edwardandtubs

That argument might have sounded very clever in the middle of 2021 but most countries of the world have now ditched masking. All you're doing now is revealing yourself to be someone who slavishly follows authoritarian clowns like Prayuth.

Who has ever said that about the topic we're currently discussing? You seem to be imagining things.

Prayuth and Anutin haven't been "reassuring people that the virus will end this year". It reminds me of the constant claims that the election will be held NEXT year after the 2014 coup.

It's not a "conspiracy theory", it's just political reality. The widespread political protests in 2020 came to an end due to covid restrictions and fearmongering and have never returned. Spreading fear discourages mass protests and makes people accept a "strong government" to keep them "safe".

Spreading fear is a great way of maintaining political control so keeping everyone masked up and full of anxiety is great for Prayuth and Anutin.

I look forward to your report. How was this border in the past for people seeking a visa exempt entry? I know there were problems with some Burmese borders but not sure if this was one of them.

To be fair, he seems to be talking more sense now. In a previous statement he said masks were a personal choice. In this statement, he made one very interesting comment: "If we could turn back time, we should make use of the body of knowledge as our guide in coping with the pandemic, instead of submitting to pressure from social media." This seems to be an admission that he and other people who influence Thai public opinion and policy have been reacting to mass hysteria rather that providing leadership, and that this needs to change.

Personally, I was against the Iraq war but I wouldn't call people who support overthrowing a dictator who invades other countries and uses chemical weapons against his own people ignorant and stupid. The Russian war to "liberate" Ukraine from "neo-Nazis", on the other hand, is so blatantly false and immoral that you can't compare the two at all so I wonder what your true motivations are in trying to do that.

Quite a few differences. Ukraine is a democratic country that has never invaded a neighbour whereas Iraq was led by a dictator who had invaded Iran and Kuwait and oppressed his own people. The USA wasn't seeking to annex all or part of Iraq whereas Russia is seeking to do exactly that in Ukraine. People in the USA were free to protest against the war whereas Russians go to jail for doing that. But keep parroting Russian disinformation if it makes you feel good.

That's a bit simplistic. The Russian economy is in recession and it will get worse this year as sanctions take time to make an impact. Meanwhile, Russia has a big budget deficit which reduces its ability to fund the invasion. Of course, not all Russians are suffering and indeed there are plenty of ways of profiteering from war. Combine that with their limited travel options and I'm sure the Russians will keep coming.

Really? The Russians have all left Phuket? That seems a bit far-fetched. I'm planning a beach holiday and am looking for somewhere not overrun with Russians. I like Kata but fear it will be full of them.

Pandemics come to an end when people consider them to be at an end and get on with their lives. The virus itself though remains endemic and covid is no different. So if you're hoping you can hide away until some time in the future when everything will be safe, that time will never come.

No endemic respiratory virus has ever come to an end and no scientist or health authority expects this one to.

Nice googling again but we're never going to reach a stage where all the world's health organisations and scientists come out together and say, "It's alright everyone! Panic over! It's safe to come out now without your masks on!" So you'll be living the rest of your life in a state fear and anxiety, hiding behind your mask and spending all day justifying that to yourself by posting on this forum every five minutes. If you want to live your life that way, that's fine, but most people have chosen to move on.

The Conversation article also contains studies that predate covid but you don't seem to think that invalidates the conclusions. It's clear that you're living in a state of fear and anxiety about covid and you'll search Google and then paste on this forum anything that you think validates these fears.

You seem to struggle with interpreting scientific articles. All scientific studies have limitations. It's totally normal and a section on limitations is found in all articles. All I did was quote the main findings of the study, hardly "overstating" and "misrepresenting".

In what way have I "overstated" and "misrepresented" it? And I notice you dodged my question. Do you expect people to wear masks for the rest of their lives?

That's the nature of scientific debate. A group of leading scientists publish an article and another group disagree with them. And you expect people to wear a mask for the rest of their lives on that basis?

I know how much you like googling and pasting the results but it's still just an opinion article. They're not presenting any evidence that prove the effectiveness of masking.

And you feel people should live their lives by following someone's opinion in The Conversation?

A Cochrane review isn't "merely a recap", it's a systematic review and, as stated by another poster above, is considered the gold standard: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about/about-cochrane-reviews By pooling the results of different studies, the flaws of individual studies are reduced. If you want to wear your mask, keep wearing it but you can't claim this is an evidence-based position.

This is fairly conclusive now. A recent Cochrane review found: 'Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness (9 studies; 276,917 people); and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 13,919 people).' 'Compared with wearing medical or surgical masks, wearing N95/P2 respirators probably makes little to no difference in how many people have confirmed flu (5 studies; 8407 people); and may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu-like illness (5 studies; 8407 people), or respiratory illness (3 studies; 7799 people).' https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses Full article: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Thanks for the info. Please let us know about public transportation options on the way back.

Rolex watches cost about 500,000 baht each. Food-safe plastic bags cost about 100 baht a kilogram. Please explain what these dodgy imitation plastic bags are made from and how the manufacturers manage to make a profit.

So in what top secret location do they sell these dodgy plastic bags? And what are they made of?