TallGuyJohninBKK

Wife and I were in Hua Hin over the Christmas-pre New Year week. Went looking for the former GARC location in Hua Hin. Somewhat to my surprise, the entire site remains empty and unused after all this time (the rear right edge corner of the photo below).

I was thinking of the exact same context in writing my prior post, even though I didn't address it in my comments. But I'm glad you did and bringing your family's experiences to bear. Doctors and nurses and other medical staff are TWO YEARS into COVID now. They've been getting sick and they're dying of COVID themselves. They've long-term been seeing vast numbers of patients dying before their eyes, unable to save too many of them. And more recently, in various places, after all of the crushing reality above, they're now getting verbally and physically abused by anti-vax wingnuts, religious zealots, conspiracy proponents, etc etc... And amid all this, they're preparing for what's shaping up as a FIFTH wave of COVID... Being a front line health care professional these days means having a job that's literally going to ground you into the earth.

Omicron infections are the majority in the U.S. right now, and total numbers of new COVID hospitalizations are spiking with the explosion of new Omicron cases. The rate of COVID hospitalizations from Omicron vs Delta is widely said to be substantially less. But the infectiousness and spread of new cases from Omicron is vastly outstripping Delta that came before. Once you get such a large influx of new Omicron cases, even with a lower RATE of hospitalizations, the sheer increase in volume of cases is going to drive overall increases in hospitalizations, which is exactly what's occurring now. That's why those who advocate letting Omicron run unchecked, or even encouraging its spread, are pushing a course that heads for public health disaster.

But in other countries like the UK and US with better public reporting of public health data, hospitalizations due to Omicron have been rising. If it's so "pathetic and weak" as you put it, why are COVID hospitalizations spiking just lately again now? From Friday's CDC update: U.S. New COVID Hospital Admissions "The current 7-day daily average for December 28, 2021–January 4, 2022, was 16,458. This is a 60.2% increase from the prior 7-day average (10,271) from December 21–December 27, 2021." And a slightly later version of the same data via chart form: Source weblink Rising deaths in the past have trailed rising COVID hospitalizations. Whether that will be the case or not in this current Omicron wave, I think it's too early to tell for the time being. But it bears remembering, in Thailand and the U.S. right now, about one-third of the overall population still has not received two vaccine doses as yet, much less a third booster shot that the medical experts say is needed to best fight off Omicron. So there remains large populations of not fully vaccinated folks out there. And disproportionately larger numbers of them, at least in the U.S., are ending up being hospitalized lately with the explosion of new Omicron cases.

I don't know what that language above from As-win is supposed to mean.... But on the way home last night, all the regular non-gogo bars (quasi restaurants) in my central BKK neighborhood were open and serving alcohol as usual. No special precautions seen. Everyone sitting around drinking in close proximity maskless.

A cleaner look at the same info for Thailand solo: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?country=~THA

It's a curious trend lately that 3rd shot booster doses often are outnumbering the numbers of first and second doses given on various days, such as above.... And yet, still, about one-third of the Thai population hasn't yet been fully vaccinated with the two regular doses thus far.

It's likely the weekend effect (less testing and/or less reporting). The Jan 9 report today is tallying totals of the end of Sat Jan. 8.

The latest info is suggesting that saliva-based ATK tests are doing a better job of promptly detecting Omicron than the nasal ones, which appear to be the more common variety here. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/rapid-nose-swab-tests-covid-may-not-detect-omicron-quickly-enough-expert-says-2022-01-07/ "Jan 7 (Reuters) - Swabbing the nose with a rapid antigen test will not reliably detect the Omicron variant in the first few days of an infection, so manufacturers should seek U.S. approval to allow users to safely collect samples from the throat as well, according to an infectious diseases expert. People can already transmit Omicron to others when it has infected their throat and saliva but before the virus reaches their nose, so swabbing the nostrils too early in the course of infection will not pick it up, Dr. Michael Mina, formerly of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and now chief science officer at eMed, said during a news conference on Thursday. A study released on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review looked at 29 Omicron-infected workers in high-risk professions who had PCR and antigen tests done simultaneously on multiple days. The PCR tests of saliva detected the virus on average three days before the rapid nose-swab samples became positive."

4 pm also yesterday. But it was a Saturday, coming off the New Year's holidays.... Can't speak to what the comparable situation would be on a weekday. But from everything I've seen reported about the Bang Sue experience along the way, the late afternoon time slot seems generally to be the most free of any crowding.

Thailand has about the same fully vaccinated rate as the U.S., although the U.S. vaccinations overall are of better quality/efficacy. But here's what's going on in the U.S. with Omicron, which is the dominant strain there now: From the U.S. CDC on Friday: "On January 5, 705,264 new cases were reported, more than doubling the January 2021 peak. The entire country is now experiencing high levels of community transmission. Hospitalizations are also on the rise. While early data suggest Omicron infections might be less severe than those of other variants, the increases in cases and hospitalizations are expected to stress the healthcare system in the coming weeks." "New Hospital Admissions The current 7-day daily average for December 28, 2021–January 4, 2022, was 16,458. This is a 60.2% increase from the prior 7-day average (10,271) from December 21–December 27, 2021." https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/?ACSTrackingID=USCDC_2145-DM73048&ACSTrackingLabel=01.07.2022 - COVID-19 Data Tracker Weekly Review&deliveryName=USCDC_2145-DM73048#new-hospital-admissions Deaths The current 7-day moving average of new deaths (1,246) has increased 14.4% compared with the previous 7-day moving average (1,089). As of January 6, 2022, a total of 829,740 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the United States. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/?ACSTrackingID=USCDC_2145-DM73048&ACSTrackingLabel=01.07.2022 - COVID-19 Data Tracker Weekly Review&deliveryName=USCDC_2145-DM73048#trends_dailydeaths To my eyes, NONE of the above -- cases, hospitalizations, deaths -- look like they're good trends. That's not a road Thailand wants to go down...

Overall, on average, I wouldn't want to bet my life on your approach to things.... unless I had a death wish.

When the wife and I recently were in Hua Hin for a short trip, a lot of the hotels we checked with that normally offered buffet breakfasts to their guests had switched to offering single set plate meals, because they didn't have enough paying guests to warrant putting out buffets. And that was for the week of Christmas leading up to New Year. Perhaps, hopefully, Pattaya hotels are faring a bit better in that regard.

Another little wrinkle for us TH expats that I came across in dealing with my father's U.S. trust: "Can a trustee live out of country? It is common to name family members and friends as Successor Trustees. However, if a trust names a non-U.S. Citizen or a U.S. Citizen who resides in another country as a Successor Trustee, the trust could be considered a “foreign trust” by the IRS, resulting in adverse tax consequences." https://estateandprobatelegalgroup.com/lombard-estate-planning-lawyer/citizenship-of-beneficiaries-and-trustees/ "Does a trustee of a US trust need to be a US citizen? Additionally, the trust must be managed and administered by a person who is a resident of the United States. It does not matter if the successor trustee is an American citizen or not. As long as the trustee is a resident of this country and administers the trust here, it should not be classified as a foreign trust." https://blog.calprobate.com/2018/11/naming-non-citizens-as-beneficiaries-trustees-and-executors.html So, a U.S. citizen living in Thailand who wants to create a personal trust under U.S. law needs to be cautious in how they handle/structure it. In case, I had always kept an official U.S. address that I used for tax filing, financial accounts and everything else. I never put anything U.S. related showing residence outside the U.S. So when it came to my documentation for the trust, it was just using the same U.S. address I had always used for everything in my life.

Ya, there are all kinds of potential issues. In the U.S., I believe, a trust can have co-trustees... For a time, my father and mother were co-trustees of their trust while she was alive, and then he became the sole trustee onward until his death. But I'm not clear, in a co-trustees situation (assuming you had someone else you could trust like an attorney or non-beneficiary entity like a brokerage house), whether the co-trustee can act unilaterally (say in a situation where you had become indisposed), or whether that kind of situation requires the consent of both.

You're in complete control of your trust while you're alive. If you don't like the way someone is treating you in your latter years, you can (have your home country attorney who set up your trust) simply write them out of your trust, and they'll get nothing, if you so desire.

The type of trusts we're talking about here ONLY give control over your finances to someone else (your successor trustee) AFTER you've passed (unless you wish otherwise). While you're still alive, you would want to remain the trustee of your own trust and retain complete control over everything in it. I went thru this with my own father, who had a trust for his assets, when he passed away last year. He was the sole trustee of his own trust while he was alive, and I was the designated beneficiary of his trust. While still living, he also designated me to be his successor trustee that would take effect once he passed away. While he was alive, I had absolutely no control over or say in what happened with his trust. But upon his death, I became the trustee of his trust, and was then legally responsible for allocating his inheritance to his designated beneficiary, which he had chosen to be me. PS -- Leaving the typical Thai (including a Thai wife) as the beneficiary of any sizable estate outside Thailand seems to me to be a very bad idea, especially if that Thai person has never lived in your home country for an extended period and come to understand life and finances there. The typical domestic Thai isn't going to be familiar with or understand the legalities of such things in the U.S., UK or wherever. There could be language barriers, communication problems, etc etc. I, as an American, had to handle the disposition of all my father's different bank accounts and such in the U.S. after his passing. And the banks and various other financial entities don't make it especially easy, even when, as in our case, there were no legal will/probate complexities and everything was pre-designated as POD (Payable on Death) to designated beneficiaries. The POD process being one that can bypass legal probate in the U.S. Having gone thru it from Thailand with my father who died in the U.S., I wouldn't wish that kind of process on my Thai wife here at all. If I ended up leaving that kind of thing solely in her hands after my death, I'm afraid she'd give up on the whole thing and never get a dime of my estate held outside Thailand.

As of tonight, no, the 3rd shot booster dose from today hasn't yet surfaced in my Mor Prom app info. I'm guessing, they'll update overnight, and it probably will show up when I look again tomorrow. I'm also assuming, the reason they weren't automatically handing out paper vax certificates at Bang Sue is because they're expecting Thais to get and download that kind of info from the Mor Prom app. I hadn't set up the Mor Prom app previously on my mobile phone, but did so this afternoon after my booster, using the 13-digit "ID Card Number" entry on my original two-dose vaccine certificate, in lieu of a Thai national ID card number that I don't have. Using the ID Card number from my prior MoPH vax certificate worked just fine in setting up a new Mor Prom account.

No. If you set up a legal trust in your home country that covers your various financial assets, those after your death are administered by the trustee you designate while you're alive, and the trustee is legally bound to follow the instructions you establish in the trust. The beneficiary or beneficiaries have no say or control over that, or any ability to challenge or change those terms. Just make sure you pick the correct trustee (ideally NOT a Thai beneficiary), ideally a disinterested neutral third party, someone who can be relied upon to faithfully execute the terms of your trust in your home country.

A bit more about the process at Bang Sue today: --I brought my passport, and it's probably a good/safe thing to do, in general. But today, no one asked me for it. They only wanted to see the appointment confirmation QR code I received via SMS when my vaccination appointment was confirmed. They scanned that, and that gave them all the info they needed/wanted, including my passport number, of course. --After arriving and getting inside, you're given a single page medical questionnaire (mine included English type) to check about all the various things that might disqualify you from getting a vaccination or require a doctor's sign-off first -- things like high blood pressure, allergic reactions, serious medical conditions, etc etc. For most people, it's going to mean checking NOs to everything. Then sign and date at the bottom to give your consent to getting vaccinated. --After my booster dose vaccination, no one gave me or offered any kind of paper vaccination certificate. So I had my Thai wife ask, and we ended up getting pointed to a series of tables at the far end of the vaccination area where they had printed signs up only in TH language saying paper vax certificates were available to Thais over age 60 and foreigners. So we sat down, the lady again asked to see my vax appointment QR code saved on my mobile phone, and in about 30 seconds, had printed out and handed me a half-page yellow-color vax certificate with a QR code up in the top right hand corner that only listed my 3rd booster dose given today (although I have a separate prior paper vax certificate from the private hospital that gave me my original two AZ doses). So the overall process from the start was: --go to the outside entry door, and either get sent to the queue for those with appointments, or those doing walk-in (if it's available at the time of your visit.) --Once in the appointments queue, they'll check the appoinment QR code for your visit on your mobile phone, then send you in to sit in an area where they have the medical questionnaire form to be filled out, with a pen and clipboard available on each seat. Once you've filled out that form and they've checked it to make sure you're good for a vax.... --Then, your group is sent to an adjoining vax area were you sit once again on lined up white plastic chairs in queues in front of the many vax stations. And then every time one person in your line in vaccinated, everyone stands up, and moves one chair closer to the front. And then again and again and again, until you reach the vax station, where they take your medical form, and ask to see your QR code again before giving you the shot.

AFAIK, the Thai MoPH system doesn't have any records of foreigners' COVID vaccinations done abroad, unless you've officially told them somewhere along the way (perhaps such as a tourist / sandbox entry or something like that). So, if you had two Pfizer doses abroad and those aren't in the Thai government's system, AFAIK, you could register in the Thai government system for what they would consider to be your first dose. However, right now, for the "unvaccinated," they appear to be offering only a 1st AZ dose followed by a 2nd Pfizer dose. And someone who's already had two Pfizer doses outside Thailand really doesn't need or want a third dose being AZ. So the alternative would seem to be to wait until the Thai government's own system open Pfizer booster doses for those who've already received two Pfizer doses in country, which probably will be about six months after they first started doing Pfizer doses here. https://app.dtac.co.th/vaccine/index-en.html https://www.ais.th/vaccinesforthais/

Very strange and not what I encountered there today at all.... I had an appointment there (made more than a week back thru the TH mobile provider websites) at 4 p.m. this afternoon for a Pfizer booster shot four months after my original two AZ doses. I was in and vaccinated in less than a half hour, and then for some reason, they only had my cohort wait about 15 minutes before letting everyone go on their way. So I was out the door in less than 45 minutes overall from start to finish. This was my first time to Bang Sue for a COVID vaccination, and the setup they have there is HUGE, making use of vast otherwise unused area of the Bang Sue Grand Central rail station complex. But at 4 p.m. today, there were no crowds, no long queues for anything. And although there were a lot of people inside in various stages of getting vaccinated, they were more than matched by the available vaccination staff and stations to move everything along. The seating queue leading to the vax stations at front. When I made my appointment via the DTAC COVID vaccine website, I only got to choose my appointment DAY, so I chose an available Saturday. Then later when the MoPH system accepted and confirmed my appointment via SMS, they assigned the time, which happened to be 4 p.m. And all I can say is, 4 p.m. on a Saturday seems to be a very good time to be doing vaccination business at Bang Sue Grand Central Station.

I was reading a variety of news and science reports on all this yesterday, after coming across this thread, with a particular emphasis on how well these tests do in detecting Omicron. The latest medical indications are that Omicron infections can occur,be infectious and be found via PCR while the ATK nasal tests still show negative results. The suggestion is that saliva/throat test/swabs will give a better early warning indicator of Omicron. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/rapid-nose-swab-tests-covid-may-not-detect-omicron-quickly-enough-expert-says-2022-01-07/ Rapid nose swab tests for COVID may not detect Omicron quickly enough -expert says "Jan 7 (Reuters) - Swabbing the nose with a rapid antigen test will not reliably detect the Omicron variant in the first few days of an infection, so manufacturers should seek U.S. approval to allow users to safely collect samples from the throat as well, according to an infectious diseases expert. People can already transmit Omicron to others when it has infected their throat and saliva but before the virus reaches their nose, so swabbing the nostrils too early in the course of infection will not pick it up, Dr. Michael Mina, formerly of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and now chief science officer at eMed, said during a news conference on Thursday. A study released on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review looked at 29 Omicron-infected workers in high-risk professions who had PCR and antigen tests done simultaneously on multiple days. The PCR tests of saliva detected the virus on average three days before the rapid nose-swab samples became positive." So, if you just want a negative test result to show someone, regardless of the truth of the matter, then I guess the nasal swabs are OK. But if you're doing to test to really find out if you're a threat of Omicron infection to those around you, then the saliva/throat swab test/method seems to be the better course.

I found that as well recently with our Thailand hotel booking experience. Not only that, but these days, Google Maps also tends to show the current booking rates from numerous 3rd party booking sites, all in one place, when you look at a particular hotel's listing in Google Maps. The rate info isn't always entirely up to date, and only shows a single rate, not all the various permutations available from the different booking sites. But the Google Maps rates recap gives the shopper a good idea of which booking sites to check first as potentially having the best current rates for that particular property. And of course includes the weblinks that lead to those various sites' listings.

Your comment above seems inherently illogical. You start out by saying it's something "we have zero control over." And then proceed to tick off a series of correct preventive measures that everyone can and should follow as a means of preventing and reduce the spread of the virus. In short, it's still something every individual has some ability to influence thru their own actions or lack thereof.