TallGuyJohninBKK

The BKK Post just posted an article online saying new COVID deaths in the most recent week (May 21-27) declined to 42 compared to the year-high number of 64 in the previous week. Curiously, though, the Post's current online report is entirely silent on the latest weekly figures for new COVID hospitalizations, which also reached a year high number of 2,632 two weeks ago (May 14-20).

No, at least according to a government news report out today, talking about recent COVID deaths, they mostly remain those who are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated (wherein they appear to be saying un-boosted). Last paragraph of the following government news report dated today, via Google Translate: "Due to the statistics of COVID patients who died in the past week, more than 90% are those who have not been vaccinated or have not completed the vaccine." https://nbt2hd.prd.go.th/th/content/category/detail/id/2153/iid/185098 And talking about the breakdown of current COVID hospitalizations by type of symptoms, again via Google Translate of the second to last paragraph: --240 asymptomatic, representing 9.7%, --687 mild symptoms, representing 27.8%, --moderate symptom group, 1,146 cases, representing 46.30%, --402 heavy cases, 16.2%, --278 intubation, 11.2% Even though it's variants of Omicron, there are still nearly 700 people currently hospitalized with COVID in Thailand who are in serious condition and/or require intubation in order to breathe.

Which is relatively meaningless, because the demand for COVID serious condition hospital beds isn't spread as an average across the whole nation, but instead, is occurring mostly in a few provinces where the COVID hospitalization numbers are the highest. Provinces including Bangkok, Chonburi, Samut Sakhon, Surat Thani, Songkhla and a few others. Having spare, unused COVID beds in Chiang Mai isn't going to do much good for COVID hospitalizations in Bangkok.

One public hospital, one of the main and most prestigious ones in the country, publicly posted it's being overrun by COVID patients... Unfortunately, the Thai MoPH no longer publicly reports on COVID patient / hospital utilization rates as they did in the past. There very well could be multiple other hospitals in BKK and other high caseload areas that are experiencing the same COVID patient surges... but just not publicly talking about it. The government's central public health system isn't usually particularly keen to be publicly admitting they can't actually handle the patient demands they're facing.

Bangkok had 466 NEW COVID hospitalizations last week (May 14-20), out of 2,632 reported nationwide. And cumulatively for May 14-20, the Thai MoPH reported 401 COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition nationwide, with 226 requiring intubation because they're unable to breathe otherwise... Those tallies for a week ago were up from comparable numbers of 322 and 163 for the prior period two weeks ago of May 7-13. In other words, the nationwide tally of COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition increased by 79 just in a one-week period, and the number of COVID intubations increased by 63 in the same one week period. When you're adding hundreds of new COVID hospitalizations every week in Bangkok, it's not going to take very long before the medical infrastructure begins to get strained. Translation of latest MoPH chart on new COVID hospitalizations ranked by province, May 14-20: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=province And the latest weekly nationwide COVID recap report for May 14-20: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/

Sure glad to hear from the various and regular COVID denying posters here that COVID is done and gone in the world and in Thailand. Now, if they could only convince Siriraj Hospital and its overflowing numbers of critical condition COVID patients of the same. Siriraj Says All Beds For Critical Covid Patients Full https://aseannow.com/topic/1296093-siriraj-says-all-beds-for-critical-covid-patients-full/

Went back and checked my Amazon ordering history. My first orders of N95 masks from Amazon U.S. were several in early 2018.... and then continuing onward from there.... Long before COVID came along, masks were a thing in BKK, Chiang Mai and elsewhere.

I'm guessing, the translation of that issue equates to "drunk."

I'd been wearing N95 masks here in BKK seasonally for several years before COVID came along, because of the very high levels of PM2.5 air pollution typically from the fall through spring months. I was lucky and fortunate to have been doing so, because then when COVID came along, I already had a good surplus supply of N95 masks at home ready to wear.... in the first two-year period of the pandemic when they became very rare and very hard to obtain, especially in a commercial backwater like Thailand. So no, masks were hardly a rarity in BKK before COVID came along... Although they definitely were seasonal, coinciding with the bad PM2.5 months of the year. We even had threads here, pre-COVID, about how and where to find/buy the N95s here and what models were the best to wear, along with similar threads about indoor HEPA air purifiers. For example, from 2019:

I'm not defending the outcome here or the defendant involved. But in truth, they're not "making it up as they go along." It's a standard, longstanding practice in Thai criminal courts to reduce sentences by half if the suspect/accused confesses -- thus saving the court system from having to do a full-blown trial. Not saying that's right or good. But unfortunately, that IS the way they do it here.

Just got back from Southern California... Plenty of people wearing masks there, more than I might have expected. Mostly older folks... Not a majority or anything close to that. But everywhere I went, I was hardly alone in wearing my N95 mask... And I returned from the trip without having contracted COVID -- just the same as I've never contracted it, AFAIK, since the outbreak in 2020. A good quality mask, consistently worn, social distancing, and staying up-to-date on COVID vaccines and boosters go a lot way toward keeping one off the "I've had COVID multiple times and am proud of it" list.

As for the added risks of incurring repeated COVID infections, emerging research suggests successive COVID infections may also increase the risks of bad outcomes -- something to be avoided for sure. Many repeat infections are mild, but some studies suggest people who have been infected with COVID more than once are at a greater risk of severe disease or long COVID ... The first study of health risks from repeat infections was published last November. A team of researchers led by Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, in St. Louis, and his colleagues concluded that reinfected people are twice as likely to die and three times as likely to be hospitalized with COVID than those infected only once, regardless of their vaccination status." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-repeat-covid-infections-increase-the-risk-of-severe-disease-or-long-covid/

It's not "fear" to take common sense and easily accomplished protective measures to help safeguard one's health. It's just common sense.

From the OP article in this thread: "Dr. Thira Woratanarat, of the Faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University, said in his Facebook post...suggested that members of the public not lower their guard and protect themselves by following the recommendations of the Public Health Ministry, which include wearing face masks in public places, avoiding crowds, not sharing plates and spoons, isolating if they develop flu-like symptoms and taking rapid antigen tests."

The advocacy group Democrats Abroad in Thailand recently sent out an email listing a variety of local COVID vaccination sites, with their list translated from original Thai language reports in the local news media.... The following are the several outside Bangkok locations listed in their emailed report: "Lopburi Cancer Hospital Monday - Friday (except public holidays) at the OPD (Health Checkup Clinic) Pfizer vaccine Chonburi Cancer Hospital Wednesday from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Outpatient and Diagnostic Radiology building, 1st floor Pfizer vaccine Ubon Ratchathani Cancer Hospital Monday - Friday (in office hours) outpatient nursing Moderna and Pfizer vaccines Chiang Mai Prasat Hospital Monday - Friday (except public holidays) at the outpatient building Pfizer purple cap (monovalent) and bivalent vaccines, and LAAB Vachira Phuket Hospital Phone: 076-361234 https://www.thephuketnews.com/covid-booster-jabs-still-available-says-vachira-chief-87921.php

fyi, I just came back from a trip to the U.S. While there, I popped into a CVS pharmacy outlet to ask if they had the Shingrix vaccine available for walk-in vaccinations. And they did... However, the price the pharmacist there quoted me was $220 per shot for a two-dose regimen, with a wait of 2-6 months until the second shot. Meaning the total price would have been about $440.... Though I see another part of CVS is offering the shingrix shots for $179 per, again, for those without any U.S. health insurance coverage. https://www.cvs.com/minuteclinic/services/price-lists?icid=mc_services_pricelist_ip I might have done the shot, except, I don't expect to be back in the U.S. again in the next 2-6 months, so getting the second shot in the recommended timeframe might have proved to be problematic. https://www.cvs.com/minuteclinic/services/shingles-vaccine

It's hard to know much about those kinds of things, because the Thai Ministry of Public Health doesn't do a very good job of publicizing just where and when COVID vaccines are going to be available to the public, especially outside of Bangkok. Assuming you're in Surin, the best thing to do probably is to try to contact the province's Public Health main office, and ask them if they have any local vaccination sites that are up and running at present. You can also try installing the QueQ mobile app on an Android mobile phone if you have one, as the Thai government seems to be using that to provide location specific info on vaccine center sites around the country. Failing that, you could consider a trip to Bangkok, where the vaccines still seem to be available at various locations and at various times, such currently as the Central Pinklao shopping center: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1879396775766989 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=638648128298125&set=p.638648128298125&type=3 And it sounds like the vaccination center at CentralWorld in BKK is going to continue into June: "Extended service hours in June ???? Central Group and Central World Shopping Center in conjunction with the Department of Health Bangkok Opening a COVID-19 vaccination service unit To the general public in a walk-in form, Moderna (Bivalent) vaccination service, supporting 2 species #Free! ???? will be open every Friday, Saturday, Sunday between 2-4, 9-11, 16-18, 23-25, and 30 June 2023. ⏰ From 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m. at the 5th floor, Atrium zone (in front of the entrance to CENTRAL @centralwOrld), Central World. ???? Those who are interested can walk-in to register at the service point. by preparing the following documents • Thai people: original ID card • Foreign residents or work in Thailand: original passport or alien card (pink card)" https://www.facebook.com/bma.health/posts/pfbid0TiJXKfYYFejM7jSX6SW4SYRZ1yxuLVNxpUV8X6vpe8LtSHR1QRM8MC783gFV4E3Xl

What I posted above was absolutely correct, as documented below: There's the officially reported COVID deaths number since the start of the pandemic, which is the approx. 7 million number. And then there are estimated of 2-3 times higher numbers of COVID deaths based on excess deaths during the pandemic compared to death stats during the prior years. Those excess deaths estimates are what yield the 15-20 million COVID deaths estimates. And keep in mind, the one estimate below of 15 million COVID deaths only covered the period from the beginning of the pandemic thru the end of 2021, and nothing tallied from 2022 or 2023, as of its writing in May 2022: 14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 5 May 2022 New estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic (described as “excess mortality”) between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million). https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021 The Economist puts its mid-range estimate of COVID related excess deaths at nearly 22 million: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

An estimated 15-20 million less because of COVID deaths.

Guess what folks. These snaps of mine below from 5 mins ago are not from TH or Japan... Folks elsewhere also still understand that COVID remains a risk to their health... and still are wearing their face masks.. to help protect themselves, and those around them.

Because most people dont wear their masks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Or, in simpler terms, every time they're close around any other people. But they could...if they chose to...

Except that the current variants are far more contagious than tbe prior ones, and still have the capacity to kill and sicken, especially older folks and those with other prior health problems, especially if un- or under-vaccinated. That's nothing to wish for.

Thw only COVID deaths and hospitalizations that Thailand reports as COVID are those with confirming lab tests.

Unless of couse, you were among the 64 official COVID deaths reported in TH just in the past 1 week.

You mean the "weak, pathetic" COVID variants that killed at least 64 people in Thailand last week. The deaths and hospitalizations keep rising, because people like you refuse to take the necessary and recommended precautions against COVID.