TallGuyJohninBKK

Dunno what's happened this very late in the normal Thailand smog season, but things have suddenly gone to hell, just in time for Songkran: http://aqicn.org/city/thailand/bangkok/chulalongkorn-hospital/ Normally by this time of year, the annual smog season is either done or almost done.... Based on the Chula monitoring station readings below, today is the first fully red/unhealthy air day of 2022 for that Bangkok area, which is extremely unusual. Last year there were 7 fully red days during the same period. 2022: This below is what 2021 looked like for the same period, with much worse air during the normal smog season, which usually starts November-December and runs into March-April, depending on the year. 2021:

Even while Thailand's official and dubious daily COVID case count remains static, the country on Sunday reported year-high records for new COVID deaths (108), serious condition COVID hospitalizations (1,993), and COVID patients requiring intubation (848). The Sunday update from the Ministry of Public Health was the second consecutive day that new COVID deaths reached new record highs for the year, and the third consecutive day that both serious COVID hospitalizations and intubations reached new highs for the year. At the same time, meanwhile, the government's official count of daily COVID cases (widely considered an unreliable undercount) declined slightly from the prior day to 25,139, bouncing around the 25,000 daily case mark as it has for most of the past week, despite the continuing increases in the more reliable counts of seriously ill COVID patients. The graphic below shows Thailand's official daily COVID case counts for new domestic cases nationally on the first line, and Bangkok province on the second line for the past week -- both remaining in pretty much the same range throughout. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/539057537712575/?type=3 Below is the MoPH past two week trends chart for, from left to right, 14-day average of official daily COVID case counts, serious COVID hospitalizations, COVID intubations, and daily COVID deaths. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/539057507712578/?type=3 According to the red text on the chart, 95 of Sunday's 108 newly reported COVID deaths (88%) had NOT received their third dose COVID vaccine booster shot.

Thailand on Saturday set new year-high records with 98 new COVID deaths and 1,936 COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition, while new official COVID cases continued above the 25,000 mark with a small increase to 25,298. The 98 new COVID deaths reported Saturday eclipsed the prior daily high of 97 set both last Sunday and Monday. The 1,936 tally of seriously ill COVID patients in hospital surpassed the prior record high for the year set just yesterday of 1,899. In another measure of severe COVID illness, Thailand on Saturday also reported a new year-high number of 821 hospitalized COVID patients requiring intubation to breathe, up from the prior 815 year-high record set yesterday. Both serious COVID hospitalizations and patients requiring intubation have been rising to new daily year-high records on an almost daily basis, with no sign thus far of any break in those upward trends. The government also reported that the country’s total number of current COVID cases under care rose to 251,451, up from 248,254 just yesterday, but that tally remained below the year’s high figure of 259,126 also set last Sunday. For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period. Right now, current daily COVID deaths have reached about 31% of last year's high. The number of seriously ill patients in hospital has reached about 34% of last year's high, while the number of intubations has hit about 70% of last year's high. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/538250547793274 https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

Every day in Thailand, the MoPH reports on the vaccine booster status of that day's new COVID deaths. Almost without exception, 90+% of the daily COVID deaths that are occurring in Thailand are occurring in people who have not received a third shot booster vaccine dose. The public health authorities here and elsewhere in the world have been very clear since the emergence of the Omicron variant that two shots only won't provide enough protection and that a third dose is required. And the data from places that do a good job of tracking such things such as the U.S. and the U.K. have been very clear in showing that the rates of COVID serious illness and death are far higher in the unvaccinated vs being far lower in those who have received a third shot vaccine booster. The end game that researchers and the biotech companies are working on right now is to develop an ANNUAL COVID vaccine that could function much like annual flu shots....

The 50K and 100K numbers mentioned above are apples and oranges, two entirely different things.... The 50K number of cases was what the government has predicted the "official" daily new COVID case count, which is based on the limited testing they do, could rise to after the Songkran holidays. The 100K number is the number of actual daily new COVID infections that one public health advisor to the government predicted might really be occurring in the country, as opposed to the 25K or so daily "official" numbers that get reported lately.

I think it's a reasonable certainty that there's more general socializing, and more socializing with people from outside people's normal non-holiday social circle, during the Songkran holidays. Thus the heightened concern about the increased spread of the virus and mounting cases.

I ran into a similar problem yesterday when I tried, and failed, to place a delivery order on their new Lotusssss website. My habit in the past, which always worked fine with Tesco, was to pay using my home country bank card upon delivery, and not using the prepayment method on the website. And never had any problem with the delivery person swiping my card using their little hand held credit card machines. However, now with Lotusssssss, they appear to have eliminated the option to pay with bank card upon delivery. And, when I reluctantly tried to use my home country bank card for prepayment via the Lotusssssss website, as I feared from past reports, it was denied. So, until and unless they change that approach and allow the delivery person to swipe bank cards for payment upon delivery, they've just lost a longtime past customer.

Interesting graphic today from MoPH... first time I've seen them do this: If I'm translating this correctly, the main part of the graphic below is showing the COVID daily new official case trends in various provinces since the start of the year through April 7. The small map to the left is highlighting the provinces in red that had the most serious COVID hospitalizations, patients with pneumonia type symptoms, from March 28 to April 3. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106142991004034/537770511174611/?type=3

Today's two week trends chart from MoPH -- March 26 to April 8: Left to right in the graphic: Official COVID case counts have been leveling off lately, but serious COVID hospitalizations and intubations continuing their relatively steady upward climb to new yearly highs. Officially reported COVID deaths also leveling off. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106142991004034/537769041174758/?type=3 The red text in the bottom right of the graphic says 87 of the 89 new COVID deaths reported today had NOT received their third-dose COVID booster shot. Only 35% of Thailand's population has received their booster dose thus far: https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106142991004034/537769437841385/?type=3

Thai families and friends don't gather together, even outdoors, for communal meals during Song Kran? Where have you been living? Six people sitting on a mat outside on the ground sharing som tam and beers with shared utensils and glasses certainly puts them at risk. You may be focused on the water throwing aspect of Songkran. But I can assure you, the public health authorities are probably more focused on the socializing-related risks....

Not there yet.... and it's going to take a whole lot more people getting seriously ill and dying of COVID before Thailand gets there following your approach. "Catching up from this morning for the record -- new year-high numbers for serious COVID hospitalizations and intubations. It's not "over" for the time being until the numbers in those two categories, along with COVID deaths, start and achieve a steady downward trend toward normalcy -- which shows no signs of happening thus far." https://aseannow.com/topic/1256104-thailand-reports-25140-new-covid-19-cases-89-deaths-24854-recoveries/?do=findComment&comment=17294618

It all depends on what kind of outdoor setting and contact is occurring. Sharing utensils and/or drinking glasses (Thai style?) and face-to-face contact can still get you infected. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/21/1069904184/omicron-outdoor-transmission-risk "From a virus standpoint, there's no indication that omicron is behaving differently [in outdoor settings]," says Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored an editorial on the research on football teams. "That doesn't mean [transmission is] impossible if you're packed together in a place that's only sort of open air and if people are sharing food or kissing or drinking. But if it's a casual interaction outside, even if it's relatively crowded, I'm comfortable not having a mask on."

There's reality, and then there's what the official numbers say... Catching up from this morning for the record -- new year-high numbers for serious COVID hospitalizations and intubations. It's not "over" for the time being until the numbers in those two categories, along with COVID deaths, start and achieve a steady downward trend toward normalcy -- which shows no signs of happening thus far.

Newly reported COVID cases declined slightly to 25,140 while new deaths also declined slightly to 89 on Friday, but COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition rose to 1,899 and set a new record high for the year. The new cases count fell from the 26,081 reported on Thursday, while new deaths also fell from the 91 reported on Thursday. Both new cases and new deaths for the day were below those reported one week ago, and also below the prior highs for the year. The exception in Friday’s update from the Ministry of Public Health was the tally of COVID cases hospitalized in serious condition, which increased from the 1,846 reported on Thursday and set the new high for the year. Total COVID cases under care also increased slightly to 248,254 from the 248,057 reported Thursday. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/537583347859994

Member @Eaglekott 's per capita breakdown of new COVID cases reported today. I'm just posting an image of the top 30 provinces on a per capita basis... Chonburi is No. 2... Bangkok isn't among the top 30, neither is Chiang Mai. His full list and image is in the following thread: https://aseannow.com/topic/1221220-information-about-new-covid-19-cases-per-province/?do=findComment&comment=17292761

Example, about a week ago, the government put out a SEVEN PAGES long list of vaccination locations just for Chonburi province, that begins with the following image (and then click right to see the other related image pages): https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=339884654841018&set=a.304938938335590&type=3 OK, so that's ONE province... Now how about the other 75 besides Bangkok? PS - yesterday, they also did TWO pages of similar vaccination sites in FIVE other provinces (Chiang Rai, Kanchanaburi, Ayutthaya, Phetchaburi and Saraburi).. starting with this image, and then click left for the second page: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=343758081120342&set=a.304938938335590&type=3 And we're now 2-1/2 years into the pandemic, and those lists above don't even total 10 provinces all combined.

I've never understood why the government has never launched and maintained an online public master list, by province, of available vaccination locations. It seemingly wouldn't be that hard to do and maintain -- unless of course such a list might reveal that vaccines aren't actually available in various provinces. I don't know that to be the case, but it's kind of hard to imagine why they haven't published such a list for any other reason, given that they've been so scattershot in their vaccination location information outside of Bangkok.

fyi, the government has been posting more specific details of vaccination locations in the various provinces outside of BKK: https://www.facebook.com/thailandprd/photos There's also about 4 pages of info on Chonburi province vaccination sites at the weblink above that they posted on March 30, so those are a bit further down in the list of images.

This is the latest policy on booster timing from the government: https://www.facebook.com/thailandprd/posts/336021631893987

With Omicron, it's getting the third dose on schedule that helps in terms of helping prevent infection to some extent, along with much greater effect of preventing more serious health impacts. And in that regard, Thailand still has almost two-thirds of its population that has not been boosted. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/537114884573507/?type=3 And what's worse, only slightly better for the most at-risk elderly population of age 60 and older, with about 62% having NOT received third shot booster doses thus far: https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/537114891240173/?type=3

Thailand on Thursday reported 26,081 new COVID cases, the second consecutive day of increases, along with a slight decline in new deaths to 91 and an almost unchanged number of 1,846 COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition. Thursday’s update by the Thai Ministry of Public Health, following Wednesday’s national holiday, followed a familiar pattern of rising cases toward the latter part of the weeks, though Thursday’s total new cases remained below the country’s year high total of 28,379 from last Friday. The 91 new COVID deaths reported Thursday was a slight decline from the 94 reported Wednesday, and matched the number from Tuesday. But Wednesday’s death toll also remained below the year high number of 97 from last Sunday and Monday. The total number of current COVID cases under care declined very slightly to 248,057. The number of serious COVID cases in hospital increased by only one from Wednesday's 1,845 total. With Thursday's update, Thailand reached 4,090 COVID deaths in the three-plus months since since the start of 2022. Daily new deaths have not dropped below 85 for the past week. Compared to one week ago, Thursday's update showed a lower count of new cases, but higher numbers of new deaths, serious condition hospitalizations and total COVID cases under care. For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/536966664588329

I've never understood how they came up with the current abomination of a name.... with its "s's"... Why not just Lotus? I'd say the new version s'sucks.... ????

I'd say it's your typical "we don't really care about our customers" M.O. here in Thailand. PS - I always used to shake my head at how, in the past, Tesco clearly knew I was a farang. I only used and accessed their website via its EN interface. And yet on a regular basis, they kept sending me email and SMS promotional stuff entirely in TH language. ???? But it looks like Lotus's has kept one crappy thing the same from the old Tesco... no apparent way to mark items as Favorites and save them manually to a Favorites list, unlike Tops, where you can do that. The old Tesco only had an automatic Favorites list that reflected all the items you'd ordered with them in the past year or so. Since I haven't done an order yet with Lotus's, I dunno if that same approach will carry over to the new site.

Don't remember getting any notification, at least in English, from Tesco indicating the date when their online ordering website was going to disappear. Only found out from reading this thread... Probably did a last regular Tesco order within the past week. Now my prior Tesco favorites list is gone, and so is my prior Tesco ordering history. Old Tesco log-in was with an email address. New Lotus's log-in ID appears to only be via mobile phone number. So even though it wasn't part of my old Tesco log-in, I tried the old mobile phone number that was associated with my Tesco account on the new Lotus's site, and then did a "forgot password" click. Sure enough, within a few seconds, got an SMS code on my mobile phone allowing me to set a new password for the Lotus's site using the same mobile number that originally had been linked to the Tesco website, but not used for log-in purposes with Tesco. The new Lotus's site had my name and home address populated in my profile info once I logged in. But it was blank for any delivery addresses, including my default delivery address. So I had to add that again manually. There also was an entry in my profile for a "National ID" number that only shows as "************* and then 4 last digits". It's not my U.S. passport number, and off the top of my head, I don't recognize the last 4 shown digits at all. It also doesn't match the ID number listed on my various Thai Govt. COVID vaccine certificates, nor does it match my old Tesco membership ID number.... I'm stumped! ????