TallGuyJohninBKK

If we're lucky, the current Omicron wave will peak at some point an then begin to decline, probably not too far into the future, if other countries' experiences are mirrored here. The pressing question, though, is WHAT will come after that....

The solution, I think, is NOT to rely on Thai TV as the source of one's desired international/foreign sporting content. I think, folks who have access to live TV content from their home countries probably could have fared a lot better than relying on Thai broadcasters. I could have watched hundreds, probably thousands of hours, of Olympic broadcasts from the U.S. But in fact, I watched NONE. Reasons being -- 1. I had no time. 2. the Chinese government disgusts me. 3. I'm not a big winter sports fan, period.

Not quite as fast as some here apparently were hoping and expecting. ???? Perhaps the daily rising COVID case counts (now at a record high level), and serious condition and intubated COVID patient counts have something to do with that.

Read the chart posted above re Thailand, and the prior one I posted above for the U.S., exactly the same, 100% Omicron. The various authorities may have some reason to monkey with the reporting numbers for cases and deaths and such. But they have zero reason to monkey with the testing results for which COVID variants are present. PS- The 0.81% COVID case fatality rate number you mentioned above is CUMULATIVE for Thailand since the beginning, not a reflection of current cases only. The death rate number for recent cases is much lower, as would be expected. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=7118001088242447&set=a.192552250787400&type=3

It's all Omicron in Thailand right now, one variant or the other. Everything else prior has dropped off the map. The chart below is from the Center of Specialization in Clinical Virology Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University. And reflects variant testing done for cases in Bangkok. Posted Feb. 19, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=7228301480545740&set=a.192552250787400&type=3 Omicron kills people and puts people in the hospital every day -- just not at as high ratios as did its predecessor Delta.

Take the U.S. as another example. It's all Omicron, and has been killing people there at the rate of about 2,000 per day of late (though the latest 7 day daily average has fallen to about 1,600). "CDC Nowcast projections* for the week ending February 12, 2022, estimate the combined national proportion of lineages designated as Omicron to be 100%." Deaths "The current 7-day moving average of new deaths (2,021)" "New Hospital Admissions The current 7-day daily average for February 9–February 15, 2022, was 8,642. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

Up thru yesterday -- less than 30% triple vaxed, which is what's needed for Omicron. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/509929000625429

I believe, almost all of the COVID cases in Thailand right now (and many other parts of the world) are Omicron, so I'd presume the deaths are the same. People DO die from Omicron, you know that, right?

I thought they might be talking about this case, since it hits closer to home for the PM: Thai Army General Jailed in US$1.3 Million Fraud Case A Thai Army General and two other accomplices have been sentenced to jail for colluding to coerce two companies into paying 43 million baht (US$1.35million) for state projects that did not exist. In a ruling yesterday, the Criminal Court in Bangkok found General Sompote Ngerncharoen, 66, Chutikan Boonmee, and Thanankan Nanthadamrongwat guilty of committing fraud. A former assistant leader of a team attached to the chief of staff of the Department of Defence, General Sompote was a former adviser to a commander of the Fourth Region Army. https://www.chiangraitimes.com/crime/thai-army-general-jailed-in-us1-3-million-fraud-case/?noamp=mobile

Ohh??? I don't know about that! I suspect the views of how he's [not] doing on corruption are pretty much universally in agreement.

The experts in such things -- statisticians and epidemiologists -- pretty much universally agree that the officially reported COVID death numbers in countries around the world are a considerable undercount of the actual deaths caused by COVID. In short, there are MORE, not less, than the official counts reflect.

Interestingly, with today's report, I believe Thailand just hit its all-time record high for daily new "official" COVID cases, surpassing the prior peak for the Delta wave last August of 23,418. Today's official new cases tally was an even higher 23,557. And of course if you add in today's not officially counted 22,240 ATK cases, then we long ago exceeded last year's combined "unofficial" peak. Today: August 13, 2021: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main The Our World in Data site will show the same, later today or tomorrow, when they update their info with Thailand's latest case count for today: source link

Thai PM continues corruption drive Never did a news headline have a better dual meaning than this one.... ????

For the day, the daily "official" new COVID cases tally sets another record high for the current wave topping 23,000 for the first time. Patients under care exceeds 180,000 for the the first time. And another big jump in the number of cases in serious condition, as well as a smaller increase in intubated patients, who have more than doubled since the start of the month. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main For some added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients topped 5,600 and 1,100 respectively. So the current levels are less than one quarter of those, for now.

"Offit's concern isn't focused on the possibility of potential T-cell exhaustion, but rather the unsustainability of a health strategy centered around trying to prevent mild illness.... some vaccinated people will develop mild cases of COVID-19. "That's okay,” said Offit, adding that the vaccines are working like they're supposed to. "You just want it to keep you out of the hospital, out of the intensive care unit and out of the morgue, and it was doing that. But we labeled those cases breakthroughs, which was, I think, a communications error, and then held this vaccine to a standard that we hold no other mucosal vaccine to." ... "US health officials authorized booster doses in order to prevent mild illness, Offit said. But the focus should instead be on administering first and second vaccine doses to people who are unvaccinated, rather than continuing to boost people who have already gotten their first two shots, he told DW." Ya, like that's going to happen among the whack job remaining anti-vax segment of the U.S.... which happens to be about one-third of the country. And we all know who they are.... Vaccines should go to the people who can benefit from them, and who want them, including the elderly and other at-risk segments whose immune systems need that extra boost.

If you read the full report, it indicates that pretty much all the adverse reactions that occurred were mild and resolved within a day or two post injection. The typical kind of post vaccination reactions. "No serious adverse events were reported. No hospital admissions were reported."

This research has been reported on previously, and the findings included that the 4th vaccine continued to provide protection against serious COVId illness, even though very mild breakthru infections did occur... See below: Fourth Pfizer Dose Is Insufficient to Ward Off Omicron, Israeli Trial Suggests Preliminary data found inoculation did increase antibodies Those with 4th shot only slightly less likely to get variant " Still, those infected in the trial had only slight symptoms or none at all." "Israel started rolling out the fourth dose of the vaccine to the over-60s and immunocompromised in late December amid a surge in cases. Since then, more than half a million Israelis have received the extra dose, according to the Health Ministry. The decision to give the fourth vaccine to the most vulnerable was the correct one, Regev-Yochay said at a virtual press conference, because it may have given additional benefit against omicron. But the results didn’t support a wider rollout to the whole population, she added." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-17/israel-trial-suggests-4th-dose-not-warding-off-omicron-infection The full study report did actually comment on the 4th dose's likelihood to prevent serious COVID illness, saying of the breakthru infections that occurred: "most of the infected HCW, in all groups complained of only negligible symptoms, which in many cases would not have been tested or reported, without the active surveillance. ... The increased efficacy against symptomatic compared to asymptomatic infections found in this study suggest that the fourth dose may be more efficacious against severe disease and death, as was recently observed22. Therefore, older and vulnerable populations who are at higher risk for severe disease may benefit most from a fourth vaccine dose." ... "Four to five months after the third dose, the fourth dose increases immunogenicity and restores it to levels comparable to peak antibody levels after the third vaccine dose. Thus, while mRNA vaccines seem to be highly potent and protective against severe disease, next-generation vaccines may be needed to provide better protection against infection with highly transmissible future variants." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.15.22270948v1.full-text

Part of the problem with "news" here, especially, is you never can quite be sure whether the public official actually made a stupid or wrong statement, OR, the competence-challenged media misquoted or mischaracterized what the person said. I have no idea which is this case here, and the numbers you cite above certainly are correct. The only alternative scenario I can throw out is.... about a week ago, MoPH had a chart showing that current hospital occupancy in Bangkok and surrounding provinces was heading north of 25,000 beds. So, it's at least possible, that Anutin's comment was either said, or meant, in the context of the Bangkok region. And, as we well know, the central government types are prone to think of things in a Bangkok-centric context, since the rest of the country really doesn't matter as much (in their inherent thinking). Just sayin... it's possible.

News headline coming soon: Thai Khon dancers in Zebra crossing run down by speeding motorcyclist / car / truck / bus, etc.... ????

None of what you posted above was pertinent to my comment, nor was I disagreeing with those points. What I said and explained was wrong was your comment that: "all reports of waning efficacy are based exclusively on diminishing antibody levels" As I explained above, a lot of the studies and reports on waning efficacy are based on actual followup studies of vaccinated people who are then tested on at what rates, and when, they subsequently become infected. Your prior comment suggested, whether you intended it or not, that the research and reported findings on waning efficacy was only being done using measurements of antibody levels, like the health authorities in Thailand often like to report on.

For the day, big increases in daily cases, patients under care and serious condition patients. New official cases exceed the 20,000 threshold for the first time in the current wave -- seven times the daily number at the start of the year. Daily deaths have more than tripled, and patients under care have increased more than five-fold. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

No, I don't believe that's correct. A lot of the waning efficacy projections have have been based on follow-up studies where people who have been vaccinated are then monitored and tracked over periods of time for future infections to see how often they occur and how long after the original vaccinations, and at what rates for different vaccines or combinations of vaccines.

The news lately has a number of different countries announcing or considering fourth shots targeted at specific elderly and vulnerable populations, as opposed to general public mass vaccination. Re the U.S.: A fourth Covid-19 shot might be recommended this fall, as officials 'continually' look at emerging data (CNN) As the world approaches the second anniversary of the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization, on March 11, more nations are rolling out -- or are discussing the possibility of -- fourth doses of coronavirus vaccine for their most vulnerable. In the United States, leading public health officials say they are "very carefully" monitoring if or when fourth doses might be needed. Israel was the first nation to roll out fourth doses, announcing in December that adults 60 and older, medical workers and people with suppressed immune systems were eligible to receive the extra shot if at least four months have passed since their third dose. More recently, the Public Health Agency of Sweden announced last week that second booster doses are recommended for everyone 80 and older in the country. The United Kingdom's Department of Health and Social Care announced Monday that an extra booster dose of coronavirus vaccine will be offered in the spring to adults 75 and older, residents in care homes for older adults and immunosuppressed people 12 and older. Now, the US Food and Drug Administration "is indeed continually looking at the emerging data on the pandemic and variants in the United States and overseas in order to evaluate the potential utility and composition of booster doses," FDA spokesperson Alison Hunt wrote in an email to CNN on Friday. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/19/health/fourth-covid-19-vaccine-dose-us/index.html

"major public disturbance" I've seen this phrase used before, recently, coming out of Pattaya. Dunno if it's now a favorite of the local police or what.... But it seems to get pulled out every time a farang there spits on the street or something....

Not a lot of detail on that. But the last chart I saw with some of that was dated Feb 10, where the government said only 20% of seniors age 60 and above (the most vulnerable age group) had received 3 vaccine doses thus far. (And no 3rd dose boosters for youngsters, since their vaccinations have only begun recently.) For seniors, that's not gonna cut it with Omicron. Since the Feb. 10 report below, the overall population share for 3rd shot boosters has climbed from the 25% on the chart below to about 27% lately, as you noted above. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/501760971442232/?type=3