TallGuyJohninBKK

And from the full OP article: "CCSA advisor, Dr. Udom Kachinthorn said today (Friday), before the CCSA meeting, that the actual infection rate should, however, be between 60,000 and 70,000 cases a day, as many are not reported to the authorities." Here's the government's daily COVID recap for Friday: They don't report each day the actual total number of test positive daily COVID cases any more.... just those newly admitted to hospital with COVID, which is the 2,110 daily figure above (in dark orange). 27 new COVID deaths for the day. More than 10,000 hospitalized with COVID at present. 853 of those in serious condition due to COVID, and 436 of those requiring intubation to breath (the light blue sections above). https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/626390735645921/?type=3

A new study out on the value of wearing N95 and KN95 type respirator masks in preventing COVID, compared to regular so-called surgical masks: Healthcare workers wearing respirators 40% less likely to contract COVID A study of more than 2,900 healthcare workers (HCWs) shows that those who wore a respirator were more than 40% less likely to be infected with COVID-19 than those wearing a surgical mask. In the study, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, researchers evaluated SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and cumulative COVID-19 patient exposures among 2,919 HCWs at seven healthcare networks in Switzerland from September 2020 to September 2021, before the Omicron variant became widespread. ... Of the 2,919 HCWs, 749 (26%) tested positive for COVID-19. Among participants with patient exposure, test positivity was 21% for those wearing a respirator, compared with 35% in those using surgical masks or a mix of masks (odds ratio [OR], 0.49). (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/08/news-scan-aug-16-2022 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795150

Got an email from Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok today advising that they're offering doses of the original Moderna vaccine now thru the end of October at what are discounted prices from what they've been in the past. "Bumrungrad International Hospital is now taking reservations for the alternative COVID-19 vaccine (Moderna), which is being offered at an exclusive price. Reservations can be made through October 15th, 2022, and vaccinations are available through October 31st, 2022. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone receives at least 3 booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Booster doses should be received 4 months apart to help with reducing the chance of COVID-19 infection and reducing the severity of symptoms if contracted. " https://www.bumrungrad.com/en/packages/moderna Meanwhile, both the UK and the U.S. are moving ahead with 2nd generation COVID vaccines specifically tailored to the more recent Omicron variants of COVID. But I have yet to see any details of when / where / how those newer vaccines will become available in Thailand. Johns Hopkins' Aug. 18 Coronavirus email update had this recap on those developments, with the U.K. taking one approach involving the original Omicron variant, and the U.S. taking a different approach focusing on the more recent BA.4 / BA.5 ones: "US officials have indicated that Omicron-adapted vaccine boosters could be available for everyone aged 12 and older within the next month, but the US FDA and CDC must act first to authorize and recommend a new vaccine booster. Experts have mixed opinions regarding an FDA plan to base its authorization decision on studies involving mice instead of humans. The UK this week approved a new bivalent booster from Moderna that targets both the original SARS-CoV-2 strain as well as the original Omicron variant, BA.1. The FDA rejected BA.1 bivalent booster versions earlier this year, instead calling on vaccine manufacturers to develop bivalent boosters targeting the Omicron BA.4 and/or BA.5 subvariants." https://myemail.constantcontact.com/--COVID-19-Updates---August-18--2022.html

Covid’s Harmful Effects on the Brain Reverberate Years Later (Bloomberg) -- Covid-19 survivors remain at higher risk of psychotic disorders, dementia and similar conditions for at least two years, according to a large study that highlights the mounting burden of chronic illness left in the pandemic’s wake. ... The findings, based on the records of more than 1.25 million patients, add to evidence of the virus’s potential to cause profound damage to the central nervous system and exacerbate the global burden of dementia -- which cost an estimated $1.3 trillion in the year the pandemic began. Oxford researchers showed in March that even a mild case is associated with brain shrinkage equivalent to as much as a decade of normal aging. (more) https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/covids-harmful-effects-on-the-brain-reverberate-years-later/ar-AA10MfIm https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(22)00260-7/fulltext "The fact that neurological and psychiatric outcomes were similar during the delta and omicron waves indicates that the burden on the health-care system might continue even with variants that are less severe in other respects. Our findings are relevant to understanding individual-level and population-level risks of neurological and psychiatric disorders after SARS-CoV-2 infection and can help inform our responses to them."

The Thai government's bank deposits insurance/protection law ONLY covers amounts up to 1 million per depositer per banking company. AND, it only protects in the event of the financial failure/bankruptcy of the bank -- not in any way against criminal conduct by bank employees or other fraudulent access to one's account. The banking rules/consumer protection laws are not the same here as in some people's home countries. Theft and fraud issues normally become the purvue of the Thai police and their investigation and findings... and the outcomes in those processes can be all over the map. I believe, as a general rule, Thai banking companies take the position that anything fraudulent that happens with your account--unless it's a hack of their system--is your responsibility up to the time you notify them of any problem.

COVID deaths in the U.S. have vastly outnumbered seasonal flu deaths. U.S. far from normal with Covid deaths 10 times higher than seasonal respiratory viruses, report says Mar 7 2022 "In years past, as many as 1,150 people died weekly from respiratory viruses like flu and RSV without the implementation emergency mitigation measures. However, Covid’s death toll remains about 10 times higher with 12,000 people succumbing to the virus some weeks, according to the report. More than 9,000 people have died in the last week alone from Covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." [The current COVID death toll in the U.S. is running more than 3,000 people per week--about three times the peak annual weekly average for flu deaths in recent years (the 1,150 figure cited in the article. In other years, the flu deaths have been considerably less.] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/07/us-far-from-normal-with-covid-deaths-10-times-higher-than-flu-rsv-report.html COVID has been the third leading cause of death in the U.S. for the past two years, behind only heart disease and cancer, with flu much further down on the list. https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20220705/covid19-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-2020-2021 And that's just based on the "official" COVID death counts, whereas the actual ones have been estimated in multiple studies to be considerably higher.

It's meaningless... Underlying conditions don't automatically cause death. But when the death certificate in the U.S. says the death was caused by COVID, it generally WAS caused by COVID. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-comorbidities-coviddeaths/fact-check-why-those-with-comorbidities-are-still-counted-as-covid-19-deaths-idUSL1N2TU22X "So, for COVID-19 deaths, it is not unusual to see conditions such as COPD [Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease], diabetes or dementia, that are known to result in more severe COVID infection, reported in this section. Such contributing factors are also not to be seen as competing underlying causes,” the spokesperson said. “Currently, based on the death certificate data we have received, for 91% of death certificates with COVID-19 reported, COVID-19 is clearly the underlying cause. In 9% of cases, it was a reported as a significant factor contributing to death,” they added. Dr Lance Waller, Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, added: “Limiting COVID death counts to only those with ONLY COVID listed would skip all of the deaths if the result of COVID ‘tips things over the edge’,” he added."

You're citing months old stats from the New York City health department... not the U.S. national or any other larger entity. I provided you the U.S. total COVID deaths breakdown by age group above, current for the whole U.S. as of August -- 1,700+ COVID deaths in the U.S. among those under age 18. Also, all kinds of people have various kinds of underlying conditions. But in the U.S., the COVID death stats are based on what CAUSED the death, not what other misc conditions the person may also have had at the time they died.

The infants and children who've died from COVID were going to "die anyway" too (to use your phrase)... just not likely for many years / decades into the future had it not been for COVID.

No... you just don't want to believe them, or anything else that goes against your generally unsubstantiated and unsupported claims.

In the U.S., about 25% of the cumulative COVID deaths have been in people age 64 and younger, according to the CDC. That includes 18% of all COVID deaths being age 50-64 (160,000+) and about 4% age 40 to 49 (36,000+), along with more than 1,700 under the age of 18. Source link

Not many... COVID is pretty much near the top of the list in terms of causes of death these past couple years. Take the U.S. for example: COVID-19 third leading cause of death in 2020, 2021 July 05, 2022 In the first 20 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease accounted for one in eight deaths and was the third leading cause of death in the United States, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. ... Overall, the leading causes of death during this time frame was heart disease (20.1%), followed by cancer (17.5%), COVID-19 (12.2%), accidents (6.2%) and stroke (4.7%). Age-specific data differed in the first and second years of the pandemic. In 2020, COVID-19 was the fourth leading cause of death for those aged 45 to 54 years and the fifth leading cause for those aged 35 to 44 years, but it jumped to the first and second leading causes of death in these age groups in 2021. (more) https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20220705/covid19-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-2020-2021

COVID vaccines have saved tens of millions of lives around the world, people who otherwise would have died from COVID beyond the 6.4 million official COVID deaths already recorded worldwide (though multiple studies have found the real COVID deaths number is likely two to three times higher at this point). The following study only tracks the numbers of lives saved during the first year that COVID vaccines were in use up through early Dec. 2021: COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 20 million lives in 1 year Jun 24, 2022 "COVID vaccines reduced the potential global death toll during the pandemic by almost two-thirds in their first year, saving an estimated 19.8 million lives, according to a mathematical modeling study yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. An additional 600,000 lives could have been spared if a World Health Organization (WHO) goal of vaccinating 40% of the population of every country by the end of 2021 had been met, the authors of the study say. ... The scientists estimated that 18.1 million deaths would have occurred during the study period without vaccination. Of those, the model estimated that vaccination prevented 14.4 million deaths, or 79%. When they accounted for under-reporting, however, they found that COVID vaccination prevented an estimated 19.8 million deaths out of a total of 31.4 million potential deaths that would have occurred without vaccination—a reduction of 63%." (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/06/covid-19-vaccines-saved-estimated-20-million-lives-1-year https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/956782

I just sent my renewal request by mail yesterday. Since virtually no one has likely ever used this mail-in method before (since it's relatively new, everyone using it now is likely a first-timer), I found the process to be a bit confusing given the way their written information is presented. It doesn't help any that, if you want to get a new passport book and new passport card, you end up having to make THREE separate payments: --a $130 online payment to the US govt for the passport book renewal. --an 1140 baht Thai bank draft to pay for the passport card fee. --a 200 baht Thai bank draft fee to pay for the required two return envelopes they will use. Would it be too much to ask to be able to just pay all the fees via ONE method and payment, either a Thai bank draft or an online payment to the U.S. govt???

I emailed the Bangkok ACS office last Friday with a question about doing an in-person passport renewal app there, since I live within walking distance of their location. Got the following response by email late yesterday: "Thank you for contacting ACS Bangkok, We still advise you to use mail-in services unless its urgent you may request an appointment." [emphasis added] So I guess the question becomes, what they would consider as being "urgent" in the context of a passport renewal?

To the contrary.... Bourla is age 60. Fauci is 81 and Biden is 79. The latter two especially are in the highest risk age group for severe COVID illness... And yet, with their vaccinations, all three of the above individuals are still alive, AVOIDED hospitalization for COVID, and mostly had/have minor symptoms. That's exactly what the current vaccines have been promoted as being capable of doing with the current Omicron variants. "All currently approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective and reduce your risk of severe illness. Vaccination can reduce the spread of disease, which helps protect those who get vaccinated and the people around them." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effectiveness/work.html

Study finds U.S. COVID-19 vaccinations averted 2.2 million deaths April 8 (UPI) -- A new study published Friday found COVID-19 vaccinations have prevented 2.2 million deaths in the United States. The Commonwealth Fund study said 17 million hospitalizations were averted by the vaccines between December 12, 2020, and March 31, 2022. More than $899 billion was saved in healthcare costs due to the vaccines, according to the Commonwealth Fund study. (more) https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2022/04/08/COVID19-commonwelath-fund-study-vaccines-prevented-millions-of-deaths/1421649425164/ https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/impact-us-covid-19-vaccination-efforts-march-update

Yes, I believe that's correct, at least as far as the BKK CW Immigration office is concerned. For someone with 800,000+K in the bank dealing with BKK CW, you can get the bank letter any time up to 7 days prior to your visit to Immigration. But apart from that, the IOs at BKK CW in my experience always want to see that your bank book has been updated the SAME day as your Immigration visit, presumably to ensure that you still have a sufficient balance on the day of your visit. it's not a problem for them if the listed balances on the previously issued bank letter and the bank passbook updated the day of your visit don't match... just so long as they're all at or above the 800K amount required.

A lot of U.S. expats here end up losing their U.S. state driver's license cards as the years go by, especially if they don't travel back to the U.S. very often. And I don't think the U.S. domestic airlines are going to accept a Thai DL instead.

I think the U.S. passport card has a two-fold use for expats here: 1. it can suffice as a local ID card that can satisfy a variety of non-Thai government purposes, and probably some government purposes like using with Thai police at road checkpoints and such.... instead of having to potentially carry around one's original passport book. 2. For the times when the holder is back in the U.S., it's going to serve as a legitimate Real ID identity card (in lieu of a U.S. passport book, though the passport book also would be accepted), some variety of which will be needed for domestic U.S. air travel starting in 2023. In general, there are numerous likely uses where one can use the card to satisfy the purpose that would otherwise require one's passport book. And as far as I'm concerned, the less I have to carry around my original passport book with all my extension and re-entry stamps in it, the better off and safer I am. As others have noted above, if you end up losing a passport ID card, there's no great grief associated with that. But if you end up losing an original passport book, there's a TON of grief associated with that.

Except with the Thais, you never know if the "instructions" that apply at one local Imm. office are going to be the same or different at the other offices in other provinces. There must be no word in the Thai language / dictionary for "consistency." ????

Jim, I wondered too when I saw that instruction on the State Department website... Do they really want people to use FOUR vertical staples to attach the photo, one each at the four corners? I understand that they wouldn't want glue, because presumably they're going to use that submitted photo for your actual new passport....but....??? But unless I hear otherwise, I'm gonna follow their instructions to avoid a rejection that I can ill afford time wise...

@ubonjoe, @lopburi3 I could use some advice / guidance about the best way to handle the combination of my retirement extension that will need renewing at the end of this September (next month) and a U.S. passport expiring in June 2023. Option 1: As I understand it, I could renew my retirement extension next month without getting a new passport... But then, my new retirement extension would only be valid for about 9 months until June 2023 when my current passport expires. What I'm unclear about re this method is.... if I later go to Immigration before June 2023 with a new passport obtained in the meanwhile, will they further extend my retirement extension obtained now (September 2022) for the remainder of that year until September 2023. OR, will they then require me prior to June 2023 with the new passport to then apply for a whole new 1-year extension that would change my extension cycle to June to June? Or Option 2: Since the U.S. Consulates are no longer allowing in-person routine passport renewals, I could rush out a mailed passport renewal application right now and hopefully get the new passport back prior to my end of September retirement extension deadline, which should be feasible given that passport turnaround times are said to be running two to three weeks. What I'm unclear about this method is.... given that I do my extension renewals at BKK CW, can I just show up there before the end of September for ONE visit and hope to have my passport stamps AND new retirement extension processed on the same day? Or, I need to plan that as a two-visit process... a first visit just to transfer my existing stamps to the new passport, and then a second visit to get the new extension stamp in my new passport? Thanks for any advice / wisdom.... Never encountered this particular kind of situation before....

Also, it appears that Thailand flat rate link above is not always accurate in leading to flat rate eligible products... I did an Amazon search using that link for men's shoes in my size 16, which normally results in a box weighing about 4 pounds. Got a search hit on an Amazon sold and shipped pair of New Balance cross trainers... But when I went to check out and picked my Bangkok address, I got the following error message from Amazon:

That's interesting... I used that link you posted, and then searched for some random 1 lbs item, and indeed it came up with the following as just an example: A 1 lbs, $16 corded telephone with a discounted flat rate shipping fee to Thailand of $5.99 and a customs deposit of $4.11, which is quite reasonable pricing in the international shipping realm of things. Where did you come across that link from? I did a Google search for "Amazon global flat rate shipping" and found absolutely ZERO hits, for Thailand or any other country for that matter. When I went to check out, Amazon showed a discount on the regular TH shipping price of $12.96 for the phone that I used as an example, and referred to the discount as "flate rate delivery promo..." Meaning it's a temporary thing??? Also, from the couple of tests I tried, the flat rate promo appears to only be available for CERTAIN items SOLD and SHIPPED by Amazon... And NOT those sold by other sellers but shipped by Amazon.