DogNo1

Bang Sue is terribly crowded.   When I got there this afternoon, they had already stopped accepting walk-ins.   A staff member said that number of walk-ins accepted would be limited.   Although I received my second AZ shot there on October 6th, I have not received any appointment for my Pfizer booster.  I attempted to register through the AIS app but my birth date wasn’t accepted even though it was in the specified format.  I am reluctant to get up early enough to be there at 9:00 to get in the walk-in queue.  I’ll wait a couple of days to see what happens.   Maybe they will accept more walk-ins after a while.

On what does Dr. Campbell rake in money?  The dirt cheap vitamin D or Ivermectin?  Do you have him confused with another doctor?

On what does Dr. Campbell rake in money?  The dirt cheap vitamin D or Ivermectin?  Do you have him confused with another doctor?

I tried to register using the AIS link but my date of birth wasn't accepted.

I think that Dr. Campbell was referring to the US study and that it was peer reviewed but don't remember exactly.   He emphasized that we were very lucky that Omicron evolved as it did.  Drbeen has explained Omicron's evolution in detail if you have the patience to watch all the details.

According to Dr. John Campbell, whose YouTube channel I watch daily, the reason that the present vaccines are not very effective against Omicron is because the animal vector of Omicron is different.  It originates from mice.   It is very transmissible.  Various members of my family living in different locations in the US have caught the virus from people who thought that they only had colds.  They are now quarantining.   
 

Due to my advanced age, I will try to get a booster shot tomorrow at Bang Sue.  The Moderna shots that I have bought are still not available.  When they are, there may be a competitive signup crunch as in the past.  I don’t like the way that the distribution of the vaccines is being handled in Thailand.  There is no priority given to foreigners of an advanced age.  I hope that I can get the Pfizer booster quickly.

I bought a Moderna booster at Bumrungrad for 1,650.  They still don't have the vaccine.  St. Louis has it NOW for 1,200.  Bang Sue may have the booster available for free on January 6th, three months after my second AZ there.  Don't know what's wrong at Bum.  Same confused state as last year.

Incidentally, Morphrom disappeared from my phone.  Luckily, I had printed a hard copy of my two shot certificate and a nurse at St. Louis was able to install a new version of Morphrom, enter the correct 13-digit number from my hard copy and get a new password by SMS.  Disappearing applications.  What's next.  Probably a mandatory hospital stay for Omicron.  Must buy a new insurance policy soon!  

In the US, people with no apparent exposure to Omicron are getting it anyway!  Mild symptoms though.  What. is worse here is the mandatory hospitalization.

Christmas and New Year events are still scheduled for large groups of people.  What could go wrong?  The slow development of Omicron symptoms does not fit in the present quarantine calculations.  Are the symptoms for elderly people mild?  Perhaps the severity of symptoms will depend on the strength of the infected person's immune system.  I believe that American hospitals are full of people infected with the Omicron variant.

I bought a single shot of Moderna at Bumrungrad on September 2 but am not able to book a date for it.  The hospital says that they don't know when they will receive it from the GPO.   i have not been successful in getting a shot from Bum yet and had to get my first two AZ shots at Bang Sue.  I'm not confident that I will be able to get the Moderna shot from them even though I've paid for it and have a voucher.  Has any farang been successful getting a shot at Bumrungrad?

Yes, you can get good health care in Thailand except if you need to be vaccinated or join a waiting queue at a hospital where you often won't be seen until all the Thais have been seen before you.   I didn't know that this discrimination still existed until I heard it in a conversation between nurses at a big-name hospital last week.   

I will just continue to mail mine in.  Simple and it always works.

There is a lot of gratuitous violence between young Thai people now.  The murder rate is up.  Maybe due to PSS (pandemic stress syndrome)  

The mail-in report papers are a bit more work to prepare than doing an on-line filing but i keep the TM 47 on my computer as an editable PDF and just change the date of submission before I send the package out.  The 10 baht stamp helps because all of your photocopies are mailed back so you don't need to make new copies.

i don't sign each copy of my passport pages but that hasn't been a problem.  I send to Chaeng Wattana and sometimes have had to wait for 45 days to have the 90 day receipt returned.  The concierge mails the packet and gives me the EMS receipt so I can track its delivery at Lak Si.   All together the cost is less than 100 baht.

If private hospitals and individuals had been allowed to buy vaccines 18-20 months ago, Thailand could have opened to tourists much sooner.  Financial losses would have been much smaller.   Who was it that decided that vaccines could only be bought by the GPO?  What was the reason for that decision?

For people on one-year extensions, instead of paying for many months of insurance from the time that you return until your extension expires, why not leave without a re-entry permit.  When you return, enter with visa-exempt status and insurance for 30 days, then apply for a 90-day non-O visa followed by a one-year extension of stay.  It would entail a lot of paperwork and two visits to immigration but would save a lot of money on insurance.  My next renewal date is in May and I plan to travel to Japan for a month in June.  If I were to return with a re-entry permit in July, I would need eleven months of the $50,000 insurance.   It would be cheaper to return with a visa-exempt entry and start anew on a 90-day non-O Visa and then a one-year extension. I understand that, at my age of 78, the required insurance would cost me $250 to $300 per month.  The non-O and one-year extension would cost me 2,000 plus 1,900 plus incidental expenses or roughly one-tenth as much as the 11 months of insurance.

So if I have five months remaining on my extension of stay when I re-enter, I would need to buy five months of insurance coverage?  But when I renew my extension, no insurance would be required to cover the one year of the new extension?  Is that correct?

Would the thirty-day insurance requirement also apply to retirees on one-year extensions returning with a re-entry permit?

 Thanks for the information about aainsure.  Would they write a thirty-day policy for a person 79 years old?

I asked a lady staff person at Bang Sue if I could use my passport number to register on Mor Prom and she said yes.  She was obviously misinformed.   Nobody there asked if I wanted a certificate. I am not criticizing the operation at Bang Sue. Getting the injections went fine.

Eckhart Tolle now has short videos on YouTube.  His approach to easing mental problems is very eclectic and does not depend on the spiritual teaching of any particular guru.

What is herd immunity?  Can it be achieved with COVID?   What about re-infections and break-through infections?  Immune people can't be reinfected.

The document that I received at Bang Sue showed the first injection and an appointment date for the second.  I received the same paper back after my second injection with the number 41 written on it and of course a second checkmark for waiting the 20 minutes after the injection.  I asked a staff lady there how I could prove that I had had two shots.  She said that I could do it through Mor Phrom using my passport number.  That doesn't seem to be possible.  I have tried to identify the hospital sponsoring the vaccination with no luck.  There is only a hospital number at the top of the page.

The girls at the front desk tried to register me on the Mor Phrom app but I don't have a Thai ID number so it didn't work.  There is a hospital ID number at the top of my receipt from Bang Sue but the hospital name isn't given.  It is not clear on the paper from Bang Sue that two shots of the AZ vaccine were given.  What to do?

The lady at Bang Sue told me that my passport number would work with Mor Phrom.   It doesn't.  What can I do to get a vaccine certificate?  I will get a flu shot at Bumrungrad soon.  Can I get the certificate from them?

It is not clear what would happen to people over 75 if they leave and then try to re-enter Thailand.   Would an alternative to the required insurance be available such as depositing 400,000 in a bank account with the money only available to pay medical expenses?  I would like to visit family in America next year but will be 79 then.   Perhaps I will need to send them tickets to visit me here.