vermin on arrival

20 hours ago, 2 is 1 said:

How many couple stuck out of Thailand. Normaly farang stucked out and wife waiting here!

Who is so idiot in other case that come Thailand whit wife!If you are consulate staff you have different rules anyway!

Umm I just had a friend with his Thai wife come together from Vietnam and they are just finishing their ASQ. They were living together and working in Vietnam.

"Thailand should take advantage of the covid epidemic"...something about this individual's statements makes me ill. People everywhere are dying. What should we do? Let's help them and show our moral values? or....let's make money! ????

2 minutes ago, 3NUMBAS said:

countries have to  take the nasty medicine like the UK or face a situation like mexico

Deaths are not looking good there atm, but looks like mexico's cases have already peaked and are going down

7 minutes ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

As I have posted before, the vast majority of these road deaths are young boys/men speeding around on motorcycles, and other drivers (often hopped-up on alcohol/drugs), getting into accidents. While all deaths are tragic, especially if there are bystanders who are injured/killed, such deaths have little to no affect on society and the economy as a whole that a fast spreading and potentially deadly respiratory virus can have. Therefore the differentiated government response to them.

Actually the deaths of young people are more important to society from an economic standpoint since they have many more years left to contribute to society in income earned and tax dollars contributed. Sadly, from a cold and calculating standpoint (and not a moral, compassionate, empathic one), the older you get, the less important your life becomes to society. The 60+ with comorbidites are actually more of a drain on society and are the "weak trees" that society might like to see cleared out. Please don't infer that I want them dead or cleared out. I am giving kind of a Social Darwinian perspective and not a moral one or the one I believe.

5 minutes ago, mike787 said:

Thailand will remain well into 2021...guaranteed. 

Most likely.

48 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Well it only takes 1 germ to take over a government and destroy the country, and unfortunately its become a common occurrence worldwide.  I have made several flights lately in Thailand.  Masks are worn, but no social distancing is done anymore on the airplanes, even when they are less than half full.  Flew to Phuket and Back on Bangkok Air and there were 12 of us on the down flight and 20 on the return flight.  Hotel we stayed at had no more than a dozen other folks there, and it felt like we had the whole resort to ourselves which was great.  The resort checked your temp on arrival, and that was it, many of the folks running around were not wearing masks as they moved around the resort except the employees, thankfully it was not busy.  Flew to Chiang Mai from Bangkok and back as well, flight with very few again, and the resort almost empty.  People on the street and in some of the stores we went to were not wearing masks at all, and you could see, even though not many around, that people were living life like it was normal and there was no Covid. 

They believe the government propaganda and if it is true that the asymptomatic (as opposed to presymptomatic)  "cases", which are probably what is the reservoir here are as non-infectious as many believe(some say they are actually immune), then they are actually not crazy to do so. While many would disagree, I would say to keep the preventive measures and reopen to external travel with tests on both sides and quarantine.

14 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

For some reason, a lot of folks here seem to paint these issues as EITHER OR....

 

EITHER we reopen the economy full blast (and the people saying this typically mean with few if any public health precautions), which would encourage the virus and its impacts to grow and spread.

 

OR we have to shut and lock everything down, along with public health precautions, in order to prevent the virus from spreading and protect people's health.

 

But it's NOT an either-or situation and that presents false choices. You CAN reopen the economy and have people working IF you combine that with sensible public health measures that the public/citizens actually follow and are enforced by the government.

 

 

Precisely. This seems painfully obvious to me . In the words of Groucho Marx, "This is so obvious a child could see. Could someone please bring me a child?"

14 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Put into perspective 330,000,000 people and do the math.

 

Not opening the economy, such as what Thailand is doing, will have adverse effects

I see the math, that doesn't mean that we should just ignore it. Hundreds of thousands dying in a blip or with long term damage because people don't want to do any preventive matters is also very bad for society

Of course, not opening the economy will have bad effects. There needs to be a balanced approach that takes into account both public health and the economy. Did you not read that I said that the economic fallout is a disaster? Is a disaster an adverse effect? Please read my full post.

14 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

You don't think when a person wearing a mask sneezes germs don't escape?

 

99% are not air tight and the germs go all over

 

Only takes 1 germ

Actually viral load is important to infect you. It doesn't just take 1 germ.

14 hours ago, Yinn said:

Yes.

 

Me and the doctor and scientist. 

 

You a antimasker? Watch YouTube?

The problem is that many western scientists and studies, from a few years ago on the flu and even some done now, have said that it doesn't help. The people on the other side are also following scientists. We are not talking about conspiracy theorists, but professionals-researchers and epidemiologists. I believe that masks help and really require like 80% compliance to hit the right mark for society, but there are legitimate studies that doubt the efficacy of masks. The anti-maskers are actually following science as well, but there needs to be more conclusive studies done.

1 hour ago, bwpage3 said:

Disastrous epidemic?

More are killed in the USA every single year from the flu, cancer, others

 

 

And more are not killed every year in the US by the flu. If you look at other disease or total diseases, sure. The only things that will end up being more are cancer and heart disease which are around 600k+ each, but for flu and pneumonia definitely not - influenza and pneumonia approximately 60K combined per year.

12 minutes ago, bwpage3 said:

Disastrous epidemic?

 

There are 330,000,000 people. Do the math.

 

More are killed in the USA every single year from the flu, cancer, others

 

The real disaster, held unchecked, is the economic fallout of people losing their jobs, economies tanking, rising costs, starvation, rising crime, etc

Sure there are probably 8,800 a day killed in the US everyday (at least what it was in 2019), and right now about 1k for covid, but for sure this is far greater death toll than any flu epidemic to hit the US outside of the Spanish flu pandemic. It's definitely worse than Hong Kong and Asain flu deaths which killed 116K and 100K in the US. The US is at 160k+ and ongoing-will be in the 200-300k range probably, maybe more. For an upper respiratory disease epidemic, that's a huge amount. Compared to what has been going on in other countries and what has happened historically, I would call it a disaster.

The poor containment and governmental response has contributed to what will be an economic meltdown. The economic fallout is also a disaster. The horrible political climate and divisive partisan infighting has made everything worse. Both the public health and economic spheres need to be addressed in a comprehensive bipartisan measured response, but it won't be because people say it is one or the other and it's both.

3 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

The Ramblings of an intellectual person would understand that Covid isolation and sequestration of a country is not political or "Stupidcal".  Countries are closed in order to either contain the virus, and or the Covididiots as some people would say.  The issue at hand is whether to throw all caution to the wind and keep shut down or, throw the baby out with the bath water, and go balls to the walls and just open everything up and let Hundreds of thousands more become infected because of a lack of personal responsibility and an uncaring attitude of so what if Thousands die  they were old and it was there time........Yes very heavy on sarcasm.

There is a middle path.

On 8/11/2020 at 1:09 PM, uhuh said:

PCR is a lot more accurate than all these antibody tests on the market. 

 

Interesting follow up.

Recently 4 people tested positive for covid 19 when leaving Taiwan and/or arriving elsewhere. Think at least 3 of the 4 had no symptoms. All the people test so far don't have covid or antibodies; looks like 700+ tested. What the hell is going on? Are the tests accurate or not? Are people contracting the disease or not? Seems in 1 case the person left quarantine and probably is a local Hong Kong case, but what about the other 3 who tested negative going in and tested positive going out with no contact trail of illness or know cause of transmission. Taiwan supposedly has no local cases.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3985836

7 minutes ago, ttrd said:

RE - Did they both quarantine 14 days when arriving in Thailand, or could they by any chance both have brought the virus with them from Japan?

 

* As it's told, they have been in LOS for a period of 3 weeks and the incubation time is max 2 weeks so with that fact in mind they have contracted the virus in Thailand ... 

They quarantined. Just like the case I mentioned above in Taiwan.

Here's an interesting article from Taiwan. Recently 4 people tested positive for covid 19 when leaving Taiwan and/or arriving elsewhere. Think at least 3 of the 4 had no symptoms. All the people test so far don't have covid or antibodies; looks like 700+ tested. What the hell is going on? Are the tests accurate or not? Are people contracting the disease or not? Seems in 1 case the person left quarantine and probably is a local Hong Kong case, but what about the other 3 who tested negative going in and tested positive going out with no contact trail of illness or know cause of transmission. Taiwan supposedly has no local cases.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3985836

6 hours ago, BritTim said:

If using an agent, they would typically need about three weeks and would deliver a 15 month permission to stay (they, in addition to other advantages can get the one year extension of your permission to stay without waiting until the last 30 days of the initial 90-day permission to stay). The costs depend on the immigration office where the visa and extension are processed (which can even be different when an agent is involved). Usually, the agent wants to minimise the bribes that are necessary to pay to immigration. If the local immigration office is difficult, they will usually process everything through a different immigration office, possibly in the wilds of Isaan. A rough figure for what you can expect to pay for the visa plus extension is somewhere between 23,000 and 30,000 baht.

Thanks, so would need to start by the end of August at the latest if I go that route. Where would one look to find a reputable agent in BKK or who would help someone currently staying in BKK?

2 minutes ago, phungo said:

Whoever has more power gets to say who is more important. Hopefully power does not reside in corrupted imm staff.

So far it has resided in the cabinet who have disregarded immigration's recommendations in favor of those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.