TallGuyJohninBKK

"A shingles vaccine called zoster vaccine live (Zostavax) is no longer available for use in the United States, as of November 18, 2020. If you had Zostavax in the past, you should still get Shingrix. "Shingles vaccination is the only way to protect against shingles and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), the most common complication from shingles." "In adults 50 to 69 years old with healthy immune systems, Shingrix was 97% effective in preventing shingles; in adults 70 years and older, Shingrix was 91% effective. In adults 50 years and older, Shingrix was 91% effective in preventing PHN; in adults 70 years and older, Shingrix was 89% effective." https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html

Merck escapes nearly 1,200 Zostavax shingles vaccine lawsuits as plaintiffs' testimony falls short Dec 8, 2022 Following a court judgment in its favor last year, Merck & Co. is formally bidding adieu to more than 1,000 lawsuits alleging its shingles vaccine Zostavax caused patients to develop the disease. Tuesday, a Pennsylvania federal judge threw out exactly 1,189 cases against Merck in the four-year-long group of cases. ... The plaintiffs in the now-dismissed clutch of lawsuits argued Zostavax caused their shingles. But the medical expert attempting to back up that claim failed to consider whether the plaintiffs’ disease occurred naturally because they’d had chickenpox as kids, according to court filings published this week. (more) https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/merck-dodges-nearly-1200-zostavax-shingles-vaccine-lawsuits-after-plaintiffs-expert

fyi... "United States Zostavax was developed by Merck & Co. and approved and licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2006,[19] In 2011, the FDA approved the live vaccine for use in individuals 50 to 59 years of age.[3][42] ... Shingrix, which provides strong protection against shingles and PHN, was preferred over Zostavax before Zostavax was discontinued.[44] In June 2020, Merck discontinued the sale of Zostavax in the U.S. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that healthy adults 50 years and older get two doses of Shingrix, at least two months apart." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoster_vaccine#United_States

Indeed... Re the OP's comment above... In general, a Thai will is only going to cover/govern assets here in TH... If the OP has property assets in S.A., I believe he's going to need a S.A. will to cover those, separate from any assets and related will done in TH.

I believe the A2 bus is still running, as my wife often takes it from DM back to Mochit BTS... However, one concern about the article linked above is it doesn't appear to have any date on it, indicating the currency of its info. IIRC, during the COVID peak here, most or all of the tourist oriented airport bus lines were halted. Now that some tourists are finally returning, I know the A2 line is back, but not sure about the various others listed in the article.

Re China and the impact of its incoming tourism to Thailand.... The headline below seems a bit misleading, since the 90% figure appears to be a cumulative rate of COVID infection since the start of the pandemic, and NOT meaning 90% of the province's population are infected NOW.... But the article nonetheless lays out the implications. Mon 9 Jan 2023 01.13 EST 90% of people in China province infected with Covid, says local health official Data from the health commission for central Henan suggests 88 million people in the province may have had the virus Almost 90% of people in China’s third most populous province have now been infected with Covid-19, a top local official has said, as the country battles an unprecedented surge in cases. ... Covid cases are expected to soar further as the country celebrates lunar new year later this month, with millions set to travel from big cities to visit vulnerable older relatives in the countryside. ... But the World Health Organization has said China is under-reporting the scale of the outbreak and international health experts estimate more than 1 million people in the country could die from the disease this year. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/09/life-is-moving-forward-china-enters-new-phase-in-covid-fight-as-borders-open

Skatewash, I wonder, is doing the IRS mailed transcript route you mention any different/better than just providing the bank/brokerage a copy of your most recent IRS tax return filing, which hopefully is using the person's U.S. mailing/residence address? But when banks and FIs get hinky about these kinds of things, they usually seem to ask for things that are specifically residency based -- such as home utility bills, home insurance policy, home phone bill, etc etc. Perhaps voter registration as well.

Was it your Schwab brokerage or bank account that was frozen and/or where the U.S. physical address request arose?

If you don't mind me asking, what FI made that very helpful offer of assistance to your Thai wife to handle POD issues in the event of your passing? Even though my Thai wife is fluent in English, she's not fluent, at least not yet, in dealing with or even understanding U.S. financial institutions and all the processes that arise in a POD scenario.

Ahh, I went back and re-read the original Schwab letter you posted in your OP... It appears to have come from Schwab Bank, and not the main Schwab brokerage arm, and thus pertained only to your BANK account(s) with them, correct? And not your Schwab brokerage accounts. Although, if I got a letter like that from Schwab Bank, I'd be a bit nervous that they might eventually end up taking the same action on the brokerage side. Obviously, hope they don't for your sake.

What were the options they gave you in the letter you cited in your OP for confirming your U.S. address? Possible to satisfy their request?

After the original post above, I looked online and couldn't find any current reference to a "Duke's" restaurant at a mall in Hua Hin. Is the new "Living Room" place you mention run by the same people behind the prior Duke's? And, is/was the former Duke's in Hua Hin related to the original Duke's from Chiang Mai?

That's correct... as far as BKK CW's policy re accepting bank income letters.

The link you posted above seems to no longer be available, fyi.

Report: COVID-19 vaccines saved US $1.15 trillion, 3 million lives 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. The modeling study estimated hospitalizations and deaths averted through the end of November 2022, at a time when 80% of the US population had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. ... "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. (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/report-covid-19-vaccines-saved-us-115-trillion-3-million-lives Two Years of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccines Have Prevented Millions of Hospitalizations and Deaths It has been two years since the first COVID-19 vaccine was given to a patient in the United States. Since then, the U.S. has administered more than 655 million doses — 80 percent of the population has received at least one dose — with the cumulative effect of preventing more than 18 million additional hospitalizations and more than 3 million additional deaths. The swift development of the vaccine, emergency authorization to distribute widely, and rapid rollout have been instrumental in curbing hospitalization and death, while mitigating socioeconomic repercussions of the pandemic. (more) https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/two-years-covid-vaccines-prevented-millions-deaths-hospitalizations

The caption writer has an interesting sense of humor relative to those depicted in the attached photo:

Wow... so sad! NancyL was a longtime and active member of the forum, and AFAIK, did a lot especially to assist elderly foreigners living in the Chiang Mai area with care issues. I had a few instances to interact with her over the years on a couple of different issues, and I always thought she was a wonderful, caring woman who had devoted a lot of her retirement years here to helping others. She will be missed, and the farang community here is worse for her loss.

Except, about 10,000 people per week are still dying of COVID around the world, including about 2,500 per week in the U.S. alone. And a lot more COVID hospitalizations on top of those fatality numbers. https://covid19.who.int/?mapFilter=deaths The pandemic isn't gone or finished. We're just benefiting, for the time being, with Omicron variants that are overall milder than Delta before -- but still killing and sickening a lot of people. As for the shots, I believe they're heading toward clinical trials of a combined flu and COVID vaccine that would become a seasonal standard for people in the higher risk groups, including the age 60+ folks. Age alone is the single highest risk factor for bad COVID outcomes. IMHO, AZ's vaccine, with its very rare but potentially serious blood clot issues, simply got beat out by the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines, and now has the added competition from the non-mRNA Novovax vaccine.

And more below on the broader issue, which reinforces my assertion above that the Thai government is likely overselling/over-promising here: Could a nose spray a day keep COVID away? Scientists are working on fast-acting nasal sprays to block coronavirus infections — but formulating the sprays is a challenge 31 October 2022 ... "Despite their promise, these sprays have a long way to go: funding and interest from pharmaceutical firms for human trials has been limited, in part because trials to determine efficacy for prophylactics are large and expensive, says Moscona. And the sprays must achieve the difficult task of coating any surface to which a virus might attach, because once viral particles enter even a few cells, a full-scale infection can progress rapidly. ... But, Barclay says, there are no prophylactic nasal sprays except First Defence, which is designed to act as a physical barrier against common-cold virus particles." (more) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03341-z

The problem with these kinds of announcements from the Thai government is they're typically very fuzzy -- and equally so in this case -- of just how they evaluated the supposed effectiveness of these kinds of products. The full article makes an effectiveness claim of "99.9% of COVID-19, Influenza A virus and Human Coronavirus in line with the ASTM E1053-20 standard." However, I'm guessing that's some kind of figure related to using the spray against viruses in a lab setting -- not in actual human trials that compare effectiveness of spray users vs comparable non-spray users. For example, the ASTM standard they're citing above pertains to: Standard Practice to Assess Virucidal Activity of Chemicals Intended for Disinfection of Inanimate, Nonporous Environmental Surfaces https://www.astm.org/e1053-20.html Inanimate, nonporous environmental surfaces, like tabletops, are NOT the same as the mucosa in your nose or throat.

Thai MOPH is saying there are still various free, government vaccination sites available around Bangkok for the original Pfizer and perhaps Moderna vaccines... No 2nd gen bivalent ones yet. See the following sources:

Correct! Especially since as mentioned by several others above... absolutely NO INDICATION that this new online service is available for either retirement or marriage extension holders, which I assume are the majority of long-stay types. But if I worked for a local foreign embassy or was a news media reporter, I guess I'd be happy.... :--

Indeed, it's been a years long anti-democracy campaign by Trump and his acolytes that began well before he was elected president, and has continued ever since.... Fostering distrust in the country's system for electing its leaders, without any basis for doing so. But he's been succeeding, to the extent that a good share of Americans now are suspect of the elections system nationwide. And of course, that's what any autocrat in waiting is gonna want to see happen. Americans need to wake up, and realize the Big Lie is just that, a big lie, and too many of them have been sucked into believing it. That's exactly what Biden has been correctly warning out here -- partisan politics aside.

Hahahaha!!!! MAGA Republican Trump is SOFT on crime and criminals.... especially when his kind are the insurrectionist criminals! It's gonna make a GREAT campaign commercial on TV one of these days.... Maybe we need to build a big wall around the U.S. Capitol to protect it against the insurrectionists!

You may argue that... But as your quoted source linked above reports, your contention is flatly WRONG. False equivalence -- trying to somehow equalize a violent Jan. 6 attack on the country's election of a new president vs Democrats complaining about documented Russian meddling and local jurisdiction voter restriction measures that occurred during 2016. Did Democrats launch and lose 50 plus legal challenges against the 2016 election results, despite election experts roundly saying there was no basis, and lose every single one of them? NO! Did Democrats violently assault the U.S. Capitol and try by criminal conduct to block Trump's confirmation in Congress as president? NO! Did 900 or so Democrats get arrested and criminally prosecuted for violent efforts to prevent Trump's confirmation as president? NO!