wensiensheng

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.

Yup, like everything, it’s best to keep an open mind until it actually happens. Perhaps your daughters school is opening it up to all secondary students and will see what take up they get? Once they know numbers it will be easier to decide how to phase the class times.

Just a little bit more on this, I just heard from my daughters school in Phuket that the sandbox scheme can only be for 50% of a schools secondary students. Different schools are using different ways to use up the 50% “allocation”. My daughters school is going to open for all year 10, 11 and 12 students. year 8 and 9 are not included at this point. However, if the take up from years 10,11 and 12 is low, then they may open it up to years 8 and 9 and see what demand there is. apparently one other school is considering opening up all classes to 50% capacity on a first come first served basis and another school considering opening for years 8 and 9 on Monday through Wednesday and the older years on Thursday and friday, or something along those lines. The critical point is seemingly that no more than 50% of secondary students can be in school at the same time. But schools can mix and match as they wish. digressing slightly, my daughters school also told me that the names of all students above the age of 12 have been forwarded to the provincial government for an allocation of Pfizer vaccine. Once it’s approved, parents will be offered the choice of taking it up, or not. No precise timescale on it, but estimation was two weeks.

Indeed. And how does Thailand then turn the clock back on the booster shots applied using the not recommended route? sometimes it pays to think ahead, not just what’s expedient for today.

When you say “people” are confusing the two terms, is it not correct to say that it is the term subcutaneous that is used by the Thai medical official in the OP? if so, it’s somewhat concerning that a Thai “expert” is confused.

Apart from the obvious medical issue of this not being a recommended method of injection, there is a potential wider issue. other countries do not utilize, recommend this method of injection. So they are hardly likely to accept thai residents entering their borders if they have been vaccinated in this way. Trouble is, there is no way of knowing who had the recommended injection method and who had the not recommended method. So likelihood is that no one from Thailand will be accepted. It could turn into a major issue for those wishing to travel.

if this is blah blah blah 4.0, does that mean that three previous attempts failed?

Whenever I look at the Phuket numbers I end up scratching my head. 5 deaths yesterday, but no change in the number of “red” patients. Was it 5 out and 5 in? Or deaths from another color group who skipped the red stage? If so, is that an increasing trend or just an anomaly? One didn’t even have a case number! What is the timeline from contracting Covid, to death for the 5 unfortunate souls? Seemingly, there are still a lot of unvaccinated old people in Phuket given how many were unvaccinated out of the 5 deaths. And of course, to top it off, no information on where the 200 odd new cases were found. and the vaccination program rolls on in ad hoc, haphazard fashion. Booster shots of sinovac given to double jabbed sinovac people, unannounced Pfizer boosters on demand at Central and the cream on the cake, the new style injections of AZ with 20% of a dose, which is specifically not recommended by the manufacturer. With so many moving parts and experiments going on at the same time, the ability to assess and increase the effectiveness of the Covid response, is virtually nil. I’m marking time till I get my second AZ on 7th October (by normal method or I ain’t having it) and then I can just sit back and watch this absolute chaos unravel.

Madness. There is no medical basis for this.

People in rural provinces don’t count. C’mon, get with the program.

It’s all a disorganized mess in many respects, although the actual process of getting vaccinated once inside and in a queue, appears fine. From what I have read and heard, plus my own experience, that is the case in many centers. Inside organized, outside chaos.

No money in it? Bureaucratic cock up? Heck they forgot to log their claim to the Prear Vihir (spelling?) temple in the dispute with Cambodia over land borders and it got awarded to Cambodia by default. I suppose they will get round to registering their AZ eventually.

Yeah, maybe the announced plan to administer a 20% dosage in a different fashion to normal, has backfired and British expats pay the price. Despite the month long “study” of a few people, it’s not approved anywhere else. but why should the Thai government care about the UK not recognizing their medical practices in administering vaccines? They probably care about getting off the UK red list for visitors to Thailand, but the other way round is unlikely to be a priority. No money in it for them.

Isn’t it about 5% or so positivity rate? Still high bearing in mind these are folks going out and about in the community. No mention of contact tracing I note. and a huge shortfall on testing numbers. Perhaps nobody wanted to be tested for fear of being interned?

You make all good points about Phuket as a, in effect, pilot project. but that isn’t what it was sold as by various tourist related associations and TAT itself. The focus was on numbers of tourists that would come and how much money they would spend. The other valuable lessons that could be learned were ignored, and continue to be ignored to this day. Otherwise why would arrivals be subjected to such stringent conditions when they account for so few cases?

I take your point and personally, I agree with you. But that isn’t the governments policy. I posted in another thread that the guy who does my garden in Phuket was double vaxxed with sinovac some months ago. He’s just had a booster shot of …..sinovac. So in that sense the government is doubling down. the problem is the focus on quantitative numbers of vaccinations, and not qualitative numbers of vaccinations. In other words, heading down a blind alley with foot pressed firmly on the accelerator. Well, it’s the path they chose.