TallGuyJohninBKK

Thailand MoPH Weekly COVID report for Nov. 19 - 25: --480 new COVID hospitalizations, up 90 from the prior week --2 new COVID deaths, up from 1 the prior week --82 COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition, down 1 from the prior week --45 COVID patients hospitalized requiring intubation to breathe, up 5 from the prior week https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

More than 1,000 Americans have been dying from COVID every week since late August until the latest complete weekly reports shown below in BLUE, according to the CDC's tally. A good reminder that Americans who have access to the latest COVID vaccines, and especially the most vulnerable being older people and those with chronic health issues, ought to get vaccinated and greatly reduce their risks of serious COVID health issues. "Provisional data are non-final counts of deaths based on the flow of mortality data in NVSS. Deaths include those with COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1, as an underlying or contributing cause of death on the death certificate. Death data are displayed by date of death (event)." "Data during recent periods are incomplete because of the lag in time between when a death occurs and when a death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS, and processed for reporting. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction. The most recent 3 weeks of mortality counts are shaded grey and mortality rates shown as dotted lines because NVSS reporting is <95% during this period." https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00 AND https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_new-admissions-rate-county https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklyhospitaladmissions_select_00

Sheryl, I've never heard that they do... But on a related issue, they have recently expanded to serving several other sending countries beyond the U.S., and their roster now, I believe, includes Germany, France, Australia and the U.K. https://www.facebook.com/WeShippingUSA/photos People can see their rate cards for the different sending countries in their Facebook photos catalog. One difference, though, is that with the U.S., they offer BOTH the inexpensive and slower sea shipping method and the more expensive and quicker air shipping method. Whereas with the other non-U.S. sending countries, they appear to only be offering the quicker and more expensive air shipping method (plus/minus 1,000 baht per kilo), but NOT the cheaper and slower sea shipping method. This is a video they posted to their FB page recently showing the volume of packages they're handling via their Virginia sea shipping warehouse: https://www.facebook.com/WeShippingUSA/videos/1109180083401769/ Lotta Amazon, Walmart and Target on display there... :-)

1. Also per the AP: "Halderman told The Associated Press in a phone interview that while he’s seen no evidence the vulnerabilities were exploited to change the outcome of the 2020 election..." https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-science-voting-election-2020-6755cf1c409f4aab613df8891b84272d You want an insecure voting system. Try this one that was hatched and carried out by allies of the former president and allegedly with his knowledge: "It also led to the exposure of a breach of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county, which has resulted in criminal charges for several people as part of the sprawling Fulton County indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 others." ... "Halderman ... has said the risks presented by those vulnerabilities were exacerbated when a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies copied data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County in January 2021 and distributed it to an unknown number of people." https://apnews.com/article/voting-machines-georgia-lawsuit-cybersecurity-d8a4653211bf19c21d3b9dc2d59a7a61 "The plot to breach voting systems in Coffee County, coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, is part of a broader criminal investigation into 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis." On January 7, 2021, the day after rioters stormed the US Capitol, two people walked into an elections office in Coffee County, Georgia, a rural part of the state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. A local election official helped them gain access to sensitive voting data which they downloaded onto a portable hard drive.     ... Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during a now infamous Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump.  https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics/trump-georgia-senate-breached-voting-data/index.html Which led to criminal charges against the aforementioned Georgia county elections official: MISTY HAMPTON "She was the elections director in Coffee County. Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment." https://apnews.com/article/trump-georgia-fraud-defendants-201d73d2a6b165d06230961af9f21b61

Hmm... what could the reason be? Nothing particular comes to mind, except perhaps:

Rishi Sunak denies saying it was ‘OK’ to ‘just let people die’ of Covid "Rishi Sunak has denied saying it was “OK” to let people die of coronavirus. The Prime Minister was asked about a diary entry by Sir Patrick Vallance, who was the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, that was shared with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. The extract from October 25 2020 read that Boris Johnson, when he was prime minister, had argued for “letting” Covid “rip” through the population as ministers debated a second lockdown in England. The same entry has Sir Patrick recording that Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s most senior adviser at the time, as having said: “Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s OK.” (more) https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/rishi-sunak-denies-saying-it-was-ok-to-just-let-people-die-of-covid/ar-AA1kIQSZ?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=2024619585b148dedfa2d12263e5b394&ei=5

Now the only question will be... are the balls found to be on offer made of pork and beef, or horse meat or something else? From 2013: Horsemeat scandal: Ikea withdraws all meatballs from UK stores Furniture company stops sales of meatballs in more than 20 European countries after batch tests positive for horse DNA https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/feb/25/horsemeat-scandal-ikea-meatballs-uk

"...provisional statistics show there have been about 3,000 registered COVID-19 deaths in Australia from January to July 2023. Older people and those with weaker immune systems are expected to remain at greatest risk of developing severe COVID during this current wave. ... ...by the end of October 2023, it was estimated only one-quarter of Australians aged 65-74, one-third of people aged 75 or over and fewer than half (45 per cent) of people in aged care had received a COVID vaccine in the past six months." https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/a-new-covid-19-wave-has-hit-australia-heres-what-you-can-expect-this-time/86sr64u7r

The Australia COVID stats in the OP covered the period thru Oct. 24... Below is a more recent update thru mid Nov. just for New South Wales (NSW): November 23, 2023 "NSW is in the grip of its eighth COVID-19 wave as the latest NSW Health data reveals that infection rates have doubled since the beginning of October. Released on Thursday, the data shows a 16 per cent increase in community infections in the fortnight to November 18, compared with the previous reporting period, for those who have tested positive for COVID-19 via PCR testing. ... The total number of people presenting at emergency departments in the past fortnight was also higher than for the previous two weeks, NSW Health said, but the proportion who required admission remained stable, indicating that the severity of the virus circulating in the community remained unchanged. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/what-you-need-to-know-about-covid-and-vaccines-now-20231123-p5em8v.html

Hey, there's no longer an official "pandemic" and COVID isn't an issue any more, so some people keep saying.... (sarcasm alert!)

Note: "The number of deaths occurring in August and September 2023 is not reflective of the true total and will increase as additional death registrations are received by the ABS. Other time periods may also change if the death registration process has been delayed." https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/covid-19-mortality-australia-deaths-registered-until-30-september-2023

Regardless of the overstatements by Biden, per Reuters, many others made clear to the public just what was and wasn't known at the time: "As clinical trial data on vaccine efficacy against the main endpoints – symptomatic and severe disease -- began to be released in November 2020 (here), researchers and regulators made clear in public statements that the vaccines’ effect on virus transmission remained unknown (here)." However, as it turned out in the real world: VACCINE DID REDUCE TRANSMISSION "Within months of the vaccine hitting the market, researchers in the UK (here) and Israel (here) began publishing studies suggesting that the Pfizer vaccine was reducing transmission of the virus." AND "Evidence continued to build in 2021 that the mRNA-based vaccines prevented infections and onward transmission of the virus (here). But with the advent that year of the coronavirus Delta variant, plus waning immunity from vaccines delivered at the start of the year, protection against infection and transmission was seen to be dropping, although not eliminated, as previously described by Reuters Fact Check (here)." https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-transmission/fact-check-preventing-transmission-never-required-for-covid-vaccines-initial-approval-pfizer-vax-did-reduce-transmission-of-early-variants-idUSL1N31F20E/ So even though the vaccines were not approved on the basis of clinical trials that evaluated reducing transmission, that's in fact what the vaccines did do and accomplish in the real world, particularly in the pre-Omicron period the pandemic. Not 100% prevention of transmission... but sizable factors of prevention, depending on the varying details involved. So yes, when people got their COVID vaccines, they were doing so BOTH to help protect themselves, AND to help protect others around them. The anti-vaxers here love to focus on Biden's vaccine overstatements, but somehow they don't much like to talk about the millions of lives saved and the many many millions more worldwide who avoided serious COVID illness and hospitalization by being vaccinated. Just the U.S. as one example: Two Years of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccines Have Prevented Millions of Hospitalizations and Deaths ... "From December 2020 through November 2022, we estimate that the COVID-19 vaccination program in the U.S. prevented more than 18.5 million additional hospitalizations and 3.2 million additional deaths. Without vaccination, there would have been nearly 120 million more COVID-19 infections. The vaccination program also saved the U.S. $1.15 trillion (Credible Interval: $1.10 trillion–$1.19 trillion) (data not shown) in medical costs that would otherwise have been incurred." https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/two-years-covid-vaccines-prevented-millions-deaths-hospitalizations

You're reading the meaning of the two charts wrong. The first chart is DAILY NEW COVID CASES based on a 7-day rolling average. The second chart is total numbers of COVID cases then in hospital (not daily new COVID hospitalizations) on a 7-day rolling average. The COVID hospitalized being counted in this tally could have been in hospital at that point for one day, one week, one month or longer. Thus those are two different kinds of figures that aren't comparable with each other.

Hi... Regarding your questions... 1. I dunno why WSUSA messes around with their Amso request (I don't know what it even means)... When I set up my service with them, I asked them via FB Messenger to just use my regular first and last name as the addressee on my account, and they agreed and that's the way I've been doing it since my very first package with them. I'd imagine, they'd be willing to do the same for you if you asked. 2. In my case, when I set up my service with them, they asked for, and I gave them, my Thailand delivery address (home address), which is always the same. And then whenever I have a new sea or air shipment that's arrived, they automatically just use that address... Though before they send the EMS package to me here of the things that have arrived in TH, they always send me a FB Messenger message confirming the delivery address at the same time they send me the payment amount to pay via bank transfer. If a customer were regularly going to be sending the packages to different or more than one address in Thailand, I'd imagine you could inform them of that upfront, and see how they want to handle it.... If I wanted to send to some different address in Thailand sometimes, I know they can/will accommodate that.... But, I just haven't done it myself thus far. As I mentioned previously, you pretty much transact all communication and transactions with them via their FB Messenger account. And the lady handling that here in BKK can write in passable, transactional English. Hope that helps....

21 Nov, 2023 New Zealand’s fifth Covid-19 wave appears to be driving the largest spike in infections seen all year, an epidemiologist says - and offers a glimpse of our long-term future with the coronavirus. Health officials yesterday announced 7881 new reported Covid-19 cases over the week to Sunday, of which 1474 were “probable” cases – that was up from 5947 and 1047 respectively on the week before. Hospitalisation numbers, too, had ticked upward, from 284 to 349 week-on-week, as had virus detected in wastewater surveillance. (more) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fifth-covid-19-wave-looks-to-be-driving-biggest-bump-since-january-michael-baker/DRONCSVWAZGXXEENRSRBA6EIMA/

Herd immunity and a ‘bamboozled’ PM: what we learned at the UK Covid inquiry this week The inquiry heard evidence of threats against scientists, and more metaphors from Jonathan Van-Tam Fri 24 Nov 2023 ""It has been another busy and often enlightening week at the UK Covid inquiry. Here are some of the things we learned – or in some cases relearned. Herd immunity was not government policy This has been said before but it was significant to hear Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, set out how a nuanced epidemiological concept used primarily for modelling became so widely misunderstood – including by ministers – that it was widely mistaken for a policy goal. Whitty said he urged people in government to stop publicly discussing a subject that they “half understood” at best, and explained how herd immunity as misunderstood by some – letting a virus run unchecked through a population – would have caused “an extraordinarily high loss of life”. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/24/what-we-learned-at-uk-covid-inquiry-this-week

"It was the first time the Covid inquiry had heard directly from Rishi Sunak and things went immediately awry for the prime minister: his claim in a witness statement that no one had raised concerns about a flagship pandemic policy was immediately contradicted by the government’s former chief scientific adviser. Monday’s tussle over the “eat out to help out” scheme, in which Sir Patrick Vallance responded to an extract read out from Sunak’s statement, which has yet to be published, was arguably more embarrassing than damaging. But with the prime minister scheduled to appear in person soon, the dangers are piling up. More and more details are emerging about the role of the man referred to disparagingly by one scientific adviser as “Dr Death the chancellor”. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/25/matters-of-life-and-death-sunak-faces-mounting-danger-at-covid-inquiry

From the OP report: "In May this year, the [European] Commission quietly announced a substantial renegotiation of the offending deal. It was reducing — by an unspecified amount — the number of doses outstanding, while the deliveries would also be more spread out, into 2026. Poland, however, refused to sign up to the revised deal."

But then again, none of this should be particularly surprising given that Doshi is something of the BMJ's resident anti-vaxer, with a long history of what real researchers in the field of vaccines and medical experts (which he is not, having his PhD in anthropology and history) say have been misleading and inaccurate anti-vax reports. Such as: Peer review fail: Vaccine publishes antivax propaganda disguised as “reanalyses” of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data In order portray COVID-19 vaccines as dangerous, Peter Doshi has now managed to get poorly designed and performed “reanalyses” of the clinical trial data used by the FDA to grant emergency use approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines published in two reputable journals, The BMJ and Vaccine? What happened? September 5, 2022 ... "I also listed a number of other examples of The BMJ‘s failures with respect to reports and studies on vaccines, a pattern that, unfortunately, did predate the pandemic and has been traceable to one of its editors, Peter Doshi, who has a long history of antivaccine-adjacent and outright antivaccine stylings going back at least to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Indeed, one of his “reanalyses” resulted in what I like to call the “slasher lie” about the Pfizer vaccine that it is only 12-19% effective against COVID-19." https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/peer-review-fail-vaccine-publishes-antivax-propaganda/ AND "Shocking" Report On Flu Vaccine Is Neither Shocking Nor Correct Nov 3, 2014 ... So I was surprised to stumble upon an article titled “Johns Hopkins Scientist Reveals Shocking Report on Flu Vaccines,” which popped up on an anti-vaccine website two weeks ago.... I soon discovered that this article contained only a tiny seed of truth, surrounded by a mountain of anti-vaccine misinformation. Most of it focused on a report published in early 2013 by Peter Doshi, a former postdoctoral fellow at Hopkins. ... But Doshi’s motivation, as evidenced by the relentlessly negative slant of his entire article, seems to be to convince people that the flu vaccine is bad. Not surprisingly, the anti-vaccine movement has embraced Doshi (for example, here and here). And unfortunately, he seems to have accepted their acclaim: in 2009, he spoke at an anti-vaccine conference hosted by NVIC, a notorious (and misleadingly named) anti-vaccination group." https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2014/11/03/shocking-report-on-flu-vaccine-is-neither-shocking-nor-correct/?sh=7131873778a7 "Doshi earned an A.B. in anthropology from Brown University, an A.M. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and Ph.D. in history, anthropology, and science, technology and society from MIT." https://faculty.rx.umaryland.edu/pdoshi/

Also, the headline of the OP article is predictably off-target, since "revolving door" typically is meant to refer to people/employees/execs who leave Sector A, go to Sector B, and then come back to Sector A. That's what makes it a "revolving door," because they come back to where they started after leaving. In the case at hand, apparently, the two FDA former employees left government service and took private sector jobs -- something that happens all the time and every day across the federal government. But, contrary to the notion of "revolving door," they have NOT then gone back into government service. And, as the OP article notes, even their private sector role once they left the FDA severely restricts any ability for them in the future to do much for their private employer directly involving the FDA, as would be reasonable and expected from an ethics perspective. From the OP report: "[FDA] Employees are required to adhere to post-government employment guidance: restrictions include a permanent ban on “switching sides,” defined as “a lifetime ban on communicating to or appearing before the government on behalf of their new employer or anyone else regarding specific party matters in which they participated personally and substantially during their entire government service.” So much for Peter Doshi's revolving door....

I guess it will be left to history to judge if the U.S. FDA did the right thing... Thus far, the results say YES! 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. ... “Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn’t been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines.” 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. (more) https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5 AND Report: COVID-19 vaccines saved US $1.15 trillion, 3 million lives December 14, 2022 "A Commonwealth Fund study estimates that, through November 2022, COVID-19 vaccines prevented more than 18.5 million US hospitalizations and 3.2 million deaths and saved the country $1.15 trillion. ... Approved COVID-19 vaccines have been available in the United States since December of 2020. Since Dec 12, 2020, 82 million infections, 4.8 million hospitalizations, and 798,000 deaths have been reported in the United States. "Without vaccination the U.S. would have experienced 1.5 times more infections, 3.8 times more hospitalizations, and 4.1 times more deaths," the authors wrote. "These losses would have been accompanied by more than $1 trillion in additional medical costs that were averted because of fewer infections, hospitalizations, and deaths." (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/report-covid-19-vaccines-saved-us-115-trillion-3-million-lives

Did someone say DUOPOLY?? "November 11, 2023 BANGKOK -- Thailand's telecommunications regulator decided on Friday to allow the sale of Triple T Broadband, or 3BB, to Advanced Info Service (AIS), turning the country's broadband market into a virtual duopoly. The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) cleared the way for AIS to purchase 100% of 3BB, as well as a 19% stake in Jasmine Broadband Internet Infrastructure Fund (JASIF), the owner of 3BB's fiber optic assets. The deal, valued at 32.4 billion baht ($899 million), would give AIS access to 3BB's upcountry broadband markets, where the former has limited coverage." https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Telecommunication/Thai-telecoms-regulator-clears-AIS-acquisition-of-broadband-rival Funny how the local Thai news reports don't actually clearly say what the deal really is -- which is AIS fully buying out competitor 3BB, so as a result, they're no longer in competition with each other in the fiber internet field -- which rarely is a good thing for consumers in the marketplace. AIS, previously part of Thaksin's communications empire, still is owned by one of Thailand's richest men today -- according to the above report -- Gulf Energy CEO Sarath Ratanavadi. So presumably, the rich here will keep getting richer. Just as True, also owned by another of Thailand's richest families (the Charoen Pokphand Group under the Chearavanont family) recently merged/took over DTAC in the mobile communications business. So 3BB and DTAC are effectively gone from a corporate ownership perspective, and AIS and True are left standing and in control.

It certainly seems as though there's nothing new or alarming here... despite concerted efforts to mislead to the contrary: From the above OP report: DNA in Vaccines Is Not Inherently Dangerous "Research into residual DNA in vaccines dates back decades. Anti-vaccine fear-mongering about residual DNA or other substances in vaccines is also not a new phenomenon. Many currently available vaccines are made using cells. Some vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, rely on weakened virus that is grown in cells. For other vaccines, such as for hepatitis A, viruses are grown in cell culture and then inactivated.... In all of these cases, the active ingredients for the vaccines are purified, but the vaccines can still contain small amounts of residual DNA from the cells used to make them. The FDA and other regulatory agencies have offered guidance on limiting the quantity and size of residual DNA left over from cells used to make vaccines."

A bit delayed for last week's MoPH COVID report because of the forum being down: Thailand MoPH Weekly COVID report for Nov. 12 - 18: --390 new COVID hospitalizations, up 103 from the prior week --1 new COVID death, unchanged from the prior week --83 COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition, up 16 from the prior week --40 COVID patients hospitalized requiring intubation to breathe, up 10 from the prior week https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

No to the first question... Just an ordinary, not privileged, traveler. As for the second one, my comment on the absence of the passport scanning machines was based on arriving to the Tom Bradley terminal in Los Angeles.