Atlantis

And we mustn't forget the investigative piece from the British Medical Journal last month: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635 Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial Revelations of poor practices at a contract research company helping to carry out Pfizer’s pivotal covid-19 vaccine trial raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight. Paul D Thacker reports.

Sorry if you've seen this already but couldn't resist. I felt compelled to post this for several reasons: 1. This sounds like a headline from The Onion, not the BBC 2. Breaking News: the political class are hypocrites 3. Educational value: there is a country called Finland. It's leader is very young. 3. This forum appears to be dominated by older gentlemen...[see photo] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59577371 Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin has apologised for going clubbing after coming into close contact with a Covid-19 case. Sanna Marin went on a night out in Helsinki on Saturday, hours after her foreign minister had tested positive. She was initially told she did not need to isolate because she had been fully vaccinated, but later missed a text that advised her to do so. Critics questioned her judgement for not isolating until testing negative.

Since we're talking about Pfizer and the issue of trust and transparency, I wonder what some of the posters above think of this: https://theintercept.com/2021/11/29/pfizer-whistleblower-reform-corporate-fraud/ Pfizer is among the Big Pharma companies trying to block legislation strengthening whistleblowers’ ability to report corporate fraud.

TIMBERRR...... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59573985 Also on Wednesday... ...trading in shares of embattled property developer Kaisa was suspended in Hong Kong. In an announcement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Kaisa did not give a reason for the halt in trading. However, it came after reports that Kaisa was unlikely to be able to meet a $400m offshore debt deadline on Tuesday. Kaisa is China's biggest holder of offshore debt among developers after Evergrande. Failure to make the payment could push it into technical default, triggering cross defaults on its offshore bonds totalling nearly $12bn.

Nice meme, but IMO the more pernicious threat is echo-chambers and over-confidence by whichever camp feels they have the upper hand. Critical faculties switch off immediately, and while they are busy fighting off the half-truths, distortions and outright lies of others, they unsurprisingly fail in their own reasoning and fact-checking. An illustrative case-in-point is the recent thread on under-5s getting Covid in South Africa. The article that the thread is based on is just so so bad, but it just flew by right under the radar because many of the frequent posters there just don't give AF when it comes to bias-confirming data / news stories. Already tried to communicate it to the OP, but what are the chances of getting a reply before the damage is already done on this forum....

Yes, I know it's a very general philosophical point, with understandable attacks on the most extreme forms of covid-19 denial-ism etc. Nevertheless, I find it important to push back on the notion that critics of this policy are somehow barking up the wrong tree because of semantics-based denial when things began to heat up. CRT-inspired racism / racial essentialism...call it what you like. But it ain't the collective imagination of the entire Right-of-Center America (+ and then some!). That first video a gives a very informative summary of defenders of how the "No CRT here" camp neglects the practical delivery of teaching vs. whats written down on the official curriculum. The video below is a car-crash of an interview given by an MSNBC host "interviewing" (I use that phrase loosely) someone on the other side. There is also well-documented examples in the parallel private school system of unabashed race essentialism and the schools are openly proud. There's also endless clips of educational professionals proudly saying the most insane things during Zoom class, as well as the standard none-action by schools when it is reported. None of it was healthy, and it got out of control after the George Flloyd. It's actually happening, and it cuts at the very core of what the OP talks about: the United States of America being ripped apart at its seams. And no it's not a conspiracy.

I've followed this long before it became a topic of widespread discussion, while it was still bubbling under the surface of the US culture wars. Countless hours of testimony, recordings and also local / national reporting. On this topic, it is quite clear that one side is hiding behind semantics (and it ain't old Fox News! this time). When the excesses of certain "progressive" (more like illiberal + regressive) elements of the already partisan teaching establishment came to light, the practice became indefensible, and now the concerted gaslighting by US media. Ralph Northam didn't win on a conspiracy theory, and Blue America would do well to note their failings viz-a-viz K-12 Education and refrain from the psychotic policy of labeling suburban, centrist, even left-of-center, mothers as "domestic terrorists" for their impassioned dissent.

If I may....where did you "hear" this claim today? What was the source that you used? Or can I say "studied / researched from." I think those pesky free-thinkers who have viewed unedited footage of Joe Rogan may come to the inconvenient conclusion that -- according to their very own lying eyes -- CNN is lucky not to get sued by JR....but anyway, I digress. What was the topic again?

Why is there such an egregious overlap between those who understand and promote the science of vaccination and those who promote the concept (with a straight face, in a Senate hearing) that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man. "Birthing people." "Menstruating people." Why is there also a (almost 1-to-1?) overlap between those who understand the massive tail-risks of rapid climate warming and those who fail to understand the simple concept of human life beginning at conception. "There might be life on Mars, but there's no life in the womb". You are correct: the US is a walking disaster. It's just a shame that many Americans who purport to be 100% on the side of facts, reason and science suddenly turn off that part of their brain / persona when it becomes socially, culturally, politically obedient. There's plenty of evidence that posters on this forum who genuinely can't fathom the notion that they, themselves, are part of the problem.

@Jeffr2 This is for everyone, but especially for you. You'll love it. It's quite beautiful really. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-beast/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news

To all the posters above: did you all read through the entire article? Apart from the very worrying first paragraph: The “highly transmissible” Omicron variant of coronavirus ripping through South Africa is putting disproportionately large numbers of children under 5 years old in hospitals, a top South African government medical adviser said Friday. If you all read through the entirety of the Daily Beast article, did anything jump out at you that seemed a little off? I guess most people are asleep by now, so I'll wait for responses to come in tomorrow morning before sharing my thoughts. *And in case you're wondering, yes I am concerned, just probably much-less-so than many of you.

Et voila. There we have it. Thank you for demonstrating your inability / unwillingness to read, and how that contributes to low-quality posting throughout the forum.

@Jeffr2 Your final point: "They are the ones responsible for this spread of misinformation and are helping this pandemic to extend. That's well documented." I'm sorry to have to make this personal, because it's almost impossible not to. It's really ironic for you, of all people, to post this - and often. You have a right to be a "hardcore traveler" or however it you described yourself recently. But to claim your freedom to this activity while meanwhile disparaging unvaccinated people for being "10x" more likely to spread the virus - and by extension to cause more death - shows a certain level of egocentricity and entitlement. In one corner, you have a random villager in northern Isaan sitting in his own home minding his own business. In another corner, you have a frequent hardcore anti-anti-vax poster who engages in international leisure travel during a pandemic. You would readily blame that unvaccinated farmer for prolonging the pandemic by being "10x more likely to spread the virus" but excuse yourself for travelling 1000x more than him. Tone down the zealotry + a bit more self-awareness....please?

"I'll post less if others post less misinformation." It was not a comment purely on frequency; it was about the proportion of longer, content-rich posts. I note that I thanked you for your recent post on the Omicron numbers. "Like the guy who gets his info from RTNews" He explained to you in his exchange with regards to RT. If I associated every single unhinged NYT op-ed and the worst excesses of CNN commentary with your total persona, you wouldn't look too flattering either, and these two enjoy much more credibility than RT. "I'm hard core against anti vaxxers and covid deniers." You can be hardcore against and still perhaps collect your one-line put downs together into less posts including those "haha another idiot's dead" type posts. You can be hardcore against and still understand the not-so-subtle difference between 'people who disagree with me' and 'anti-vaxxers'. You can be hardcore against and take a bit more time reading those horrible people's posts You can be hardcore against and take the time to reply to the specific content of the posts vs. what you think they are saying "They are the ones responsible for this spread of misinformation" It has been pointed out to you that through injudicious reasoning, you have also been responsible for misinformation and making misleading statements.

Yes, I'm very aware of RT News / Russia Today. "It's a known fake news site" is a misleading exaggeration. In terms of both intentional disinformation and misinformation, they are a lighter version of Chinese state-backed media such as CGTN, which the news team and ASEANNOW has sourced from in the last couple of month btw. My issue isn't with that one post on this one thread. I read a lot more than I post and I'm referring to what I see in totality across the forum. He's referring to an exchange elsewhere where the link provided by RT News itself was factual, but the analysis of the data was incomplete / misleading. One problem with dramatically labeling it as a "known fake news site" is that a lot of the information on there is factual and moderate in tone. For the unsuspecting reader, it's easier to sneak in editorial bias and misinformation in some (not all) news articles. Especially when they're going after being told its a "fake news website"

I saw your interaction with the other member and at the very least, you're being willfully misleading about it - and for what....a cheap "Like" ? Honest question: do you treat posting on here as a competition where the most cumulative posts gives you bragging rights? I ask this to you rather than some other frequent posters because the vast majority of your posts consist of (a couple lines of) very inane comments with very little useful content. I guess I should reluctantly praise you for recently toning down on the "Jeez + stunning some people don't get this" comments that just clog up the entire thread. But even so, would you mind posting less (quantity) and more (quality), so that other members stand a chance of actually making it through a thread without seeing your short and content-less posts? - or an annoyed response from people you antagonize?

I read every post that was on there over the 3 pages, including ones that have since been removed and I certainly do not share the view that it was a "Troll Topic". It was clear from the outset that much of the (almost immediate) trolling came from other members reflexively disparaging a new account for asking a pretty clear-cut question. It was clear from the OP's first number of responses that she was making an effort to ignore the worst trolling and seek actual information amongst a sea of off-topic responses and snarky commands to "stay at home". Oh, and that's besides the astounding medical ignorance of demanding a recently recovered COVID patient get vaccinated. As for how the thread subsequently developed into a back-and-forth, I'm not going to put much blame on the OP for taking the bait. As for the misleading information part, there's tons of that and doesn't always result in an automatic closing of a subject. That said, I've asked a moderator to change the title here, as you suggested.

As for the idea of imminent restrictions according to vaccination status that might travel, I can't help but wonder how much of this is simply fanciful thinking. Unless there's a sudden U-turn owing to the new variant detected in Thailand, many provinces turning "Blue" will not be ratcheting up travel restrictions any time soon.... Thailand increases “Blue Zone” destinations to 26, eases more COVID-19 curbs nationwide https://www.tatnews.org/2021/12/thailand-increases-blue-zone-destinations-to-26-eases-more-covid-19-curbs-nationwide/ And more to come... https://asq.in.th/thailand-blue-zones

So just to recap: - This topic was started partly in response to another thread hijacked by members giving unsolicited vaccination advice, but also to pool useful information and first-hand experiences from other members. - The quarantine experiences (thanks for your contributions) appear to be specific to rural / semi-rural settings vs. cities. - Despite this, there is little so far to suggest any differential treatment between those with a full vaccination certificate vs partial vaccination evidence, and medical certificate for recent recovery from the virus. - For those without any of the above, it's always a good idea to check ahead of time if a cheap and quick certified ATK test will suffice.

You're welcome. It's good to give back in a forum that has already provided me with a ton of useful information - and humor. If you see people berating, bullying or bickering about vaccination status and travel, please do everyone a favor and report them for off-topic posts. Thanks in advance.

Erm, until just now (December 1st), the answer to your first question is probably 'Dark Red' as below: DARK RED Chanthaburi — Nakhon Si Thammarat — Narathiwat — Pattani — Songkhla — Tak — Yala https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/new-zone-restrictions-alcohol-curfew-dining-schools But then you have this news, so it looks like these Dark Red strictly controlled areas have dropped into 'Red Zones' as of today: CCSA revises zoning: No more “dark red” zones with nightly curfews https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/ccsa-revises-zoning-no-more-dark-red-zones-with-nightly-curfews I can't even imagine how they'd enforce this rule even if they wanted to at this point - at least not on the major motorways. I initially assumed the same. But I stay in fairly cheap hotels when traveling domestically and none of these have asked me so far. A few didn't even bother to ask to see my passport. I do my bookings online and they often seem to know who I am. Either that or they just don't really care.

Partially-vaxxed passengers should take their "appointment card" with them as their Vaccination Document*. This is most likely an A5 piece of paper with all the details of your initial vaccination and a QR code together with the date of your next appointment. *assuming your first shot was sufficiently long ago

For those with a fetish for reading small print: Bullet Point 1: sensible if you can read Thai, but very probably unnecessary. Bullet Point 2: ....what?.... Bullet Point 3: not necessary if you're doing self-check in; you may be briefly pulled over before boarding instead Bullet Point 4: ....redundant blob Bullet Point 5: ....if you really want to check out a list of labs in non-alphabetical order

As for the quarantine rules (if they even apply to you), enforcement has been non-existent - as anyone with real experience of living Thailand would know without asking. The only semi-stringent checks I have heard of were in certain provinces months ago when inter-provincial travel was still restricted.

For those uninitiated with ATK tests, the results are almost instant and so you get a certified ATK test as a walk-in patient and be out within 30 minutes if the clinic or hospital is not busy. They've always been cheaper than PCR (supposedly less thorough and reliable) but recently, they've continued to go down in price. I don't intentionally mean to be a cheerleader for MedConsult on Suk 49 but they've now dropped their walk-in certified ATK tests from 600 to 500. Even the domestics airlines are offering very affordable services e.g. Thai Smile for 450 Baht.