Cherrytreeview

3 hours ago, jacko45k said:

They will follow them, no doubt when it comes to lifting restrictions... but that would not be yet would it? Thankfully Thailand overall did far better than any of the countries you cited, Denmark had over 2x the per capita Covid deaths, France and UK, well over 6x. 

Why do you believe Thailand's figures on anything?

Their pure fantasy.

You only have to look at the daily testing cases reported versus what's really going on.

Yet you come on the forum cheerleading everyday.

Thailand don't even have 30% of their population boosted. 

Richard Barrow is reporting that the Thailand Pass system may have been compromised again.

If you get an email don't download any attachments.

99.9% of effort on marketing slogans and walking through treacle schemes.

0.01% on fact based science and executing anything correctly.

2 minutes ago, grego49 said:

Or at least the day 5 rort,,,

Just shows how conditioned we have all become that people are still prepared to accept a test to enter a country.

Until people vote with their feet this racket will continue for years.

7 minutes ago, John Drake said:

Improve it by getting rid of it.

I have a horrible feeling that Thailand Pass may not be dismantled for a longtime to come.

The Hi-so's couldn't care less about their citizens, that doesn't put a great pressure on them to remove it.

The fact that the looney tunes opposition are even more extreme in their views means this theatrical charade ain't going anywhere soon.

1 hour ago, Virt said:

How is Vietnam during July?

 

Any places where it's not rainy season worth visiting, because it looks like i'm not going to Samui,

if the politicians continue with these restrictions.

Hoi An is very nice and dry pretty much all year round.

Flight into Danang and then a short drive to the town.

Ba Na Hills is nearby and has, i believe, the longest sky lift in the world.

Stunningly beautiful place, a bit like a medieval French castle in the Vietnamese countryside.

One of my favourites in SE Asia.

You will also be spared the coach loads of Chinese.

Air Asia did fly from Don Muang.

I believe Vietnam still stipulate a 3 day quarantine.

38 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

My family's real estate development company have boomed in covid times.  In terms of rental properties there is very little rental stock in Chiang Rai and what there is, is mostly horrible, prices have not dropped for decent rental properties here at all. 

 

Regarding sales, you can tell immediately looking at a property whether it will sell, and most won't sell in a decade or more, not only must it be well presented but location is really important.  The good real estate agents push what they know will sell, agents need to be pro-active and show a customer not what he asks for but what he needs and will actually buy.  For example, a customer may ask for a single storey home with 5 bedrooms, a good agent will ask why single storey? why 5 bedrooms?  The answer could well be single storey because the buyer is worried about getting old, 5 bedrooms may be because he needs 3 bedrooms and 2 offices.  If the right questions aren't asked then a multiple storey home with elevator and 2 offices would be overlooked by the poor agent and a good agent will close the sale.

 

We had a sale where an agent rented a house to a customer who comes to Thailand for 6 months of the year.  She didn't KYC, she didn't know their long term aim was to buy somewhere.  Another pro-active agent did ask the right questions, did some sums and demonstrated it was cheaper to buy one of our new houses in the long term and they sold them one of our 3 bedroom houses.  When I told the first agent who rented them the original house, she said I was mistaken because her customer wasn't in the market to buy.  She lost a rental customer and lost the sale on our house which she also had listed.  All because she processed enquiries, wasn't pro-active and didn't understand her customers real needs.

 

It's like the old job interview trick where the interviewer says "Sell me this pen?".  What he's looking for is questions to qualify what he uses to write with, what problems he has with what he currently uses, what he needs, and then match his product, the pen, to those needs.  There's a saying in sales "Two ears, one mouth, use them in proportion".

 

if you don't understand what your customer really needs, you'll do a poor job and more than likely lose the sale or at best sell them something they will regret and blame you for later.  I have a story about one of those too, a friend came to a party at one of my houses and said "Why didn't my agent show me this?  it's exactly what I wanted", it's the same agent btw.

 

I suspect the big agents here have a founder who knows what he's doing and sales agents who are mostly clueless.

 

I also predict boom times coming when the country opens up.

It's going take some "boom" times to shift the excess stock in Bangkok and Pattaya.

I think most people, apart from the money laundering Chinese, will be keeping assets at home and renting abroad.

You don't own anything in Thailand and are only living there on an extension visa.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the Chang Rai real estate scene.

What relevance it has to the overbuilt condo towers of Bangkok and Pattaya is beyond me.

Having just watched a recent video of a Pattaya agent saying that a 3 million baht condo could achieve 20,000 to 30,000 monthly baht rent, i have a healthy scepticism for the Thai real estate market.

Think i'll stick with my simple plan to double my money in the UK market over a couple of decades and strip out a healthy rental income in the process.

1 minute ago, Henryford said:

Buying property in Thailand is not an investment. I bought 16 years ago and would be lucky to get now what i paid for it. BUT it's good if you just want somewhere to live and not pay rent for life.

What would be better is to rent out your own property in your home country, rent in Thailand, make a substantial capital gain and also have a nest to fly home to if you so wish.

Gives you an inflation linked real asset and a whole lot of options.

2 hours ago, Gandtee said:

I don't wish to defend this abysmal government but what other countries governments have controlled the virus?

It's nothing to do with "controlling" a virus that spreads as easily as measles.

It's everywhere. When Thailand tests more, they find more.

What it's to do with is an effective and timely triple jab campaign, so that societies can open up and live with endemic covid.

Thailand has failed miserably with it's vaccine campaign.

Instead they use xenophobic and unscientific politics with farangs entering the country.

41 minutes ago, Scott said:

Omicron ripped through my neighborhood and I ended up with 7 very close neighbors who caught it.  None of them described it as a 'cold'.  One couple weren't vaccinated and they were sick for an extended period of time, as in weeks.  All the rest were vaccinated and boosted. For them, it lasted 5 days of being quite sick -- at least  in bed sick.  As one said, "I wouldn't describe it as mild.'  

 

In addition to being a respiratory infection, Covid is also a vascular disease and it attacks the heart and vascular system.  It also can damage kidneys and has implications for the neurological system.  

 

A long-term study of 153,760 U.S. veterans who had survived Covid-19 for at least 30 days beyond the initial diagnoses. veterans shows a definite uptick in cases of heart attack, stroke and other cardiac issues.   Those who had recovered from Covid-19 coronavirus infections were 63% more likely to have had some kind of cardiovascular problem in the ensuing year than those in the control groups.   And there were two control groups, one of people during the same time period who did not have Covid and another group that was pre-covid.  

 

The study found that it included a 52% greater likelihood of suffering a stroke, a 63% higher likelihood of a heart attack,  and a 145% higher likelihood of heat failure. Those who had had Covid-19 were also more likely to subsequently have various abnormal heart rhythms such as atrial fibrillation (71% more likely), sinus tachycardia (84%), sinus bradycardia (53%), and ventricular arrhythmias (84%).

 

The same results were consistent for different ages, races, sex and other cardiovascular risk factors.  

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2022/02/13/study-finds-increased-heart-disease-stroke-risk-after-surviving-even-mild-covid-19/?sh=17843b1e2134

 

 

Omicron is in the rear view mirror in the UK.

Wales announced the lowest amount of patients in ICU since July 2021.

Remember some UK scientists forecast carnage only 6 weeks ago.

People are fed up and bored with omicron.

It's fatality rate is now barely above the seasonal flu.

The UK is getting back to normal, not new normal just plain old normal.

Time to move on.

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/covid-now-comparable-to-flu-may-turn-endemic-post-omicron-uk-professor-122011100621_1.html

Here in the UK, omicron has a fatality rate close to flu and no one talks about long covid being associated with it.

Heavy cold or flu symptoms yes but not all this nonsense.

Thailand seems to want to live in a state of fear.

8 minutes ago, ChC1 said:

The article seems to forget many European people would go for a beach holiday:

1, Spain

2, Portugal

3, Gran Canarias

4, Balearic Islands

5, France

6, Greece

7, Cyprus

8, Croatia

9, Turkey

10, Romania (Constanta)

11, Bulgaria (Varna)

12, Israel

13, Jordan

14, Egypt

15, Morocco

16, The Bahamas

17, Cuba

18, Grand Cayman

19, USA

20, Punta Cana

21, Mexico

22, Barbados

23, Netherlands' ABC islands

24, St Lucia

25, St Maarten

26, Antigua

27, French Caribbean Islands

28, the Maldives

29, Surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is building a lot of Red Sea resorts which due to be opened in the coming 2-3 years

30, Goa in India

31, Qatar

32, Salalah in Oman

33, and others like Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, South Africa, Zanzibar...

 

Has Thailand now smelt the coffee yet? I doubt it.

Exactly.

Vietnam is reportedly opening up completely on the 15th of this month.

Reported in the BP.

On 2/12/2022 at 7:33 AM, jacko45k said:

Judging by the way numbers spiked in Europe and USA due to Omicron that appears likely... I cannot understand why we have not seen the Thai spike yet... this is also true for the neighbours. 

I can.

Zero proactive testing and Thai creative accounting.

Surely you don't need to be told that.

23 hours ago, sandyf said:

Feel free to keep on complaining like there isn't problems elsewhere.

You watch the rugby yesterday?

Notice all the stadiums rammed full of happy maskless fans roaring their teams on.

Like covid never happened?

That's what happens in developed countries when you have well coordinated proactive vaccine campaigns.

Your welcome to being tucked up in bed by 11pm and wearing masks outside in the stifling heat.

Back to normal for us. ????

2 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

A shameful statistic....................47.34% schools still no onsite learning, yet 95.11 per cent of students received their first jab, and 71.41 their second jab.

 

More than 50% of schools conducting onsite classes

 

The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) reported on Friday that as of February 8, 18,582 or 52.26 per cent of 35,554 schools nationwide had opened and were conducting onsite classes.

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012255

Disgraceful statistic.

Thailand still seems terrified of anything covid related.

No planning, acceptance, understanding, just panic.

If in doubt take the easiest way out, shut the school and send everyone home.

Many pupils poor education has just become nonexistent.

Passed from one generation to the next.

2 minutes ago, tomyami said:

not-visit-thailand-year-2022

Going to the philipines next month no TP T&G quarrantine

Have fun.

Think the other 39,600,000 visitors that visited Thailand in 2019 will be making alternative arrangements as well.

Today Spain has removed vaccine restrictions for UK teenagers, saying how important the Brits are to their tourism industry.

Meanwhile, Thailand's answer to Pixie and Dixie dream up more looney tune track, trace, swab, imprison and extort schemes to ensure their added to every travel agents blacklist worldwide.

If Thailand spent more time and money getting their population boosted rather than these daft schemes, they might actually get out the other side of the pandemic.

Instead they have a paltry 20% boosted.

So now we have, Test-Track-And-Trace, Test-Swab-And-Go and Test-Wait-Maybe-Go-Hospital.

What about Test-A-Gogo or Test-A-Kathoey?

Balder-dash more like.