ukrules

They threatened criminal penalties for what's essentially a civil matter. The correct course of action to take when someone doesn't pay something or defaults from a payment plan is civil litigation. What I think we're missing here is the timeline - how long did this play out over? I suspect it's something that played out over a period of months.

It sounded like he agreed to a payment plan but they kept his passport illegally as security. When he needed to 'renew his visa' / extend his permission to stay shortly after they would not give him his passport back until he'd paid in full as if it was some sort of collateral. Am I viewing this incorrectly?

Dream on, nothing's opening any time soon.

This is one of the many reasons why Thailand has so few COVID cases, because they're hiding. I know Thais who have done this

This is the important part of this story. Thai people are isolating at home, why wasn't he allowed to do so?

What I see here is a delaying tactic which will tide them over until the winter COVID situation is known in Europe / other places where tourists come from. It's only early yet and we don't know exactly how it's going to play out in Europe during the colder months. When it gets cold there will either be an explosion of new cases all over Europe or nothing will happen as they've already had it or got some measure of immunity through vaccination. This is how I viewed it last year, it came back stronger than ever in Europe during October - December 2020 and signalled a much longer term problem than many had previously predicted. Personally I expect the same thing to happen this year as last year.

Yes, absolutely, you have to remember for many people they don't realise they're infected and it spreads silently and without detection until someone gets ill enough to go to hospital, then the contact tracing begins and a new cluster is found. They're only finding a few of them. This is the same all around the world but in most places they're not really looking for it, they treat the ill and tell anyone who notices that they're infected to stay home for a while until it's gone. There's no fuel being added to the fire, it's already raging. I know how some Thais are behaving when they get ill as well and they're not jumping in a taxi and reporting to the nearest quarantine camp - they're doing everything they can to avoid those places...

COVID is everywhere in Thailand, a few more from double vaccinated tourists will make no difference whatsoever. I guess what I'm saying is - I agree with the professor (I think it was a professor) who recently said in an article posted in the news section of this forum that millions of people have COVID right now in Thailand - forget about the tiny number of cases they find each day - that bears no relevance to the reality on the ground at all.

It's about 6 weeks right now.

I wonder what AstraZeneca have to say about this?

Lol, this is not going to go down very well with the overbearing rule-book waving barrier building obstructionist civil servants at all.

A lot less than would do if they can simply own it.

The existing policy is literally enshrined in the country name : Thai land. I don't think this is a coincidence.

The joke being that these only cost $35k in the US

What I mean is, they're going to panic when COVID spreads out of control in Europe and the rest of the world. Opening by which I mean loosening the restrictions in various places around the country, reduced quarantines, etc - in my opinion, it's not going to happen or if it does it will be reversed pretty quickly. Maybe I'm wrong, I guess we'll see in a month or two.

That's not going to happen, I reckon that when the infection rates start to spiral out of control in Europe and the US during October all opening plans will be shelved.

Come to Koh Samui for your holiday and get arrested for playing pool ????????

These people are 'double vaccinated' and they're still so scared of them that the country remains shut down with special 'not a quarantine' areas. This betrays their true confidence levels in the current vaccination programs : They don't trust them at all.

Things change

Year end 2021 is rather optimistic

Remember, in their minds the whole world can't wait to get into Thailand because it's the best place in the world.

Yep, nobody's coming.

I just looked at the major shareholders list, it's mostly owned by the ministry of finance and a couple of other traded funds. Whoever you think owns it.....doesn't.

So?

Perhaps Thailand should alter the way it treats vaccinated people arriving from the UK? Right now the restrictions in the UK are about the same, except for the COVID prisons in Thailand - we don't have those in the UK. Thailand is being treated in the same way that it treats arrivals from other countries, I'm not sure of the exact reasons but if I were in charge I would do this just due to the disparity in treatment so yes, it would be 100% political and tit for tat. There is one difference, the UK doesn't need any tourists from Thailand at all.