TallGuyJohninBKK

Compared to the beginning of April: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/

The two studies I previously posted on the subject, which you quoted from above, covered periods early in the pandemic, either 2020 or 2020 to 2021.

The Thai Ministry of Public Health is finally out with their updated COVID data reporting for last week, May 21-27: New COVID hospitalizations and serious cases rise again to new yearly highs, while new deaths decline

New COVID hospitalizations in Thailand, including those in serious condition, rose again last week to once again set new yearly highs for 2023, even while new COVID deaths declined for the week, according to newly released data from the Ministry of Public Health. Thailand recorded 2,970 new COVID hospitalizations for the week May 21-27, averaging 424 per day and up nearly 13% from the prior week's figure of 2,632. With the latest data, new weekly COVID hospitalizations in Thailand have now increased for eight of the past nine weeks, and last week were almost 18 times higher than the 167 weekly figure recorded at the beginning of April. Likewise, the count of COVID patients currently hospitalized in serious condition rose to a new yearly high for 2023 of 425, up 6% from the prior week's figure of 401. Also, the count of hospitalized COVID patients requiring intubation in order to breath also set a new yearly high for 2023 of 253, up 12% from the prior week's figure of 226. Both tallies have now increased for each of the past seven weeks. The only good news in the latest report involved new COVID deaths, which fell to 42 for the week May 21-27, down 34% from the 64 recorded for May 14-20, which was the second highest weekly tally of 2023. Still, the most recent week's 42 new COVID deaths were 14 times higher than the 3 new COVID deaths reported at the beginning of April, when the current COVID surge in Thailand began. Normally, the Thai Ministry of Public Health has been providing its weekly COVID updates every Monday for the prior week. But this week, for unexplained reasons, the updated data for last week was not made public until yesterday/Thursday. The purple sections in the MoPH graphic below show Thailand's counts, as of last week, for COVID hospitalized patients in serious condition and those hospitalized who are requiring intubation in order to breathe, which together total 678 COVID hospitalized patients. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main With the latest week's data, Thailand has now reported 426 official COVID deaths and 18,039 COVID hospitalizations since the start of 2023. Thailand no longer publicly counts or reports just COVID infections or positive COVID test results, though Thai doctors recently have estimated the country may be experiencing 20,000 to 40,000 new COVID infections per day. Source: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/siriraj-hospitals-icu-and-ipd-fully-occupied-with-covid-19-patients/

Got a question. In Joe's absence, hope someone else can chime in based on personal experience. I just came back from a trip to the U.S. via re-entry permit on my retirement extension, which of course triggered a new and different 90 day reporting cycle for me vs. the original one I had on file in the Immigration database. When my new 90-day reporting date comes due, will I be able to do the report using the online system? Or, I'll instead have to do it by paper mail or via an in-person visit to my local Immigration office, that being BKK? Any experience re this among recent intl travelers, much appreciated!

The study you cited found a correlation between the TIMING of people receiving a vaccine and then developing some condition. TIMING correlation is not the same as CAUSATION. There MAY be a causation link, but it's one that needs to be proven to be real, which the cited study did not do. It's like the old story about COVID vaccines -- a person gets a COVID vaccine, walks out of the vaccination center and gets hit and killed by a bus.... So are we to presume that COVID vaccines also trigger deaths by bus crashes? Time correlation does not automatically mean causation.

The Lupus Foundation of America seems to think otherwise, at least in terms of COVID vaccines being a cause for lupus. "What if I have a family history of lupus, could the vaccine trigger the disease for me? It is not likely that the COVID-19 vaccine could cause lupus and there have not been any reports of that happening.... The vaccine stimulates the immune system, but it does so in a very specific way that does not trigger an autoimmune response.... Studies have also shown that the vaccine generally does not lead to increased disease activity in people with lupus." https://www.lupus.org/resources/covid19-vaccine-and-lupus Also, from a recent study on lupus and COVID vaccines: February 7, 2023 COVID-19 Vaccine Response and Management in People with Lupus "The COVID vaccine was most effective and did not trigger disease flares when vaccine administration was managed along with the person’s lupus medications. Some immunosuppressive drugs used to treat lupus increase COVID infection risk and decrease the vaccine’s effectiveness." https://www.lupus.org/news/covid19-vaccine-response-and-management-in-people-with-lupus In fact, the CDC and the American College of Rheumatology recommend that people with lupus and other autoimmune conditions get the vaccine, including an additional dose and a booster shot.

The current COVID vaccines REDUCE the odds of people getting sick from, being hospitalized from, or dying from COVID... They don't eliminate the risk. Which is why public health authorities, including the Thai Ministry of Public Health, continue to recommend people continue to take companion measures to protect themselves and their health, such as face mask wear and social distancing and hand hygiene. Which a lot of posters here choose to ignore. The U.S. CDC released a report in the past week that looked at the effectiveness of the current bivalent COVID vaccines at preventing COVID related hospitalizations. Their findings: "During the first 7–59 days after vaccination, compared with no vaccination, VE for receipt of a bivalent vaccine dose among adults aged ≥18 years was 62% (95% CI = 57%–67%) among adults without immunocompromising conditions." AND "Among adults without immunocompromising conditions, VE declined to 24% (95% CI = 12%–33%) among those aged ≥18 years by 120–179 days after vaccination." ... "A bivalent booster dose provided the highest protection, and protection was sustained through at least 179 days against critical outcomes, including intensive care unit (ICU) admission or in-hospital death." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7221a3.htm COVID vaccination is an important protective tool. But these days, with the virus continuing to mutate into the latest XBB form, it's not an absolute protection against COVID illness. Which makes the companion protective measures even more important.

1. It's clear from the article that the woman involved here had some kind of allergic condition PRIOR to receiving her COVID vaccines. Per the report: "During that time, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, her workplace, a golf course, offered employees the opportunity to receive a vaccine. However, Ice informed her employer that she couldn't get vaccinated due to her self-allergy." 2. This is what the Global Autoimmune Institute has to say on the subject: "I have an autoimmune disease – am I at risk of experiencing a flare-up from the vaccine? There is a risk that flare-ups may occur. That being said, it has been observed that people living with autoimmune and inflammatory conditions are at higher risk of experiencing severe symptoms from a COVID-19 infection. Due to this concern, the American College of Rheumatology has stated that “the benefit of COVID-19 vaccination outweighs any small, possible risks for new autoimmune reactions or disease flare after vaccination. ... Prominent autoimmune disease organizations share a common consensus: that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh possible risks of experiencing new autoimmune reactions or flare-ups." https://www.autoimmuneinstitute.org/articles/covid-19-information/vaccine-autoimmune-disease-faq/#am-i-at-risk-of-a-flare-up

It's also been well established that COVID infections themselves can lead to post infection auto immune diseases or worsening of existing conditions: High risk of autoimmune diseases after COVID-19 Published: 12 April 2023 Two studies that use large cohorts now highlight that SARS-CoV-2 infection is linked to a substantially increased risk of developing a diverse spectrum of new-onset autoimmune diseases. ... As SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could be a potential confounding factor, only unvaccinated individuals were included in the analyses. The incidence of autoimmune conditions at 6 months follow-up was significantly higher in the COVID-19 cohort than in the non-COVID-19 group. ... A similar study by Tesch et. al.3, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, evaluated a cohort of 640,701 vaccination-naive individuals with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 during 2020 for the risk of autoimmune conditions. The researchers identified a 42.6% higher likelihood of acquiring an autoimmune condition 3–15 months after infection compared with a non-COVID-19 cohort of 1,560,357 individuals..." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41584-023-00964-y

Now add the MBK shopping mall in BKK to the list for June. Via Google Translate: Central Hospital opens COVID-19 Moderna (Bivalent) vaccination Saturdays and Sundays at MBK Center, 6th floor area, Zone D. Dates: June 3-4, 10-11, 17-18, 24-25 Time: 9 am to 3 pm Interested can walk-in for vaccination with the following terms and documents to be prepared. Thai people : Real national ID card Foreigners living or working in Thailand: The real passport (Passport) by paying for the vaccination service as prescribed by the Ministry of Health. - Foreign tourists. Service fee is 1,380 Baht. - - Thai people for free (no service charge) Ask for details MBK Contact Center 1285 https://www.facebook.com/PRK514/posts/pfbid0gHwRKa3dQVAP1dh4op2sgMTAi9tG5FuzK7FfA1NVvRK29fSyZvncdHtNnWZs5yGUl

The entire report/claim in the Outlook India article hangs on one sentence relating to a claim made more than a year ago by an official with the European Medicines Agency, which was reported and later corrected by that official. From the Outlook India article: "As per a statement made by the European Medicine Authority, repeated vaccines may weaken the body's immune response system to fight Covid-19." From the Fact Check article I cited above: "“Despite what some people have incorrectly reported, Dr Cavaleri has never said or implied that the repeated administration of boosters would weaken the immune system in any way,” an EMA spokesperson told us in an email. “What he said is that repeated administration of boosters might lead to the immune response to the vaccine [booster] being lower, which means the vaccines [boosters] could become less effective.” Cavaleri clarified his comments in a Jan. 18 briefing, when he said repeated boosters with short intervals “might reduce the level of antibodies that can be produced at each administration, as our immune system needs a certain amount of time to mature the response to the antigens it is presented with. So, potentially making the vaccination a little bit less efficient over time.” https://www.factcheck.org/2022/02/scicheck-covid-19-booster-enhances-protection-contrary-to-immune-fatigue-claims/ The claim that vaccines weaken the immune system was mis-reported at the outset and later corrected and clarified by the official involved.

The symptoms you ticked off above are well-known and established symptoms of so-called "Long COVID" -- lingering COVID symptoms that follow an original COVID infection. The symptoms you ticked off are NOT, AFAIK, any kind of known or established long-term side effects of any COVID vaccinations. You may be placing your blame in the wrong bucket. These 12 symptoms may define long COVID, new study finds https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/these-12-symptoms-may-define-long-covid-new-study-finds

I'd wager it will be a COLD day in hell before that's likely to happen.... ????

But you still felt compelled to post an unsourced and unsubstantiated claim here that you acknowledged could be "BS," which as it turns out, indeed is a claim that has been documented to be false. COVID-19 Booster Enhances Protection, Contrary to ‘Immune Fatigue’ Claims Posted on February 4, 2022 "A COVID-19 booster dose increases protection against the coronavirus. But in an interview, comedian Bill Maher incorrectly said COVID-19 booster shots were “useless” and could cause “immune system fatigue.” Online, others have made similar claims. There is no basis for the notion that the immune system would tire out, even after repeated boosters." https://www.factcheck.org/2022/02/scicheck-covid-19-booster-enhances-protection-contrary-to-immune-fatigue-claims/

Thanks for all the various software solutions offered here... I think all of them cited are freeware. And they each seem to be pretty much what I was looking for at the outset!

As usual on matters relating to COVID, you're both mistaken and confused. What Thailand since last fall reports as COVID "cases" are in fact only new COVID hospitalizations, while other countries such as South Korea are still reporting cases as cases... So you can't compare or add the two data points together. Since last fall, Thailand has taken its own peculiar and different way of tracking COVID, and back then stopped officially counting and publicly reporting mere cases/positive tests/infections. Now Thailand only reports new COVID hospitalizations. So trying to put Thailand's and South Korea's COVID counts into the same basket is like trying to compare apples and oranges.

"Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is currently supported under Windows XP (with Service Pack 3), Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, 8, 10 and Windows Server 2012-2022 Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License." https://eraser.heidi.ie/download/ From one of the review links posted on the Eraser website: Q. What’ s the best tool for permanently deleting files from my hard drive? "Eraser from eraser.heidi.ie and File Shredder from fileshredder.org come to mind, but there are many others. File deletion apps like the ones I mention delete the files and overwrite the space on the drive where the files were, making recovery difficult to impossible. Of course, if you’re looking to wipe your entire hard drive, there’s no better tool than Darik’s Boot and Nuke from dban.org." https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/How-to-spot-even-the-most-realistic-email-scams-17247591.php

The abovementioned Darik's software has got that covered.... "There's a popular freeware app called DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) that writes to all the sectors using secure sanitization methods." "Select the method of drive erasure by hitting M if you want something other than the default, DoD Short method. DoD short is a 3-pass version of the American Depart of Defense 5220.22-M wipe process. It overwrites all sectors with zeroes on the first pass, overwrites them with ones on the second pass and then uses a random pattern on the third pass. A standard DoD 5220.22-M erasure is 7 passes. The more passes, the longer the secure erase takes. The DoD short method should be fine for most people so you can skip this step if you agree."

Wow..... "In the depths of a landfill in Wales rests a hard drive with bitcoins currently worth around $185 million. James Howells, the man who accidentally threw the drive in the trash nine years ago, explains his crazy plan to locate, extract and restore the lost coins."

The two laptops I'm looking to dispose of are 20+ years old... Any Thai computer shop I tried to hand them off to (even though they're still functional)...would probably laugh and hand them right back to me! ????

If you read the full article, it indicates that the methods for securely wiping traditional hard drives can be different from the ones used for newer SSDs... In my case, both my laptops have the older traditional platter hard drives. Ahhh... this is a freeware solution I've heard of in the past....and one that I believe is credible. From the Tom's Hardware article linked above: "How to Securely Erase a Hard Drive The best way to make sure an old-fashioned mechanical hard drive is securely erased is to overwrite it with dummy data multiple times. There's a popular freeware app called DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) that writes to all the sectors using secure sanitization methods. DBAN is its own boot environment (no OS necessary) so you can use it to securely erase the boot drive on a computer without taking that drive out and attaching it to another PC. However, if the hard drive you're wiping is not the boot drive, you must be very careful when using DBAN so that you don't accidentally wipe the wrong drive." (more)

Here's a good explanation of why simply doing a surface erase or reformat doesn't really accomplish the job in a SECURE way. https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/secure-erase-ssd-or-hard-drive "If you're planning to sell / gift your old PC or just the drive inside, you need to securely erase your SSD or hard drive so that the next person can't gain access to your files. You could have sensitive files on the drive, which contain everything from your passwords to your photos to financial information that some could use to steal your identity. It almost goes without saying, but just deleting a file doesn't make it completely disappear. If you don't securely erase your SSD or hard drive, the operating system just removes a pointer to each deleted file, leaving all the bits in place, until the drive needs that space for new data and overwrites it. But that could take years or, if you have lots of free space, never happen. You might think that resetting Windows 10 or 11 with the option to delete your files enabled would get rid of all your personal data, but, as our tests provide, that's not the case."

Is there a free, obtainable version of that kind of software that I could use for the purpose? That's pretty much what I had in mind at the outset. I knew such software exists... I just didn't know where/what.

FWIW, just coincidental to this news, I was back in the U.S. recently, and stopped by Walmart to buy their new version on the Onn TV 4K streaming box with Google's new Google TV interface (Android OS 12). Retail price $20 U.S., and an official Google OS device with the official Netflix app as well. Brought it back home here, set it up, and have been using it the past couple weeks, and it works perfectly fine for streaming, just as well as Amazon's Fire TV sticks. But the Onn TV device, unlike recent Fire TV devices, has the advantage of easily being able to install a custom launcher that hides all the manufacturer bloatware and self-promotion. https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-Streaming-Box/2835618394?wmlspartner=wlpa& 4K UHD resolution TV streaming 2 GB RAM with 8 GB Storage WiFi: 2.4/5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MIMO Compatible with Google Assistant CPU: Quad-core Cortex-A35, GPU: Mali-G31 MP2 Dolby Audio Fast WiFi Input: AC 100-240V, 50/60Hz, 250mA max; Output: DC 5V/1A Google TV OS - easily setup with your Google account The prior version of the Onn TV 4K box, which was the Android TV instead of the newer Google TV version, was resold here on Lazada in the past. But I haven't checked lately to see whether any of the Lazada resellers now are offering the newer, just released version of the Onn TV device. I have nothing personal against the two Chinese ATV device makers discussed in the OP news report...and those brands certainly are popular here... But when you can have an official, certified 4K Google TV streaming device for $20, the case for buying Chinese, non Google certified hardware gets tougher.