TallGuyJohninBKK

I was of the understanding, as per Ryan's' comment above, that Thai GPO is manufacturing this stuff, either directly or via contractor. I think this is just MoPH increasing their order from GPO. Of course, let's not mention that this particular medication is not approved as a valid COVID treatment in the U.S., UK or many other countries in the world. And the lone medically credible country on the list below is Japan, where this drug was developed and first manufactured by a Japanese company. "Favipravir, as an antiviral drug, has been authorized for treating COVID-19 in several countries including Japan, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, India, and Thailand, under emergency provisions.[26][27][28][29] A rapid meta-review in September 2020 (analyzing four studies) noted that the drug led to clinical and radiological improvements; however, no reduction in mortality or differences in oxygen-support requirement were observed and more rigorous studies were sought." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favipiravir#COVID-19

This is Surin province's COVID case count since the beginning of the year, including daily totals for the past week. The red colored daily totals reflect case increases that day. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/531982918420037/?type=3

Well, someone has Songkran pie on their face today.... ????

That's true to some extent, but there's also the issue of waning vaccine effectiveness as time passes post booster vaccination. The UK HSA has done a better job than most in tracking vaccine effectiveness against various outcomes over varying periods of time. Was reading their latest report last night, which looked at people who had received booster doses in terms of protecting against subsequent COVID hospital ICU admission or requiring hospital ventilation. According to their tracking studies, booster dose effectiveness against those things in adults age 18-64 peaked at 97% 14-34 days (up to one month) post booster, but then gradually declined to 76% effectiveness by 105 days (3.5 months) and beyond post boost. "restricting [counted hospital admissions] to those on oxygen/ventilated/on intensive care VE [vaccine effectiveness] ranged from 97.1% down to 75.9%." Source link: That same report finds a similar vaccine waning effect in terms of preventing against just symptomatic infection (not serious illness), even with a booster, as time passes. Two doses only: "After 2 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, vaccine effectiveness against the Omicron variant starts at 45 to 50% then drops to almost no effect from 20 weeks after the second dose. With 2 doses of Pfizer or Moderna effectiveness dropped from around 65 to 70% down to around 10% by 25 weeks [6+ months] after the second dose." With Booster Dose: "Two to 4 weeks after a [third dose] booster dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, effectiveness ranges from around 60 to 75%, dropping to 25 to 40% from 15+ weeks [almost 4 months] after the booster."

Today's edition of the MoPH past two weeks COVID trends chart, March 17-30. Focus on the trends vs. the daily fluctuations. From left to right below: daily count of COVID cases hospitalized in serious condition, daily count of intubated COVID patients, daily count of reported new COVID deaths, and 14-day running average of daily new COVID cases. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/531982808420048/?type=3 And in small red type at the bottom of the middle graph, it's indicating that 81 of today's reported 87 COVID deaths (93%) occurred in individuals who had NOT received a COVID booster vaccine dose.

Because getting a booster might save your life... especially if you're an older age person.

The serious hospitalization and intubation numbers have continued upward on an almost daily basis. I put more stock in those in terms of being valid indicators. I'm holding my breath (figuratively) until I start to see a clear downward trend on those -- which has yet to happen.

For some time now, Thailand has effectively been doing hardly any general outreach testing for COVID... So, the test results they get and report tend to be people who already have some kind of health issue. This was today's 7-day average COVID test result positivity rate from MoPH: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

The short assessment I'd give to the issue you broached above is: Thailand's general COVID situation has been steadily worsening throughout 2022 up to the present time, though remains substantially less severe thus far than the worst of 2021. But until we reach a clear peak and then show a clear decline trend for 2022, we don't know yet where this year's peak is going to end up.

Every daily update I've posted for months now has included the following advisory, for context purposes: "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." If you ever see anything like that reported in this year's daily Thai news media accounts regarding the 2022 Omicron wave, please be sure to let me know. ???? And FWIW, today's update of current COVID cases intubated has now grown to reach about 58% of the peak Delta number from last year. And today's update of serious COVID case hospitalizations has steadily grown to now reach about 30% of the peak Delta number from last year. For a so-called "mild" variant, Omicron is still killing a lot of people every day in Thailand -- more every day right now than the average number of official road deaths, for example.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that COVID has generally been among the top 3 causes of death in countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. since the start of the pandemic, matched by conditions only such as heart disease and cancer. Everything else you list above is much farther down on the lists of causes of death. England: "Coronavirus (COVID-19) was the third leading cause of death in February 2022 in England (accounting for 5.6% of all deaths) and the sixth leading cause of death in Wales (4.4% of all deaths)." https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/february2022#leading-causes-of-death U.S.: "Over the course of the pandemic, COVID-19 has frequently ranked among the top 3 leading causes of death in the U.S., with the exception of the summer of 2021. Looking at data on deaths from COVID-19 and other causes, in February 2022, COVID-19 took the lives of about 2,198 people per day on average. By comparison, heart disease, which is typically the number one cause of death in the U.S. each year, led to the death of about 2,400 people per day, and cancer claimed nearly 1,700 lives per day, on average based on data from January 2022." https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-leading-cause-of-death-ranking/ For the world, it's now 6.1 million COVID deaths and rising since the beginning... though researchers believe the actual COVID deaths number could be three times that official count due to undercounting and other factors.

1. How long from your 3rd shot until your 4th shot? 2. What brand were your two original doses? Thanks!

That's the main takeaway I got from reading the OP report. Nice to see them finally publicly admit it.

The only thing you need to believe is... Whatever numbers the government reports in its official stats, the REAL COVID case numbers are significantly higher. As noted by another poster above, the case numbers are useful for indicating broader trends up or down, if you ignore the daily fluctuations and look at the broader averages...like the following: https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/531307351820927/?type=3 The far right portion of the Ministry of Public Health graph above shows Thailand's running 14-day average daily case counts for the past two week period. Don't focus on the actual numbers, but focus on the trend direction.

Here's the current government free vaccine program rules on follow-up times for third and fourth doses, based on what prior vaccines you've had: It seems to be saying fourth doses right now are only available to people who had two original AZ shots followed by a third mRNA booster, with the fourth shot available four months after the booster. At least via the government's free vaccines program involving the Central Vaccination Center in BKK, the fourth dose offer appears to be just for Pfizer.

Officially reported new COVID cases ended three days of declines on Wednesday with a hefty increase to 25,389, which is a typical mid-week spike for Thailand case reporting, but still below the country's 2022 high of 27,071 on March 18. At the same time, the government also reported 87 new COVID deaths, up from 78 the day before and just one shy of Thailand's daily record for 2022 of 88 set on March 21. The high deaths tally for the day likely contributed to an unusual development for Thailand lately -- daily declines in both the number of COVID cases hospitalized in serious condition (1,727) and patients requiring intubation (679). Both stats lately have been increasing on an almost daily basis, and both had set new yearly highs just yesterday. Overall, Thailand's total number of official current COVID cases also declined to 244,372, the third consecutive daily decline following a high of 251,936 last Sunday. The new numbers reported Wednesday were slightly higher than one week prior for official new cases and higher for daily deaths, but lower for the combination of official cases and unofficial cases from positive ATK tests. Official COVID case statistics are at best an approximation in Thailand, where many cases go unreported, and are subject to typical upward swings during the week and declines during weekend periods, although serious hospitalization figures are likely a more reliable indicator of current COVID trends. 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/531846655100330

One of the things that's been really bad about the government's whole handling and communicating of this has been their handling of the so-called home quarantine program for non-Thais. The varied accounts that get posted here over time by non-Thais seem to reflect quite a variation of what happens to no symptom or mild symptom cases -- sometimes they can stay at home, other times it seems they're forced into hospital or hospitel quarantine. And it's been hard to discern any distinguishing rhyme or reason between the two. I can understand the requirement of hospital or hospitel quarantine for positive COVID cases arising among actual incoming foreign tourists. They don't have a permanent home in Thailand to go to, so the government isn't going to just let them go free on their own. But for expats and other non-Thai long-term residents here, it would seem, there ought to be a consistent policy to allow home quarantine -- unless the home setting (space, number of occupants, etc) doesn't permit it in an appropriate way. And it just doesn't seem from the various accounts that get posted here that that's occurring on a consistent basis. What begins to sound like a more common theme is... if you test positive on your own at home, they'll let you stay at home. But if you happen to go to a hospital and test positive there, they're going to keep you (or try to keep you) either in the hospital or in its affiliated hospitel. I'm not saying that's an actual policy because I've never heard/seen that it is. But the accounts from various posters certainly suggest there's an element of that going on. The government really needed to be more clear for the expat community here about just what the real rules are for this whole thing!

Some things about this report are very clear: Such as, the 10,000 baht charge per person was some kind of hospital charge, not the charge for the Tylenol, which was a minor add-on. Some things aren't clear at all, such as: --Was this a government or a private hospital? Sounds like it probably was a private hospital, but who knows? If it was a government hospital, AFAIK, Thais should not have been hit with any kind of charges like that. --Did the hospital service provided to the 4 family members include a confirming RT-PCR test for each? If so, that alone could have added a couple thousand baht of hospital charges per person, without them ever being admitted or otherwise treated. --What the heck was the following mention in the OP article about...which went unexplained? Kinda like buying COVID 19 hospital lottery tickets??? ????

Thai Ministry of Public Health. Their latest day reports citing those stats are posted above with my original post.

Guess you missed the latest update by the government today: ...serious COVID hospitalizations (1,748) and intubations (691) both rose again to set new record highs for the year.

Source link

Yes on the U.S. right now having a better per capita cases rate than those other countries. No on the per capita new deaths, with the UK showing the same rate and France showing a slightly lower rate. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/530718655213130/?type=3

Official new COVID cases reported on Tuesday fell for the third consecutive day to 21,678, but serious COVID hospitalizations (1,748) and intubations (691) both rose again to set new record highs for the year. The government on Tuesday also reported 78 new COVID deaths, a decline of three from the prior day, and lower than the 83 deaths reported one week ago. On the other hand, despite the recent declines in reported new cases, the tallies for new official cases and combined official and unofficial cases via positive ATK tests both remained slightly above their levels from one week ago. In general, the data on serious COVID hospitalizations is likely to be a more reliable indicator of the state of Thailand's COVID pandemic, compared to case counts that depend on the government's limited testing efforts. Serious condition COVID hospitalizations have now risen for the past three consecutive days, while the count of COVID patients requiring intubation to breathe has risen every day for the past week. The count of COVID cases hospitalized in serious condition remains three-fold higher than the start of the year, while the count of intubated patients is almost five-fold higher. 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/531197795165216

The first part, no mention of the province's rate for booster shot compliance, which is probably somewhere in the 30% range, which is no good as regards combating Omicron. I'm presuming they left out that detail from the full news report on purpose. The second part, regularly wear face masks and comply strictly with disease control measures???? In what planet are these guys living on? Sounds like April Fool's Day has come a bit early this year to Surin.

Judges in the U.S., activist or not, don't initiate or cause to be initiated misdemeanor criminal cases that neither the police nor prosecutors have advanced into the court system.