wensiensheng

In my area of phuket you would be very hard pushed to find a bar that ISNT open. And I don’t mean bars masquerading as restaurants, I mean straight up common or garden bars and bar complexes. Despite the governor supposedly issuing orders that bars remain closed. Most don’t even bother to close early if they actually have customers.

True Tall Guy, as I and many other pointed out when Thailand announced its mix and match policy, other countries are mixing and matching but NOT with sinovac and sinopharm as part of the mix. Your list seems to bear that out. Whether for political or medical reasons, or both, the two Chinese vaccines just aren’t very accepted in the Western world.

You mean they don’t do this as a matter of course? It’s their job after all.

True. Start with domestic tourism, expand to SE Asia tourism and when conditions are right, go global. It’s what I would do. long haul travel is pretty risky right now unless you’re a single person or couple who can afford to be very flexible with your travel pans at a moments notice.

Where in Thailand is there a place that you cannot be contacted? Mobile coverage is pretty universal and most people have a mobile phone.

Define “significant”. A bit oftiredness and/or sore arm for a couple of days isn’t significant. Of all the people I know in the UK, Singapore and Thailand, only one had “significant” side effects and that was over in a couple of days. They did feel bad for those two days though. so based on my little study, your statement “AZ and Pfizer likely to result in significant side effects,” is entirely false. agreed, sinovac seems even less likely to have significant side effects, but don’t play up what isn’t there on the others.

I had some fraudulent transaction on my Thai bank credit card. Reported them and got a full refund in 14 days. Not much fuss in the process at all.

Domestic tourists have long been the potential savior for tourism. Just look at other countries where staycations have been popular due to the uncertainty of international travel. it’s just that Thailand mistakenly opted for a Phuket sandbox for international travelers, thereby hitting every imaginable headwind, and at the same time killed domestic travel by cutting the island off from the rest of the country. it seems obvious to me that domestic tourism recovers before international tourism. Thailand missed out that step.

Yup, compared to Norwegians and Germans the ordinary thai people have a much better standard of health care. in other words, the survey is ridiculous in its content.

I think this hits the nail on the head. The readiness of any country to accept an influx of international tourists who, in the main, will wish to party to at least some extent and mingle freely, can be judged by the restrictions placed on its own residents. You can make the case that an island like Phuket is a special case because it can be segregated from the rest of the country and different rules applied within its confines, but curfews, alcohol restrictions and entertainment venue closures are a strong indication that the Covid situation is not considered to yet be adequately under control. but obviously some people will come and maybe 1% of the former level of visitors is better than nothing, but the governments own restrictions indicate Thailand isn’t ready for a mass influx of visitors, so perhaps it’s just as well that it is very unlikely to actually happen.

Indeed. But has the whole country ever performed 100k tests throughout the duration of one day? Not to my knowledge they haven’t. Not saying it can’t be done, just that afaik, it hasn’t been done so far.

I don’t think scientists are that worried about delta now. Seems to me they are worried that more cases will lead to a new and worse variant. Not sure quite how things ever get back to normal if that’s the case.

Judging by the Phuket sandbox, it would be deigned a huge “success” and THEN come up with a new enticement plan. 5555

They mean that they will treat them as though they are fully vaccinated. Nothing wrong with the usage of the word “consider” as far as I am concerned. I consider it to be clear.

They’ve been saying this for years. But reality is that TAT focuses on numbers of bums on airplane seats and that drives everything down market. start targeting FEWER visitors and I might start to believe the hype.

It’s my view also. If vaccinations rates are 90% plus as they claim, what’s the point of keeping restrictions? Maybe face masks should be encouraged but other than that, vaccinations should render restrictions unnecessary. that’s in Phuket of course, the rest of Thailand still faces the vaccination challenge.

I have no idea what Anutin did or didn’t do to get Thailand off the UK red list. He took Brock bats when thailand went on, so not surprising that he gets praise when they come off. this decision says more about the ineptitude of the British government to me, rather than anything about Thailand. I mean, what fundamentally has changed in Thailand over the last 3/4 weeks? Sure the case count is lower, more people vaccinated, but fundamentally? And yet in that space of time the UK government saw fit to add Thailand to the red list, then remove it again. it’s all nonsense.

A lot of what you say makes sense. However I think it is wrong in one respect. TAT made a big play out of how many TOURISTS would be attracted and how much they would spend. Yes, there was talk of it being a pilot project but overwhelmingly the objectives articulated prior to its start revolves around tourist numbers and money spent by said tourists in the context of the stated objectives it has been a failure. Very many fewer tourists than expected arrived in the island. as a pilot project, some valuable lessons can be learned, not least that tourists won’t come if entertainment venues are shuttered and they are subjected to onerous restrictions. But was a pilot project needed to learn those facts?

There’s that 70% vaccinated figure quoted again. Why did he say that? The authorities claimed to have reached that figure on 1st July in order that the sandbox could begin. Since then many vaccinations have taken place and the authorities have claimed much higher percentages. Now this guy drops back to 70% when speaking with a representative of a foreign government. every day there are inconsistencies in the Covid figures reported by Phuket and this is just another larger scale example. I’m not sure phuket authorities really know what the figure is and make it up as they go along depending on audience gullibility.

These types of meetings usually rubber stamp previously prepared submissions. They don’t decide everything there and then.

A lot of what is said in the OP makes simple sense to me. Of course it’s possible to nit pick but 99% sounds fine. but two issues arise in my mind. 1. if what is quoted is official government policy, why are some areas in Thailand following a completely different elimination strategy? Think of the tourist areas of course where vaccination levels are high, but restrictions remain so as to try and eliminate cases. 2. the OP completely ignores the simple fact that people pretty much have to get vaccinated if they want to live normally. If not vaccinated, how to travel, eat at restaurants etc etc. people can whine about infringing civil liberties, but it is what it is. Not just in Thailand is vaccination required to be able to do a number of activities, so might as well get over it and get jabbed.

In normal years, the island authorities always claim that the population of the island is far higher than that officially recorded in the last census of 500k odd. They always claim that it is nearer 1 million due to thai residents not reregistering their house books from their home village. The authorities have even on occasion had mobile units going around to encourage thai people to register their house books in Phuket. The reason of course is that some budget allocations from central government are based on population, so a higher population equals a higher budget. come pandemic, the population has declined for sure from pre pandemic levels because some people went home. But not everybody. So for sure the population still exceeds the last census figure. But now the advantage lies is reducing the population number. So the official census figure has been used and now, seemingly, some other random, and lower, figure. Phuket’s Covid reporting has been a mess from the get go. Late reporting, conflicting figures, non reporting, just a complete mess with no consistency other than being hap hazard. I stopped paying much attention to it long ago, when it became clear that it cannot be trusted.

It seems the thai virologist has just caught up to where a lot of countries were 3 months ago. Living with Covid as an endemic virus has been a constant topic of discussion. Even Australia started to take off their lockdown blinkers and accept that Covid is here to stay. herd immunity has unfortunately turned out to be an urban myth in the case of Covid.

Nobody wears masks on the beach in Phuket. Nobody. The only caveat to that is that I haven’t been to all the beaches for every minute of every day, but everyone that I have been to, nobody wears a mask. Maybe it’s just an early morning thing, but I’d put money on them all being the same. the risk of catching Covid is less than minimal.

I’ve had one for 18 months. Love the looks, sound, speed and interior. So just about everything ????. I think it’s a lot of car for the price. It used to sell at over 5 mn baht, now only 4mn. Yes there is depreciation but not as much as you would think and way less than something like a Ford Mustang. it’s a car that wants to be driven though. Pooling round in traffic at 30-40kph isn’t really it’s thing.