TallGuyJohninBKK

Last year it was announced that T-Mobile would acquire Mint Mobile and, now, that deal has officially closed. Here’s what that means for you. In a press release today, T-Mobile officially welcomes Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile to “Team T-Mobile” after the deal to buy the two companies was officially approved by the FCC last week. T-Mobile explains in a post that the acquisition “locks in” connectivity for Mint and Ultra “for the long-term.” ... But the key question here is, does this change anything for existing Mint Mobile customers? In the short term at least, no. T-Mobile is reiterating its promise – “commitmint” – to continue offering Mint’s $15/month pricing option. This price is available when pre-purchasing multiple months of service and is among the most affordable options for cellular service in the United States. There’s no promise, though, on how long this offer will continue to be available. (more) https://9to5google.com/2024/05/01/t-mobile-mint-mobile-offiicially-owns/

Things have been getting better, particularly when it comes to COVID deaths. But hardly done yet. Per the U.S. CDC: "The decline in deaths associated with COVID-19 is even more dramatic than the drop in hospitalizations. In 2021, over 450,000 deaths among Americans were associated with COVID-19, while in 2023, that number fell to roughly 75,000. This represents an 83% decrease since early in the pandemic. That said, the number of COVID-19-related deaths is still substantial, impacting families across the country. Based on preliminary data, COVID-19 still ranks as the 10th most common cause of death in the U.S. for 2023, a drop from 3rd in 2020 and 2021 and 4th in 2022. [emphasis added]" https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/changing-threat-covid-19.html

the group that was hit the hardest was the 7 million who officially died from COVID, with the real figure likely to be several times that high into the high 20 millions. There's no recovering once you're dead. https://archive.ph/qaYDw

Yes, they looked at traditional economic measurements, but didn't cover all the involved factors/costs: "Putting a price tag on all the pain, suffering and upheaval Americans and people around the world have experienced because of COVID-19 is, of course, hard to do. More than 1.1 million people have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S., and many more have been hospitalized or lost loved ones. ... What is not known We modeled only the pandemic’s standard economic effects. We didn’t estimate the vast array of economic costs tied to COVID-19, such as lost years of work after an early death or a severe case of long-COVID-19. We also didn’t assess the costs due to the many ways that the disease has affected the physical and mental health of the U.S. population or the learning loss experienced by students." And the bottom line is -- the more people who were vaccinated, the fewer COVID deaths that occurred, and that lessened the costs to society in a multitude of ways.

That's all the public detail the MoPH provides... And they had ceased proving any age data on local COVID deaths until just recently, when they finally resumed specifying the general age ranges again. If you're not satisfied and want more details, you need to take it up with the Thai MoPH.

There have been a lot of different studies done by a lot of different researchers around the world on the impact of COVID vaccines during the pandemic, and they all have come to the same/similar conclusions: COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5 Report: COVID-19 vaccines saved US $1.15 trillion, 3 million lives https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/report-covid-19-vaccines-saved-us-115-trillion-3-million-lives COVID-19 vaccinations have saved more than 1.4 million lives in the WHO European Region, a new study finds https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/16-01-2024-covid-19-vaccinations-have-saved-more-than-1.4-million-lives-in-the-who-european-region--a-new-study-finds

Look at the COVID deaths graphics in the latest weekly MoPH COVID reports. 12 official COVID deaths last week, 9 the week before that. 3 the week before that. It always helps to actually be looking at and keeping up with the MoPH data, before one starts talking about it. April 28 - May 4: April 21-27: April 14-20: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main It's also worth noting that past published research studies have shown that Thailand's official COVID deaths statistics during the pandemic have been substantial undercounts to what were the actual likely COVID deaths -- as was found to be the case in many different countries. https://aseannow.com/topic/1253090-covid-19-thailand-reports-24792-new-coronavirus-cases-63-deaths-22065-recoveries/?do=findComment&comment=17240156

COVID hospitalizations in Thailand have been rising for the past two months since mid-March, well before Song Kran came along, though the pace of increases after Song Kran has increased: "The weekly COVID new hospitalization counts reported by the MoPH during the past eight weeks have been as follows, with the spring surge beginning well before this year's mid-April Song Kran holidays, but then climbing rapidly after they arrived: March 16 -- 501 March 23 -- 630 March 30 -- 728 April 6 -- 774 April 13 -- 849 April 20 -- 1,004 April 27 -- 1,672 May 4 -- 1,792" The MoPH's weekly COVID reports for Thailand are available at the following MoPH website: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

Wrong! Thai MoPH just reported the COVID death of a young child aged 0-4 at the end of last month, in their weekly COVID report for April 21-27: https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

As usual, you selectively chose to ignore other important details of the same report, as sourced in the link posted above: "The Ministry of Public Health also reported the total number of current COVID hospitalizations rated in serious condition climbed to 501, a 28% increase over the prior week and a tally that appears to be Thailand's highest in almost a year and a half. The number of currently hospitalized COVID patients requiring intubation / ventilation to breathe also rose to 187, up 26% from the prior week, and the highest number in that category since mid-June 2023." And actually, no, official COVID deaths in Thailand haven't "flatlined". The 12 reported for the most recent week was the highest weekly number since July 2023. At the beginning of 2024, the weekly COVID deaths count reported here were running 7-8 per week.

Ditto on that here for me in central BKK today.... Guess the TMD ought to change their motto to: "Day Late and Dollar Short!" 😄

That doesn't look like the uniforms worn by BTS station security staff. It looks more like the uniforms worn by the male ticket counter staff.

COVID cases/hospitalizations in Thailand have been rising steadily for the past two months since mid-March. https://aseannow.com/topic/1326140-hospitalizations-climb-in-thailands-spring-2024-covid-surge/?do=findComment&comment=18893219

Yes, AZ was supported by Warp Speed in the U.S. But the vaccine never received approval for use there. July 2020: "The vaccine candidate, currently in human trials, is one of the candidates funded and supported by the US Operation Warp Speed (OWS) programme." https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/emergent-astrazeneca-deal/

AstraZeneca withdraws Covid-19 vaccine worldwide, citing surplus of newer vaccines Pharmaceutical company says newer shots led to decline in demand for AstraZeneca vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied AstraZeneca has begun the worldwide withdrawal of its Covid-19 vaccine due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines” that target new variants of the virus. The announcement follows the pharmaceutical company in March voluntarily withdrawing its European Union marketing authorisation, which is the approval to market a medicine in member states. ... In a statement, AstraZeneca said the decision was made because there is now a variety of newer vaccines available that have been adapted to target Covid-19 variants. This had led to a decline in demand for the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied. “According to independent estimates, over 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone and over 3bn doses were supplied globally,” the statement said. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/08/astrazeneca-withdraws-covid-19-vaccine-worldwide-citing-surplus-of-newer-vaccines

London (CNN) — AstraZeneca is withdrawing its highly successful coronavirus vaccine, citing the availability of a plethora of new shots that has led to a decline in demand. The vaccine — called Vaxzevria and developed in partnership with the University of Oxford — has been one of the main Covid-19 vaccines worldwide, with more than 3 billion doses supplied since the first was administered in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2021. ... In a notice on its website, the European Medicines Agency also announced the withdrawal, which means that Vaxzevria is no longer authorized to be marketed or sold in European Union countries. AstraZeneca said it would work with regulators in other countries to “align on a clear path forward,” including withdrawing marketing authorizations for the vaccine where no future commercial demand is expected. (more) https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/business/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-withdrawal/index.html

No rain in central BKK this afternoon. But shortly before 3 pm, the official temperature reading says a chilly [ 😝 ] 97F degrees... Which, I'm not complaining about at this point, given that the typical afternoon readings in BKK in past weeks have been at 100F or above.

Just another day in the life... These things, we come to know and expect. 😞

I'm sure they'd be happy to take your money. When you gonna pay up? 🙂 FWIW, there have been some recent proposals that would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans to help fund the SS gap. I believe those would target incomes over $400K per year. But not surprisingly, one particular political party doesn't seem too keen on that plan. From the OP article: "Congressional Democrats have proposed higher taxes on the wealthy to support Social Security. Congressional Republicans have balked at that, instead calling for reducing the benefit formula and raising the retirement age for younger workers."

I've used two services lately: Planet Express based in Southern California and has their website by that name, a service that I liked and used for a long time, but ceased using a year ago when they had a long string of having my economy shipping packages go astray. They do also offer a full range of shipping methods, and a person could probably avoid the non-delivery risk by opting for delivery via FedEx or DHL. But the shipping rate's gonna be more expensive, and Thai Customs on this end likely will add on VAT and potentially a Customs duty charge as well. Though to set up a NEW account with Planet Express, a person would have to go thru the process of filling out and submitting USPS mail forwarding documentation to PE in order for them to activate your account. That's a standard USPS requirement. More recently, I've been using a service called WeShippingUSA, which is run by Thais and operates via Facebook. They only have two options: 1. ocean shipping that takes about 3 months and has a flat rate of 300b per kilo, no extra charges except for local EMS mail delivery to your home here, or 2. air freight handling, which takes about 2 weeks and has a flat rate of 800b per kilo, no extra charges except for local EMS mail delivery to your home here. (No extra charges meaning no added risk for VAT or Customs duty. Their fee is all-inclusive.) In both options with WeShippingUSA, thru dozens of orders, thus far, they have a perfect delivery record for my stuff, though occasionally they run a couple days behind schedule for their ultimate delivery times here. Payment is via Thai bank transfer to their account here. Another option, if you have family or similar back in the U.S., would be to have the purchased phone delivered to them, and they could re-mail it to you here in Thailand using one of several USPS International mail options, which could be insured. The package would then be delivered here via ThaiPost. And in either case for Planet Express or WeShippingUSA, they would be able to handle the shipping of a newly purchased mobile phone, so long as the lithium battery is packed inside the phone, and not separate outside.

Congress has less than a decade to fix Social Security before the popular program runs short of cash, threatening a sharp cut in benefits for nearly 60 million retirees and family members, according to a government report released Monday. The report from Social Security trustees predicts the retirement program's trust fund will be exhausted in November of 2033. At that point, benefits would automatically be cut by 21%, unless lawmakers adopt changes before then. There's some good news in the new forecast. Thanks to higher-than-expected worker productivity and a decline in expected disabilities, Social Security isn't burning through cash as fast as trustees predicted a year ago. (more) https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1249406440/social-security-medicare-congress-fix-boomers-benefits

I've flown thru Taipei with EVA in both directions many times on the US to BKK routes. My typical scheduled layover there has been 3 hours, sometimes 4. But even if it had been shorter, the transfers on EVA for US to BKK flights are all within the same terminal, not very far to walk, and their security measures are pretty efficient and speedy in my experience. A person probably could make the connecting flight with a full one hour layover. But 2 hours would be safer and more relaxing.

Don't think so, Dude! 😞 But I have a famous bridge to sell, if you're interested....

I don't remember anyone saying that. Though there were a lot of specific FALSE COVID vaccine claims made that did fit into the conspiracy theory realm (like the whoppers that COVID vaccines contained trackers or were magnetic). See below: Rather, in the case of the AZ vaccine, for example, there were required warnings back to 2021 that blood clots could be a rare side effect, among other potential side effects (see below) To illustrate that fact, when I got my first two COVID vaccine shots in Thailand back in mid-2021, I was well-aware of the much publicized concern about very rare blood clots, and went ahead with the two shots anyway, because: 1. at that time, here in Thailand, I didn't have any choice of Pfizer or Moderna mRNA.... and all the reports I saw at the time indeed indicated the clotting issue was very rare, which has turned out to be the case. and 2. the only other options available here at the time were one of the Chinese made versions, which most tests at the time showed were less effective than the AZ vaccine. However, as noted above, there always have been many false conspiracy theories spread about COVID vaccines, including by a lot of members here. So for those folks... Bust Myths and Learn the Facts about COVID-19 Vaccines Updated Sept. 27, 2023 --COVID-19 vaccines do not contain microchips and they cannot make you magnetic. --COVID-19 vaccines do not alter DNA. --Not all events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) are caused by vaccination. etc... https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html Here, BTW, is an example of the kind of potential side effect disclosures that were in place for the AZ vaccine back in 2021: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine: What to know about side effects Updated on July 15, 2021 "Vaxzevria, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, may cause some of the mostly mild-to-moderate side effects that people often encounter after any vaccination. However, there are also some recent controversies surrounding rare blood clotting incidents linked to this vaccine." Common side effects Potential risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome Controversy regarding blood clots https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-what-to-know-about-side-effects There were plenty of disclosures made back during that time.

No, I never said or meant to imply that the elderly aren't most of the reported COVID deaths here. They are... I merely pointed out, they're not ALL or the ONLY reported COVID deaths here, which is correct. Sorry if my phrasing didn't properly convey that intended message.