Rhacsyn

Interesting and unlucky. Regulated bars (most) charge 80 or 90 THB for a bottle of local beer and add Heineken to the list. Any chance you remember the name of the bar and the beer you asked for?

Nice to read on another thread about activity finally arriving farther north in Bangkok with Thais in abundance. Meanwhile, as per the OP, Patong in Phuket has picked up even more than previously reported. Nearly all outlets on Bangla open and full to "Covid" capacity evening time over the weekend, especially Friday night. Soi Sea Dragon and Soi Freedom occupied now also but not as busy as the main street. Outlets were allowed to open an extra hour for the weekend. Covid is here, of course, and ATK tests are done regularly and are followed up with PCR if positive. In the event that staff are genuinely infected, they are asked to self isolate at home. The rest of the staff in that outlet are then tested with ATK kits and again after 3 days. Today over 500 ATK Covid tests were performed, under instruction, on Bangla staff as part of a weekly routine. Most people our group have met have been from the US, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia and UK.

Phu Quoc island only and at one mega resort: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/8703479002

Came through this afternoon. Presented my overseas vaccination card and cleared Sarasin in about 5 minutes

One would have hoped that with a small island, such as Phuket, they would have unified their testing policy by now! I'm guessing i hope for too much....

Hi Brian. I cannot comment on the case for the school(s) in Phuket but do know it is different for the bar / restaurant community in Patong. The same Phuket Disease Control unit demand that all staff are given ATK tests at least once a week. Any positive ATK results are then always followed by PCR tests. This is their policy for this little part of Phuket. The success of this policy, if that is the right word, of course depends on outlet integrity.

I flew in on 1st November but made sure it was under the old SHA+ and COE system. At least the COE system had been debugged and worked for most people. Would it not have been straightforward to make a simple modification to the old COE system so that it changed the SHA+ hotel stay to one night (which it did in my case anyway) and then issued you with a QR code instead of a COE! That seems so simple I feel I have missed something.....

You may wish to add this photo to the portfolio. Last night on Bangla. Pretty busy! I have many more. Virtually all bars on Bangla are now open or opening. That is as of 14:30 today. For those who know the area, all bars on Soi Sea Dragon, for example, have now been rented so people do see things picking up in this business area and this part of Phuket.

Sorry to hear that the business where your ex works is struggling. On the other hand, I guess we are lucky, and I am happy to report that the outlets we have there are most certainly busy along with a number of others. Beach road traffic is continuous. As posted earlier I am sitting there now watching the world go by as well as watching people eating and drinking and yes, spending money. It really is something to be thankful for and a huge but welcome relief after 18 awful months.

Am there now and can confirm, like you say, that it really has picked up and is busy. Nice to see the smaller soi's off Bangla opening up too.

I have no interest in number nit picking but do like to report what I see first hand. I landed in Phuket yesterday on EK378 from Dubai and there were 264 passengers on board (777 plane). On my previous sandbox entry in early September there were just 65 passengers on the same flight, so things are picking up for sure. It was reported that the first flight arriving from Zurich yesterday was also pretty full as was the flight to Phuket from Singapore which my friends flew on. Qatar air arrived in Phuket earlier today and again, according to friends on the flight, was busy. There are nine PCR stations at the airport in Phuket and i was through, from landing in 30 minutes with hotel taxi waiting outside. PCR result (negative!!) was received within 6 hours. For anybody thinking of travelling from overseas to Phuket, suggest you download the COSTE app which has replaced MorChana app. You can register your ATK test result on this app and this is done after 5 days. ATK kit is given out at the airport at the Covid test centre. Sorry, my post is Phuket biased and I have no idea how the system works in Bangkok.

This is only Phuket, of course, but you can add 264 passengers that arrived on my flight earlier, EK378. My third sandbox entry and for sure the busiest flight and with significantly more tourists.

I am landing in a few hours at Phuket (around 12:30). Today the swab test are being done at the airport. I will ask about future plans...

Sitting inbound on EK378 from Dubai, landing at 12:30. Plane is a 777 and there are 264 passengers on board. Plenty tourists for sure, far more than the previous sanbox trips I made. A little surprised but it is what it is as they say.

Good luck tomorrow. Many potential travellers will be waiting for updates / feedback based on actual. I jumped the gun a bit and got my 4th COE this week and land lunchtime in Thailand tomorrow, 1st November. PCR test will be at the airport and result available within 6 hours. I was able to book only one night hotel and one PCR test on the "old" system. I hope the migration to Thailand Pass holds no surprises and works as smoothly.

Not sure where you got your numbers from, but here are some real prices that are available now for anybody who is interested in travelling to Thailand: PCR test which can be booked on the Thailand pass official website is Baht 2400. One of the cheapest SHA+ cerified hotels I found on Booking.com in Bangkok in November is Baht 333.

A bit of current feedback. Had to leave Thailand and pop to UK for few days. Uploaded basic documents and applied for COE on the old website on Wednesday morning for arrival in Phuket. Pre approval received 3 hours later. I had already preempted and booked a flight from UK to Phuket about a month ago for 1st November. Went ahead and booked SHA + hotel and could do so for one night only. Hotel (4*) cost was Baht 1,000 and taxi from airport to Patong Baht 800. Then booked my arrival Covid test on the Thailand Pass website. Cost Baht 2,400. Uploaded balance of documents Wednesday pm and COE received a few hours ago (Friday pm). No tracking app, only MorChana app needed. I guess this is similar to what can be expected with the upcoming Thailand pass system. Let's see.....

I fully respect and understand the potential benefits of mass testing and would never question the uses. Having read your post I then opened UK news and was surprised to come across the damning report below of the particular "test and trace" system used in the UK. Eye watering numbers with contractors paid around Baht 50,000 a day. It is a report prepared by MP's in the UK and suggests that the system failed in it's main objective and goes on to say that there is no clear evidence that test and trace as used in UK works. I am startled by the report but there it is. It is about the UK, of course, but does raise questions about what would have been best for Thailand. More testing yes but.... http://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-nhs-test-and-trace-failed-in-its-main-objective-highly-critical-report-from-committee-of-mps-finds-12445501

Living in Phuket, pleasing to see the slow, but steady decline in reported cases. Further to this, and more encouraging, is that Covid bed occupancy, once much reported, and up to 90% during "crisis" stage, is now down to approximately 23% of the 6,000+ beds set aside for Covid "patients". https://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-marks-83-new-covid-cases-four-more-deaths-81815.php

Thanks. And for those travelling or wishing to travel from now, up to, and including 1st November, existing COE required. Full refund for excess days promised for those already with COE and arriving on or after 1st November ????

As per link below (posted earlier in thread and regularly updated) you are quite correct. https://www.tatnews.org/2021/10/quarantine-free-thailand-reopening-for-vaccinated-tourists-from-1-november-2021/

I am doing just that so let's see.....

I cannot, of course, speak for all of Thailand but the volunteer groups that we support in my area reach their daily targets. How? Through a lot of extremely exhaustive hard work. Also, impressive to read about the vaccination centre doing students in Nonthaburi. 1200 staff doing 50 jabs per minute at 80 stations, 20,000 per day. Below posted before: https://www.nationthailand.com/pr-news/in-focus/40007561

Apologies if this has been posted before but it is pleasing to see things ramping up steadily on the vaccination front....... https://www.nationthailand.com/pr-news/in-focus/40007561

Thank you. Was about to post something similar as the thread was digressing. The only thing we know so far is that quarantine is to be scrapped (good news) for people travelling from 10 countries, with more to be added in time. There is no confusion for me as the details of how it will work have not been given yet. We will hopefully learn more on Thursday. I would like the COE etc removed but not sure it can be until the emergency decree is revoked.