TallGuyJohninBKK

A better answer would be: --Get vaccinated and boosted as appropriate. --Try to maintain a healthy lifestyle --Wear a facemask when away from home and indoors around other people --Observe social distancing when possible

The ‘End’ of COVID Is Still Far Worse Than We Imagined Even now, the coronavirus is killing three times as many people [in the U.S.] as the flu. September 22, 2022 ... "COVID has settled into something far worse than the flu. When President Joe Biden declared this week, “The pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks,” the country was still recording more than 400 COVID deaths a day—more than triple the average number from flu." .... "Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, estimates that COVID will continue to exact a death toll of 100,000 Americans a year in the near future. This too is approximately three times that of a typical flu year." https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/covid-pandemic-end-worse-than-flu/671514/ 100,000 COVID deaths per year in the U.S. would mean an average of about 273 per day. Right now, last I saw from the U.S. CDC, even with the U.S. right now being in a COVID declining phase, COVID deaths still have been averaging more than 300 per day, well above the pace for 100,000 COVID deaths per year. "The current 7-day moving average of new deaths (328) decreased 8.5% compared with the previous 7-day moving average (359)." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

Unless, perhaps, it also left you with any of the ongoing symptoms of so-called Long COVID, which have been shown to include things such as diminished mental capacity, "brain fog," cardiac problems, shortness of breath, chronic fatigue, etc etc. "Post-COVID conditions can include a wide range of ongoing health problems; these conditions can last weeks, months, or longer. Post-COVID conditions are found more often in people who had severe COVID-19 illness, but anyone who has been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 can experience post-COVID conditions, even people who had mild illness or no symptoms from COVID-19. People who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 and become infected might also be at higher risk of developing post-COVID conditions compared to people who were vaccinated and had breakthrough infections." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html

Why do viruses spread more in winter? Cold temps are key "For many, cold weather just isn’t our thing, which is why we spend some much time huddled indoors. And that makes it easier for the common cold, the flu and COVID-19 to spread— especially the highly transmissible variant, Omicron." "the virus that causes COVID-19, with its potent variants, has proven to strike year-round, regardless of season. Risks for infection can also increase based on where we spend most of our time during the winter: indoors. Here, we gather closely in spaces that may offer less-than-ideal ventilation and cramped personal space. Heating systems also make indoor air drier. Studies have shown that these conditions can greatly affect the transmission of respiratory viruses." https://www.horizonhealthnews.com/why-do-viruses-spread-more-in-winter-cold-temps-are-key/

Actually, just getting vaccinated and boosted, trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle, wearing a face mask when close around others when indoors, and trying to maintain social distancing around others when possible probably is a better approach.

Not as humans get older... The general trend as people age is lessened natural immunity and increased potential for various things gradually (or sometimes not so gradually) going wrong.

Unlike the elements that make up airborne elements of the coronavirus, some elements of odors are far smaller and capable of passing through even an N95 mask. "The NIOSH-approved N95 respirators must pass the filter performance tests listed in the NIOSH's regulations. Smell is quite another matter. Smell detects molecules via our olfactory receptors. Sulfur with an approximate molecule diameter of 0.0004 μm is detectable by smell and could certainly pass through an N95 mask." "...odoriferous gases, such as hydrogen sulfide, may certainly do so. Thus, it is possible to detect certain molecules and particles by smell. It does not indicate that the mask is not functioning properly." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447000/

How to reduce risk of infection Who is at highest risk for getting very sick from COVID-19? "Age is the strongest risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness." ... "To reduce your risk of getting sick, get vaccinated and boosted as soon as you are eligible, wear a mask indoors, especially when community levels of COVID are elevated, maintain a physical distance of at least six feet when you're around other people, and wash your hands often." https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-you-are-at-higher-risk

The state of understanding of the primary risk factors for serious COVID illness has evolved since the time of that mid 2021 research. Here's a more up-to-date, current discussion of those issues, noting what other research has previously found -- advanced AGE is the highest risk factor for serious COVID illness. "We continue to learn more about the risk factors for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Although age is the strongest risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes, patients with certain underlying medical conditions are also at higher risk." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/underlyingconditions.html AND "Everything we know underscores the importance of maintaining health-promoting behaviors, even as restrictions begin to ease, especially if you have one or more underlying medical conditions. To reduce your risk of getting sick, get vaccinated and boosted as soon as you are eligible, wear a mask indoors, especially when community levels of COVID are elevated, maintain a physical distance of at least six feet when you're around other people, and wash your hands often." https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-you-are-at-higher-risk

It went from being a mandate to being a soft recommendation...largely as part of the government here dropping COVID screening measures for incoming travelers as part of their efforts to restore intl tourism. Look at what group is most resistant to wearing face masks, with farang posters here regularly complaining they'll never travel to Thailand if there's required face mask wearing.

For a long time now, the recommended public health precautions from medical experts on the virus have been clear -- boosted vaccination, good quality (pref N95 type) face mask wear in indoor spaces particularly close contact ones, and social distancing as much as possible. And yet, too many people are refusing to get COVID booster vaccines (including the new 2nd gen ones in the West where they're already available now), refusing to wear face masks when indoor around others, and ignoring social distancing. And when people do that, the results at some point are going to be predictable. The government/political organizations in Thailand, the U.S. and elsewhere have backed off those kinds of basic responses, largely because too many in the public simply won't go along. But if you ask the medical experts on the virus how to best stop/curtail it, their advice will remain the same as it's long been. And the above are only common sense measures aimed at stopping/curtailing an airborne virus.... You don't have to be a genius or public health expert to figure that out.

The clear and stated reason why COVID cases and hospitalizations are rising in Singapore is because of COVID. What role comorbidities like diabetes may play in those COVID case and hospitalization counts is unknown, because AFAIK, the health officials there are not linking those kind of details in their public reporting. No doubt, people with diabetes in general are at higher risk of complications if they contract COVID, but advanced age itself has been reported as the largest single risk factor, and there's obesity and other conditions as well. Regarding your cited 400,000 Singaporeans with diabetes figure, which is what their health department reports, that ends up accounting for less than 7% of Singapore's total population, which is about 6 million. So let's not get too carried away in presuming factually unsupported connections with their rising COVID case and hospitalization counts. https://srv1.worldometers.info/world-population/singapore-population/

No proof Trump asked for troops on Jan. 6 or that Democrats denied a request There is no record of former President Donald Trump authorizing or requesting thousands of National Guard troops for the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Several Trump administration officials who have testified before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 said they never heard Trump request National Guard support before or during the attack. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/aug/10/facebook-posts/no-proof-trump-asked-troops-jan-6-or-democrats-den/ "Trump’s claim was debunked by fact-checkers in March, after he first made the statement during a Fox News appearance, and it’s still not true. There is no evidence Trump made any formal request about deploying 10,000 National Guard troops before the rally." ... A timeline from the Department of Defense only mentions an agreement made on Jan. 4 about potentially providing 340 District of Columbia National Guard members at the request of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to support traffic control points and to deploy a quick reaction force “if additional support is requested by civilian authorities.” ... While Trump never formally requested 10,000 National Guard troops, then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller told Vanity Fair that Trump brought up the figure in conversation on the night before Jan. 6. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/12/16/fact-check-no-trump-request-10000-guard-troops-jan-6/8929215002/

Confirming my explanation above: Invisible majorities: Counting to nine votes in per curiam cases ... "But not all opinions are signed. The court sometimes issues unsigned per curiam decisions – so named after the Latin phrase meaning “by the court.” In such cases, the justices’ positions are not always so clear. All we know for sure is that at least five members – a majority of the court – agreed with the unsigned order. Individual justices can, and do, write separately to express their concurrence with, or dissent from, a per curiam ruling. But the failure to write separately does not necessarily indicate assent. As a result, it is often impossible in these cases to figure out which justices were in the majority, and which were in the dissent." https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/07/invisible-majorities-counting-to-nine-votes-in-per-curiam-cases/

I think what it means is...for whatever reasons, none of them chose to make an official public dissent to the ruling. I don't think we can necessarily presume that automatically means all 9 of them were in full agreement behind the scenes. It could mean that, but doesn't automatically mean that, as I understand it. By doing it as an unsigned order, the public isn't given any info on just what any of the individual justices might have thought on the subject.

Thursday and Friday this week are Thai national public holidays: Thu 13th Oct -- Anniversary of the Death of King Bhumibol Fri 14th Oct -- Bridge Public holiday https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/thailand/ And two more later this month: Oct 23 Sunday -- Chulalongkorn Day -- National holiday Oct 24 Monday -- Day off for Chulalongkorn Day -- National holiday

I don't think we know whether it was a unanimous decision or not... The fact that there were no cited dissents to the ruling doesn't necessarily mean all of the justices supported it. It was a one-sentence unsigned order that didn't name what justices may have supported it or what ones may have opposed it. All we know for certain, AFAICT, is that at least a majority did support the decision, and Trump loses again before a Supreme Court where 3 of the 9 current justices (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett) are his appointees.

6.5 million are "officially" dead from COVID worldwide since the start of 2020, and multiple studies say the real number of deaths is likely in the 15-20 million range. COVID quickly became one of the top leading causes of death annually in the U.S., where they track and publicly report such things, for the past couple years. And from a November 2021 report: "Some credible analyses peg SARS-CoV-2 fatalities at closer to 17 million. This number places it firmly on the list of the deadliest pandemics in history, even though it has run for a far shorter time than others on the list. https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/historys-seven-deadliest-plagues How much more "doomsday" do you want?

Except notably for most of the newly arriving western tourists, as far as I can see... being a fellow BKKer who's out and around regularly.

The problem with the ongoing COVID pandemic and continuing emergence of new variants is that you never really know what each new one might bring. The tendency toward being less harmful may be the case in general, but there are and have been plenty of prior viral diseases where the opposite has been the case. As long as people don't follow [read "ignore"] recommended public health precautions, they increase the risks of continuing to spread COVID and with each new infection, more chances for mutation into who knows what.

When you see local cases and hospitalizations for COVID BOTH rising, I'd suggest things are moving in the WRONG direction. The burden of COVID on people and the local health system isn't just based on the rate of illness among those infected, but also the numbers of people infected (how transmissible a variant is). It's the combination of the two that drives the outcomes. And one of the concerning issues about the XBB variant (compared to others prior) is that it's said to have a higher escape capability both from vaccine and prior infection induced immunity, meaning greater propensity to spread.

Same in Singapore's latest weekly COVID update dated Oct. 12: 7-Day Moving Average of Local Cases COVID hospitalizations and those requiring oxygen supplementation https://www.moh.gov.sg/docs/librariesprovider5/local-situation-report/ceg_20221012_weekly_report_on_covid-19.pdf But what the above reports don't appear to be doing is giving a breakdown of how much of the recent new case and hospitalization increases are tied to XBB vs other variants.

That government statement is responding to different claims in a different article, which was not the one I linked to above... What they saying in the report you cited may well be true, but it does NOT claim that their hospitalizations aren't increasing -- which is what my linked report said... And the Sing. govt's own website indeed does show that their COVID hospitalizations have been increasing in recent weeks -- even if they believe the XBB variant has a lower hospitalization rate than a different variant. The government's own website also shows the rise in COVID cases that's been occurring there in their latest wave. https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/statistics

They do... That's why the Thai public health department is encouraging parents to have their children vaccinated. Some kids, teens have long-term lung damage after COVID-19 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/09/some-kids-teens-have-long-term-lung-damage-after-covid-19 New Omicron subvariant mutation tied to kids' neurologic complications Researchers in Taiwan have discovered a new mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2.3.7 subvariant that they suggest may be responsible for severe neurologic complications observed in young children on the island. Their study was published yesterday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/09/news-scan-sep-08-2022 American Academy of Pediatrics Applauds CDC Approval of Safe, Effective COVID-19 Vaccines for Children Ages 6 Months and Older https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/aap/2022/american-academy-of-pediatrics-applauds-cdc-approval-of-safe-effective-covid-19-vaccines-for-children-ages-6-months-and-older/

Regarding the impact of XBB in Singapore... COVID cases are not hospitalized for having no symptoms: "Hospitalizations in Singapore have increased alongside the rise in cases, yet deaths remain low, with fewer than a dozen recorded in the country over the past week." https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vFtKyx05emEJ:https://fortune.com/2022/10/11/what-is-xbb-variant-covid-singapore-immune-evasive/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-d