TallGuyJohninBKK

I guess we're beginning to see how he feels about being the subject of public allegations and being thrust unwillingly into the headlines -- something he subjected a whole lot of farangs to during his tenure in the Immigration Bureau.

I have no idea why you're talking about the "party". The reference I made above to the 8 officers associated with BJ was the 8 who are now implicated, with arrest warrants issued, for having alleged ties to an online gambling ring. And those 8 aren't implicated as having ties to an online gambling ring just because BJ showed up in a video singing karaoke with a woman at a party who was later arrested as being a main figure in that ring.

Fortunately for those who have any concern about their own health and the health of those around them, many of the same public health behaviors that help protect against COVID also help protect against influenza... Namely, vaccination, face masking, hand hygiene, etc.... Lessons to be learned there.

Death attribution, especially during COVID, has been a very imprecise science, with official COVID deaths widely considered to be substantial undercounts. As for the flu: COVID Omicron carries 4 times the risk of death as flu, new data show August 26, 2023 "The risk of death from SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection was four times higher than that from influenza in late 2022 and early 2023 in France, a Harvard Medical School researcher reports today in Epidemiology & Infection. ... "For many deaths associated with influenza and Omicron infections, those viruses are not detected, or listed as a contributing cause of death," he wrote. ... Omicron infections weren't recorded as a contributing cause for many deaths attributed to cardiac disease, mental disorders, and other underlying causes." https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-omicron-carries-4-times-risk-death-flu-new-data-show

One of the things I found particularly interesting was when various of the news reports listed and named the 8 officers supposedly linked to Surachate, or referred to as his subordinates, who allegedly were linked to the online gambling network. The 8 officers were spread out all over the RTP, in different geographies and different types of units within the RTP... some in Immigration, some in province stations, some in Traffic, etc etc... I wonder just how officers in the RTP end up becoming part of BJ's team? And what they have to do in order to become members?

That would be my bet....

The OP report is clear as mud.... --the houses are owned by a "relative" who, later it's said, isn't really a family relative at all, but a vaguely described "businessman." --BJ supposedly isn't paying any rent to the "relative" for the houses, but later the report says BJ rented two of the houses and paid the owner 50,000 baht per month in rent (not clear if that was per house or total for the two). Of course, other prior news reports immediately after the raids claimed that BJ was the owner of the 5 houses in BKK.... Who knows..... Journalistic muck...

Two weeks ago, Thai PBS had a news story saying another deputy police chief by the name of Torsak -- and not Surchate -- was headed toward being named the new national police chief. Now yesterday, I see the BKK Post also has its own news story saying the same guy, Torsak, is headed toward being named the new national chief, especially after the recent raids this week on Big Joke and his subordinates, attributing that to a source in the Police Commission. Curiously, apart from the online gambling involvement claims, the Post report also has an item saying "a majority of the Police Commission" doesn't support Surachate because he's been accused in the past of unfair transfers of junior officers, which "upset several in the force" -- whatever that means. So, either it's looking like BJ is going to be passed over for the top job, OR, someone/someones in the police hierarchy are working very hard to make it appear that BJ isn't a viable candidate for the top job anymore. We shall see....

It's easy to make the current COVID stats look small when you post charts that compare the current levels with the huge peaks of earlier in the pandemic. But that nothwithstanding, for example, close to 1,000 people are still dying of COVID every week in the U.S., and weekly new COVID hospitalizations have been running about 20,000 per week. Not so small if you're among those still dying or being hospitalized. Here are those respective charts for the U.S. that look at the trends since the start of 2023: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklyhospitaladmissions_select_00 Parallel to that, the Thai MoPH has reported more than 800 COVID deaths and more than 33,000 COVID hospitalizations since the start of 2023, including 234 new COVID hospitalizations just in the past week. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

Yes, when the vaccinated pool is more than 5 billion people and 13+ billion COVID doses worldwide, you can find some actual side effect cases caused by vaccination -- and not just some timing coincidence. But as the WHO and CDC and the medical community have repeatedly advised, serious side effects have been very rare and more than offset by the risks of COVID itself.

"An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases." https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5 Obviously, the above cited COVID deaths were among folks who did not get vaccinated by the end of 2021 and ended up dying as a result. And that's if the world had just gotten to a 40% vaccination rate by the end of 2021, which it did not accomplish.... much less 50%, 70%, 90% etc.

COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say June 24, 2022 Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday. ... The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom. An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5

In the early going, the original vaccines substantially reduced infection and thus transmission among those who actually were vaccinated. That's not the same as your blunt, and inaccurate claim, that somehow vaccines were supposed to entirely stop transmission -- even when almost 30% of the world's population never got vaccinated even up thru today. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

Experts said the vaccines would largely stop transmission of the original virus strain among those vaccinated, and it did at very high levels in the early going. But obviously, many people chose to not get vaccinated or took time to be able to get vaccinated, and the virus evolved to be more vaccine resistant over time. Experts said the vaccines are safe, and they have been for the vast majority of the nearly 6 billion people in the world who have received them, totaling more than 13 billion doses -- with serious side effects very rare among those vaccinated, and the benefits far outweighing the risks. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/covid-19-vaccines/advice Benefits of Vaccination Outweigh the Risks "Serious side effects that could cause a long-term health problem are extremely rare following any vaccination, including COVID-19 vaccination. The benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/safety-of-vaccines.html

But the smart and sensible folks are.... ???? "Precautions like masking and staying up-to-date on vaccinations are especially important as this rise in COVID-19 carries into the broader respiratory virus season, experts say. "With every respiratory disease season -- whether it's COVID, whether it's influenza, whether it's RSV -- those increases can impact different individuals in different ways, and there are always severe outcomes associated with respiratory disease season," Hamilton said. "Now is the time for us to be practicing good respiratory etiquette. Now is the time for us to remind ourselves to think about our own individual health status and those individuals that we may be around." https://abc7chicago.com/covid-cases-2023-cdc-immunity-testing/13738857/

Thai banks, at least some of them such as Krungsri, have a method whereby a spouse's name can be invisibly added to the account records and the passbook. The bank passbook's face page will still show only you (the farang) as the sole account holder, and that's all Immigration would see. But the bank, when it examines the passbook, can see the spouse's name added invisibly on (I believe) a place in the very back of the book. Via that method, it would allow the named spouse immediate and full access to the account in the event of the death of the primary accountholder, without having to put the account deposit thru Thai probate.

No one ever said you had to be smart or sensible to be a Thai politician.

Your cite above seems to involve influenza cases and deaths (four) in Thailand during 2023 up to mid-September. During that same period, the Thai MoPH reported 802 COVID deaths thru Sept. 16, and stopped counting actual COVID cases (infections) as of last fall, now counting only new COVID hospitalizations. Considering your cited four influenza deaths vs. 800+ COVID deaths during the same period of 2023, seems SO! https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main It also sounds like a pretty compelling argument for the public to continue wearing face masks both as a protection against COVID and other respiratory illnesses. He's certainly convinced me!

Then you just added what more there is to say.....

Except for, among other things, the more than 33,000 Thais who have been hospitalized because of COVID thus far this year, and the 800+ who have died because of it, all during 2023.

Apart from the issue of paying monthly fees for international fund transfers, which can be pricey depending on which banks are used, the other potential issue of doing ongoing 12 monthly foreign transfers per year is.... These days, banks in both the U.S. and the U.K. can be difficult with customers if they come to believe those customers are in fact living outside their home country, as the recent reports of UK Barclay's planning to close accounts of non-residents indicate. Someone who's doing ongoing monthly and sizable transfers from their home country account to an account in their name in a foreign country (like Thailand) could possibly result in their home country bank starting to ask unpleasant questions at some point in time.

Perspective from the U.S.: It seems like everyone has COVID. Why this wave may be worse than official data suggests Experts agree that there are probably more infections than the current surveillance systems can capture. September 5, 2023 ... "But despite the clear signs of a summer surge, the US has been living in a "fantasy world" where people pretend COVID-19 is "not relevant," Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Task Force coordinator during the Trump administration, told ABC's "Start Here" podcast. "We wanted to make it like flu because that was easier, but it's never going to be like flu," Birx said, explaining that COVID-19 comes in more frequent waves, makes people sicker, kills more people and can have longer-term complications such as long COVID." https://abc7chicago.com/covid-cases-2023-cdc-immunity-testing/13738857/

With the current Omicron strains, those who are elderly and/or those with various pre-existing medical conditions (like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, etc.) are at the highest risk for bad COVID outcomes. Others than above are not exempt from risk of bad COVID outcomes, but their odds as things stand now are much better. Prior vaccinations and prior COVID infections are believed to be among the factors that are blunting the current severity of the disease. COVID-19 less severe due to Omicron variants, vaccinations and previous infections 07-03-2023 "The consequences of infections involving the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 are decreasing. This is because nearly everyone in the Netherlands has built up immunity to COVID-19 as a result of vaccination and/or previous infection, and because the current Omicron variants are less likely to cause serious illness." ... "Compared to the Alpha and Delta variants, the Omicron variants are less likely to cause serious illness." https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/covid-19-less-severe-due-to-omicron-variants-vaccinations-and-previous-infections-0

That's the one where the coffee seller pees into the coffee cup... Basically, they're just charging for the cost of the cup and overhead. The pee is free! ????

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be big fans of the "Borat" movies... That would explain it all!