TallGuyJohninBKK

Reduce, yes. Study finds lifting mask mandates led to thousands of new COVID cases in Mass. schools Updated November 10, 2022 Massachusetts school districts that lifted mask mandates immediately after the state relaxed its requirement in February saw far more COVID-19 cases than districts that retained the policy voluntarily, according to a new study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The new research from authors at Harvard University, Boston University and the Boston Public Health Commission provides evidence for supporters of mask mandates as they call for school districts to enact protections against future surges. ... The study's authors say their results clearly show masks prevent transmission of COVID-19 in classrooms. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2022-11-09/study-finds-lifting-mask-mandates-led-to-thousands-of-new-covid-cases-in-mass-schools

Again, answered above:

The challenge for supporting evidence you made has already been answered above:

Review estimates 69% 3-dose vaccine efficacy against long COVID A meta-analysis today in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology estimates a vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 69% for three doses of COVID-19 vaccine against long COVID, while two doses offer 37% efficacy. Led by researchers at the University of Iowa, the meta-analysis involved 24 studies on COVID-19 VE against long COVID among recipients of at least two doses of a vaccine before or after infection from December 2019 to June 2023. ... Much lower long-COVID prevalence among vaccinated The pooled prevalence of long COVID was 11.8% among unvaccinated participants and 5.3% among recipients of at least two vaccine doses. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/review-estimates-69-3-dose-vaccine-efficacy-against-long-covid The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent long COVID symptoms: staggered cohort study of data from the UK, Spain, and Estonia "Vaccination against COVID-19 consistently reduced the risk of long COVID symptoms, which highlights the importance of vaccination to prevent persistent COVID-19 symptoms, particularly in adults." ... To our knowledge, this is the first multinational study to assess population-level vaccine effectiveness to prevent long COVID symptoms. Our study of more than 10 million vaccinated people and 10 million unvaccinated people, showed that COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of developing long COVID. Our findings were consistent across three different European countries and four databases, covering different health-care settings and national health-care policies. All vaccines reduced the risk of developing long COVID symptoms, with BNT162b2 showing slightly better effectiveness than ChAdOx1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(23)00414-9/fulltext#

"Long COVID is defined as a multisystem disease that have a devastating effect on any organ system, with potentially lifelong consequences. Rates of long COVID among people who have contracted SARS-CoV-2 vary controversially between studies and regions, from about 10 percent to a staggering 50 percent of people who’ve had the virus reported as having long term symptoms." https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/12/27/every-covid-infection-increases-your-risk-of-long-covid-study-warns/ At least 14% of Americans have long COVID, research suggests The researchers found that nearly half (47%) of people surveyed reported having had COVID-19 at some point, while 14% of the total had had long COVID at some point, half of whom (7% of the total) still had long COVID symptoms when answering the survey. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-americans-covid.html Almost a third of COVID survivors report symptoms 2 years post-infection A meta-analysis of 12 studies shows that 30% of COVID-19 survivors have persistent symptoms 2 years after infection, the most common of which are fatigue, cognitive problems, and pain. For the study, published yesterday in the Journal of Infection, an international team led by a researcher from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, searched the literature for observational and case-control studies of long COVID 2 years after infection. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/almost-third-covid-survivors-report-symptoms-2-years-post-infection

Sometimes, that may be because they're being paid a marginal wage and working for supervisors who treat them like dirt. Other times, I get the feeling that many Thais just aren't as invested in their jobs and careers as some Westerners are. For those folks, it's just a thing to do in order to get by and pay the bills.

Until the company issues a fix, the only workaround is to skip or uninstall it. Microsoft says the April security updates for Windows may break your VPN. (Oops!) “Windows devices might face VPN connection failures after installing the April 2024 security update (KB5036893) or the April 2024 non-security preview update,” the company wrote in a status update. It’s working on a fix. Bleeping Computer first reported the issue, which affects Windows 11, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2008 and later. User reports on Reddit are mixed, with some commenters saying their VPNs still work after installing the update and others claiming their encrypted connections were indeed borked. “We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release,” Microsoft wrote. ... At least one Redditor claims that uninstalling and reinstalling their VPN app fixed the problem for them, so it may be worth trying that before moving on to more drastic measures. https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-latest-windows-security-updates-might-break-your-vpn-202050679.html

There are a lot of very nice people in Thailand. But in my experience living here for many years, institutional customer service -- that offered by big/bigger businesses and establishments -- tends to be pretty poor. Customer service phone lines and emails often go unanswered, or if there's any answer, it's often with some pre-called reply. Get a hold of someone on the phone, and a good portion of the time, they don't know what's going on, and if they do give you info, it often turns out to be wrong. Escalate your issue/complaint to a supervisor or manager. The manager/supervisor asks you to send a detailed email with all the needed information, and they promise to get back to you with a reply. You send in the requested info, then never get any reply from anyone. Some grocery delivery service schedules you for a delivery say between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on a particular day. Then on the day, the driver/delivery guy shows up at your doorstep at 10 a.m. or Noon with no advance notice or call to check if you're actually home. Etc etc etc.

You're temporarily going back to the U.S. for some reason. For a short visit, you can stay in a reasonably priced hotel/motel. But what if you don't have any family/relatives in the U.S. anymore and need to stay two-weeks or a month or more? Then what? Nightly hotel-motel rates these days still can be very expensive, especially in the bigger cities near international airports. But you're not going to be staying so long that you likely can rent a furnished apartment month-to-month. So what to do? Last time I checked, the alternative accommodation sites like VRBO and AirBNB seemed to have higher nightly rates in the U.S. than many of the reasonably priced hotels-motels, because those two services are often offering entire homes as opposed to a modest hotel room. So, what to do for a two-week to two-month stay back in the States with no family/relatives to mooch on?

Last year it was announced that T-Mobile would acquire Mint Mobile and, now, that deal has officially closed. Here’s what that means for you. In a press release today, T-Mobile officially welcomes Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile to “Team T-Mobile” after the deal to buy the two companies was officially approved by the FCC last week. T-Mobile explains in a post that the acquisition “locks in” connectivity for Mint and Ultra “for the long-term.” ... But the key question here is, does this change anything for existing Mint Mobile customers? In the short term at least, no. T-Mobile is reiterating its promise – “commitmint” – to continue offering Mint’s $15/month pricing option. This price is available when pre-purchasing multiple months of service and is among the most affordable options for cellular service in the United States. There’s no promise, though, on how long this offer will continue to be available. (more) https://9to5google.com/2024/05/01/t-mobile-mint-mobile-offiicially-owns/

Things have been getting better, particularly when it comes to COVID deaths. But hardly done yet. Per the U.S. CDC: "The decline in deaths associated with COVID-19 is even more dramatic than the drop in hospitalizations. In 2021, over 450,000 deaths among Americans were associated with COVID-19, while in 2023, that number fell to roughly 75,000. This represents an 83% decrease since early in the pandemic. That said, the number of COVID-19-related deaths is still substantial, impacting families across the country. Based on preliminary data, COVID-19 still ranks as the 10th most common cause of death in the U.S. for 2023, a drop from 3rd in 2020 and 2021 and 4th in 2022. [emphasis added]" https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/changing-threat-covid-19.html

the group that was hit the hardest was the 7 million who officially died from COVID, with the real figure likely to be several times that high into the high 20 millions. There's no recovering once you're dead. https://archive.ph/qaYDw

Yes, they looked at traditional economic measurements, but didn't cover all the involved factors/costs: "Putting a price tag on all the pain, suffering and upheaval Americans and people around the world have experienced because of COVID-19 is, of course, hard to do. More than 1.1 million people have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S., and many more have been hospitalized or lost loved ones. ... What is not known We modeled only the pandemic’s standard economic effects. We didn’t estimate the vast array of economic costs tied to COVID-19, such as lost years of work after an early death or a severe case of long-COVID-19. We also didn’t assess the costs due to the many ways that the disease has affected the physical and mental health of the U.S. population or the learning loss experienced by students." And the bottom line is -- the more people who were vaccinated, the fewer COVID deaths that occurred, and that lessened the costs to society in a multitude of ways.

That's all the public detail the MoPH provides... And they had ceased proving any age data on local COVID deaths until just recently, when they finally resumed specifying the general age ranges again. If you're not satisfied and want more details, you need to take it up with the Thai MoPH.

There have been a lot of different studies done by a lot of different researchers around the world on the impact of COVID vaccines during the pandemic, and they all have come to the same/similar conclusions: COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5 Report: COVID-19 vaccines saved US $1.15 trillion, 3 million lives https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/report-covid-19-vaccines-saved-us-115-trillion-3-million-lives COVID-19 vaccinations have saved more than 1.4 million lives in the WHO European Region, a new study finds https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/16-01-2024-covid-19-vaccinations-have-saved-more-than-1.4-million-lives-in-the-who-european-region--a-new-study-finds

Look at the COVID deaths graphics in the latest weekly MoPH COVID reports. 12 official COVID deaths last week, 9 the week before that. 3 the week before that. It always helps to actually be looking at and keeping up with the MoPH data, before one starts talking about it. April 28 - May 4: April 21-27: April 14-20: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main It's also worth noting that past published research studies have shown that Thailand's official COVID deaths statistics during the pandemic have been substantial undercounts to what were the actual likely COVID deaths -- as was found to be the case in many different countries. https://aseannow.com/topic/1253090-covid-19-thailand-reports-24792-new-coronavirus-cases-63-deaths-22065-recoveries/?do=findComment&comment=17240156

COVID hospitalizations in Thailand have been rising for the past two months since mid-March, well before Song Kran came along, though the pace of increases after Song Kran has increased: "The weekly COVID new hospitalization counts reported by the MoPH during the past eight weeks have been as follows, with the spring surge beginning well before this year's mid-April Song Kran holidays, but then climbing rapidly after they arrived: March 16 -- 501 March 23 -- 630 March 30 -- 728 April 6 -- 774 April 13 -- 849 April 20 -- 1,004 April 27 -- 1,672 May 4 -- 1,792" The MoPH's weekly COVID reports for Thailand are available at the following MoPH website: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

Wrong! Thai MoPH just reported the COVID death of a young child aged 0-4 at the end of last month, in their weekly COVID report for April 21-27: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

As usual, you selectively chose to ignore other important details of the same report, as sourced in the link posted above: "The Ministry of Public Health also reported the total number of current COVID hospitalizations rated in serious condition climbed to 501, a 28% increase over the prior week and a tally that appears to be Thailand's highest in almost a year and a half. The number of currently hospitalized COVID patients requiring intubation / ventilation to breathe also rose to 187, up 26% from the prior week, and the highest number in that category since mid-June 2023." And actually, no, official COVID deaths in Thailand haven't "flatlined". The 12 reported for the most recent week was the highest weekly number since July 2023. At the beginning of 2024, the weekly COVID deaths count reported here were running 7-8 per week.

Ditto on that here for me in central BKK today.... Guess the TMD ought to change their motto to: "Day Late and Dollar Short!" 😄

That doesn't look like the uniforms worn by BTS station security staff. It looks more like the uniforms worn by the male ticket counter staff.

COVID cases/hospitalizations in Thailand have been rising steadily for the past two months since mid-March. https://aseannow.com/topic/1326140-hospitalizations-climb-in-thailands-spring-2024-covid-surge/?do=findComment&comment=18893219

Yes, AZ was supported by Warp Speed in the U.S. But the vaccine never received approval for use there. July 2020: "The vaccine candidate, currently in human trials, is one of the candidates funded and supported by the US Operation Warp Speed (OWS) programme." https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/emergent-astrazeneca-deal/

AstraZeneca withdraws Covid-19 vaccine worldwide, citing surplus of newer vaccines Pharmaceutical company says newer shots led to decline in demand for AstraZeneca vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied AstraZeneca has begun the worldwide withdrawal of its Covid-19 vaccine due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines” that target new variants of the virus. The announcement follows the pharmaceutical company in March voluntarily withdrawing its European Union marketing authorisation, which is the approval to market a medicine in member states. ... In a statement, AstraZeneca said the decision was made because there is now a variety of newer vaccines available that have been adapted to target Covid-19 variants. This had led to a decline in demand for the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied. “According to independent estimates, over 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone and over 3bn doses were supplied globally,” the statement said. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/08/astrazeneca-withdraws-covid-19-vaccine-worldwide-citing-surplus-of-newer-vaccines

London (CNN) — AstraZeneca is withdrawing its highly successful coronavirus vaccine, citing the availability of a plethora of new shots that has led to a decline in demand. The vaccine — called Vaxzevria and developed in partnership with the University of Oxford — has been one of the main Covid-19 vaccines worldwide, with more than 3 billion doses supplied since the first was administered in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2021. ... In a notice on its website, the European Medicines Agency also announced the withdrawal, which means that Vaxzevria is no longer authorized to be marketed or sold in European Union countries. AstraZeneca said it would work with regulators in other countries to “align on a clear path forward,” including withdrawing marketing authorizations for the vaccine where no future commercial demand is expected. (more) https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/business/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-withdrawal/index.html