TallGuyJohninBKK

You can compare the two diseases, in any number of ways, including for starters, the number of deaths attributed annually to each of those diseases... But as the data below clearly shows, no, they're absolutely not comparable. As an example: "Flu: The World Health Organization estimates that 290,000 to 650,000 people die of flu-related causes every year worldwide." https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu vs nearly 2 million official COVID deaths worldwide during calendar 2020... three to six times more than the regular flu. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/ And more than 3.5 million more deaths from COVID during calendar 2021: For a total over the past 2 years of more than 5.5 million official COVID deaths, which is widely considered to be an undercount of reality. https://covid19.who.int/

Anyone who's had two AZ doses as their original shots -- which includes myself -- definitely should consider a Moderna or Pfizer booster 3 months after their second AZ dose. Because, AZ in particular shows a pattern of waning effectiveness against preventing infection after several months. Both the Pfizer and Moderna shots are good for booster purposes on top of two AZ doses. But, the Moderna booster has been shown in the tracking studies done in the UK to have slightly better performance than the Pfizer shot as boosters. All things being equal, I'd pick the Moderna booster if I had the choice.

The CDC report and data I cited above did not/does not distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated in the case, hospitalization and death totals. And thus neither did my post. The fact that likely much larger numbers of unvaccinated folks are making up the current hospitalization and death numbers doesn't change the fact that cases and hospitalizations overall have reached pandemic record levels and that creates burdens on the entire healthcare system -- not to mention the substantially needless loss of life that continues to occur. That's not fear. That's just fact. And it's worth noting that despite other differences, Thailand and the U.S. are both similar in that each has only fully vaccinated (two shots) about two-thirds of their respective populations, leaving about one-third in each country not fully vaccinated thus far. From the Washington Post article you linked above: "At a Senate hearing Tuesday, Fauci said that unvaccinated people are 20 times likelier to die, 17 times likelier to be hospitalized and 10 times likelier to be infected than the vaccinated."

Update from the US CDC on Friday -- U.S. COVID cases and hospitalizations are both at pandemic record high levels right now, and COVID deaths are trending upward. (The vertical blue lines are the daily totals, while the red/gray lines show the 7-day moving averages). The vast majority of the U.S. cases right now (98%) are Omicron, according to the CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html DAILY COVID CASES DAILY COVID HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS DAILY COVID DEATHS

Interesting article, even via TH translation. Just to be clear for folks, neither the planned Sports nor Museum buildings appear to be anywhere close to completion, and when I've been out at the park at various times in the past week, I haven't seen any active construction/development going on at either of those two sites, though perhaps I've been arriving too late in the afternoon. Before reading the article above, I wasn't sure if they were planning to re-purpose the old Tobacco Monopoly buildings that remain on the site, or built new buildings from scratch. But I think the article you posted makes it pretty clear that they're going to be repurposing the existing buidlings that remain into the planned future uses. The one part in the article that took me by surprise, if it translated correctly, was the notion of apparently planning to divert water from the adjoining khlong that runs along the north edge of the park, which you not incorrectly described above as having "primordial ooze," into the wetlands area of the new park with some envisioned means of remediation (though couldn't quite tell exactly what that would be).

In that reference, I believe they're referring to Thai nationals only.

If I understood the OP's account correctly, it was the intake staff at his local hospital who promised him that his insurance would cover his quarantine expenses -- not anyone from the company where he has his insurance policy.... Assuming my understanding is correct, that's not whom he needed to hear the "yes, you'll be covered" assurance from. "There are only two women processing all these foreigners and there is no A/C. ... I showed them my covid insurance I had to buy as part of Test and Go and asked if it would reimburse me for this. They promised 100% reimbursement. I would receive a medical report at the end of quarantine that I could use to file a claim."

Time heals many wounds.... ????

When I saw that graphic from the government originally, it gave me a big headache just trying to look at it! ???? As for the OP's question, there's a recently explained government policy that's supposed to guide these kinds of decisions, and then there's what actually happens in any given locale, where as is typical in TH, YMMV. In general, the policy is generally supposed to allow home quarantine IF people don't have symptoms or only mild symptoms. But there are caveats to that. One is that supposedly the government health staff will assess the home setting to determine whether a home quarantine option would be appropriate. (For example, a studio apartment or condo with 4 occupants probably isn't gonna cut it.). But the other area of caveats under their policy was the particulars of the patient/person who tested positive. If that person is older/elderly and/or has other medical conditions that put them a higher risk for bad COVID outcomes, I believe the govt's policy gives them the option to order hospitel or hospital in those cases, assuming those kinds of beds are available in the given location.

As you were saying... from Johns Hopkins Jan. 13 COVID update: "COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US set a record high this week, passing the previous record of 16,497 new hospitalizations per day (January 8, 2021). The 7-day average as of January 10 is 20,269. The CDC is also reporting a surge in the number of current hospitalizations, up from an average of 91,030 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on January 3 to 124,163 on January 10, an increase of 36.4% over that period. "The current average is slightly above the previous record high—124,031 on January 11, 2021. Daily mortality is increasing, and the surge in hospitalizations is placing severe strain on health systems nationwide, which could contribute to increased mortality for COVID-19 patients as well as those seeking care for other conditions." And also, in the irony award category considering that many Republican/conservative leaning law enforcement unions have opposed COVID vaccination requirements in the U.S.: "For the second year in a row, COVID-19 was the leading cause of death among US law enforcement officers. According to preliminary data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 458 local, state, tribal, and federal officers died in the line of duty in 2021, a 55% increase over 2020 and the highest total since 1930. Of those deaths, 301 were related to COVID-19, with the virus reportedly contracted in the line of duty." https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/COVID-19-SituationReports.html

Johns Hopkins newsletter update from Jan. 13 and its excerpt regarding COVID in the U.S. Omicron may be milder than Delta on an overall basis, but it's nonetheless putting a record high numbers of people in hospitals sick with COVID (as well as piling up record numbers of cases). COVID deaths also have been increasing. And in the U.S., they only put patients in the hospital if they're actually sick, not as a quarantine measure like in Thailand: "COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US set a record high this week, passing the previous record of 16,497 new hospitalizations per day (January 8, 2021). The 7-day average as of January 10 is 20,269. The CDC is also reporting a surge in the number of current hospitalizations, up from an average of 91,030 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on January 3 to 124,163 on January 10, an increase of 36.4% over that period. The current average is slightly above the previous record high—124,031 on January 11, 2021. Daily mortality is increasing, and the surge in hospitalizations is placing severe strain on health systems nationwide, which could contribute to increased mortality for COVID-19 patients as well as those seeking care for other conditions." "The US CDC is currently reporting 62.5 million cumulative cases of COVID-19 and 840,286 deaths. The US is averaging 761,535 new cases and 1,656 deaths per day.* Notably, the US reported 1.35 million new COVID-19 cases on January 10. This exceeds the previous single-day record, set on January 3, by 397,521 cases." Source link "OMICRON SEVERITY Real-world evidence is supporting the theory that the highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant of concern (VOC) causes less severe disease than the Delta VOC, but officials are warning that Omicron cannot be described as “mild” and unvaccinated individuals remain at risk for severe outcomes." ... While real-world anecdotes suggest people infected with Omicron are less likely to need intensive care including breathing support, COVID-19 hospitalizations set a new record this week in the US. Hospitals nationwide already are overwhelmed with an enormous number of people with COVID-19—as well as with other health conditions—all while facing staffing shortages exacerbated by workers themselves becoming ill."

The posters above are correct in that the current Thai government policy for people who've already received two original Pfizer doses is that they're only eligible for a 3rd Pfizer booster dose SIX MONTHS after their second shot. So presumably, that's why the OP was turned away. Meanwhile, FWIW, the follow-up studies being done in the UK show that the Pfizer booster does a very good job in boosting protection from the virus (OK in preventing infection, very good in preventing serious illness and death. Not quite as good as a Moderna booster, according to the UK data, but significantly better than where someone would be 6 months after their two original Pfizer doses with no booster.

Interestingly, especially for Thailand, I don't believe there are ANY concession stands/locations for pretty much anything anywhere in the original park or the recent expansion areas right now. Don't think you can even get a bottle of water there.

The first, previously opened expansion area of the park, the flat grassy section nearest to the main parking lot, has a lot of benches and trash receptacles spread throughout. From my walking yesterday, there seemed to be fewer individual places to sit among the various concrete paths going thru the newly opened wetlands expansion area -- although the big outdoor amphitheatre area there is designed with tiered levels to allow a lot of outdoor seating all in one place.

Why does this contactless payments stuff need to be so seemingly complicated here.... I have no clue what NFC payment apps are broadly accepted by Thai merchants. Google seems to keep changing the name and other details of their payments app. The OP says Samsung Pay has been discontinued. Then there's also LINE Pay, which I gather is widely used. Meanwhile, it seems everyone and their brother in Thailand wants you to use and pay for things thru their own individual app / digital wallet. I guess all the retail and banking companies each want their own piece of the payments ecosystem. And meanwhile, they all seem to have forgotten the familiar maxim -- KISS! (Keep It Simple, Stupid!!!)

Yep, I stand corrected about that as to Grab. It's probably the fact that the Grab website is virtually entirely in TH language, without an easy to use alternate EN version built-in, that made me mentally write them off and give my business elsewhere.

As far as I recall, unlike FoodPanda, there's no restaurant food ordering via the Grab website. I believe you can only do that via their app. Thus, in your example, I don't know how you can use the Google Lens feature on your phone to translate something that's in an app on that same phone's display screen.

You can take the existing elevated, old bike path that runs from Lumpini Park to the Suk Soi 10 entrance Benjakitti Park. That route works either for walking, running or bicycling.

For someone who's had two original Pfizer doses, the Thai government's current policy for their own free booster shot program is 6 months after.

I actually began wearing N95 face masks regularly in Bangkok a couple years ago before COVID ever came along -- to protect my health against the seasonally bad air pollution/PM2.5 epidemics. I don't think ANYONE particularly enjoys wearing a face mask every time they go outside. But after a couple years of doing so now -- first for air pollution and now for COVID -- it's just become a routine habit that I don't think about much and certainly doesn't bother me or create any unbearable burden. Yes, I want my "free-dumb" just as much as the next person -- the "free-dumb" to protect my own health, and to help protect the health of those around me. It's me doing my small part for the greater social good.

The practical point of wearing a mask against COVID is to do so when you're going to be in relatively close contact with others, especially in an indoors setting. Reasonable people exercise some common sense in their mask wearing practices to protect their health and the health of others. But that doesn't include avoiding face mask wearing entirely based on silly arguments such as in talking about mask wearing and swimming.

Understand what you're saying.... But really, the expanded park has areas to suit various uses/purposes. There are open grass spaces both in the original park around the lake, and in the first previously opened phase of the park expansion, for human recreation. I assume, the newer wetlands expansion isn't meant as a place for picnics, but instead, a nature preserve for local plants and birds and such. It's also meant to be a large greenspace for cooling and helping with climate change by reducing carbon dioxide and increasing oxygen in the atmosphere... hence the term, Bangkok's "Green Lung."

I've used both Foodpanda and Grab in Bangkok. And as a non-TH reader, I prefer Foodpanda. I like being able to deal entirely in English with FP without having to mess with any translation most of the time. I also like that FP has a PC webpage interface for ordering that app-only Grab doesn't have. And, when I've compared the menu prices for the same restaurants that I like to order from regularly, Grab most of the time seems to have higher prices on an item to item basis. FP also has, once you have an account with them, on ongoing series of promotional codes and discounts available that sometimes can be used for any order, and other times are specific to individual restaurants. And those are pretty clearly labeled on their website and apps.

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