masks, should reduce the risk by 99.9%. If Thai society cannot cope with a risk of 0.1%, then they should consider their traffic fatality rates (ca 10,000 p.a.), where Thailand holds one of the global top ranks without causing much concern in the population. To quote Auric Goldfinger: "Mr. Bond, drivers kill 60.000 every year." Apparently, there are risks that even Thai society accepts without breaking a sweat.

1 minute ago, tonray said:

 

1 minute ago, tonray said:

Hmm.. I wonder if you can apply the same analysis to pending visa applications to the USA? 

There, the answer is clear: nativism + populism. An ASQ extra price tag of 100 - 200,000 THB would be much too low to be waved through a US border checkpoint. You´d have to be a Saudi oil prince to jump over the entry barriers, with or without your bone saw.

I´m wondering about misaligned policies of the TH government and whether there are competing fractions that cause the mess we are seeing since July.

Let´s accept, for a moment, that it´s reasonable to try to keep the infection rate at an absolute zero until a vaccine can be distributed to 80-90% of the population, 1 or 2 years from now. And let´s assume that this is a realistic approach: keeping it at 0, despite illegal border crossings from Myanmar or Laos, rather than lowering the infection rates to a level that the national health system can easily cope with, which is the approach in most European countries. The Covid-19 mortality rate is 0.5 - 1%, 10 times worse than the seasonal flu, so no denial that you don´t want to apply a laissez-faire approach, or else you´d risk 350,000 - 700,000 fatalities in your population. It seems reasonable that you don´t want to let 20 or 40 million tourists in again until after the population has been vaccinated, even if it costs you 10-15% of your GDP in both 2020 and 2021. No re-opening for tourism before 2022. You only let in people who undergo 15 days of quarantine.

What I don´t understand: the capacity limits the TH goverment imposes. 500 arrivals per day, and no commercial flights, only the repatriation flights, with waiting lists of 3 months to get on a flight, but complete uncertainty about flight dates. For the Thai citizens who opt for the free government quarantine facilities, there is obviously a capacity limit: 500 people per day times 15 days = 7,500 Thai citizens in quarantine at any one day. 7,500 might indeed be the limit for government camps.

But why imposing the same limit of 500 arrivals on those Thai nationals and foreigners who would opt to pay for ASQ? Their spendings would support ASQ hotels. The risk that local hospitals get overwhelmed by sick foreigners is minimized by Covid-19 tests before boarding (rather than after arrival, which seems to be the approach for Thai nationals on repatriation flights). So why not allowing commercial flights and a much higher number of ASQ hotels, which would seem to be beneficial for the economy? 

The only reasons I can come up with are optics and populism: As long as thousands of Thai citizens want to avail themselves of the free, but limited government quarantine facilities, the government does not want give the impression that foreigners are free too arrive at their ASQ hotels - while Thai citizens have to wait for another 2 to 3 months.

But the money the ASQ guests would bring in could pay for additional non-ASQ facilities, by helping to dampen the recession. I wouldn´t mind much an ASQ tax of 10 or 20,000 Baht - if it would just make possible to book a commercial flight and an ASQ hotel in advance while knowing the day, week and month when I can take a flight.

1000 daily ASQ arrivals would generate a hotel occupation rate of 15,000 rooms (which probably is 10% or 20% of the pre-Covid national hotel occupation rate) and would reduce the waiting times for flights to 2 weeks instead of 3 months.

So, why would the TH government keep out the additional ASQ guests, e.g. those with retirement visas; or those who qualify for entry, but cannot get on a flight?

Will they allow more than 500 arrivals only after the last Thai citizens on global waiting lists will have arrived and gone through state quarantine, for the optics? 

About 60,000 were repatriated since April. So the question is: How many more of them are waiting, globally, for a free state quarantine room? Another 50,000 would mean another 100 - 120 days of repatriation flights before the limitations on repatriation flights will be lifted. But if 100,000 are on the waiting list, then 6 to 8 months before non-Thai citizens could book commercial flights.

6 minutes ago, moe666 said:

only to transports and approved embassy flights

Right, that´s the point. The airline booking websites offer plenty of flights in September. But will the embassies decide for every seat on every flight, just a few days before departure, whether a reservation might be reassigned to a passenger with a higher priority? The embassy employee indicated that we should not rely on flight bookings we make on our own.  Rather, the embassy, after checking our documents, would provide us with a "secret" link to the airline websites where we could book the flight. That´s the process for the repatriation flights. But is every flight to Bangkok such an embassy-controlled repatriation flight, for an unknown number of future months?