Methuselah

As a Brit feeling the same frustrations as others on this forum,I thought about returning to the UK for my vaccination.

However at the moment the delta variant is infecting a large number of people in the UK,but most have already been vaccinated.Thus one is entering a country of asymptomatic,infected people,and after 19th July all restrictions on movement and mask wearing will be removed.

The first high risk environment will be long queues at the Heathrow end of the trip,then travel to one's destination by public transport.

For the moment living in one's relative isolation bubble may be the safer option,and await with increasing impatience for a vaccine to become available.

Advice from medical friends in the UK about the Thailand situation was"If it is heading towards the situation in India,get out of Thailand as quickly as possible"

The worldwide spread of covid 19 mandates that to limit the spread of the disease in the short term there is no alternative to lockdown now.The concern is to work out exactly what "short term " actually means.

The Spanish flu lasted three years with horrendous mortality,and it would not require much imagination to extrapolate that experience to covid 19.Nowadays medical advances will hopefully produce a reliable vaccine within  one more year,and the recent Chicago results of treatment with remdesivir are promising.So we are almost certainly in a better position than 1918 -1920.

Any easing of lockdown restrictions will inevitably lead to further waves of infection.

So what is the solution?

I think every contributor will realise that,unless a mutation to a more benign form of covid occurs,there really is no solution,and governments will be forced to take massive risks by either lifting restrictions or continuing with lockdowns.

Some authoritarian governments will be able to manipulate statistics to validate the course of action they embarked upon.In poorer 3rd World countries lockdowns will have to be lifted at an earlier stage in order to prevent starvation,others will try to ease lockdowns to prevent economic collapse.

I think Thailand,although acting late,has got it right for now,but there will be no winner in it's future moves.

No matter what the Thai government decides I would encourage everybody to continue with their own personal lockdown if possible.

Although logic suggests that these Thai returnees contracted the virus in Indonesia,there remains a possibility that they could have been infected in Thailand before they entered Indonesia.

An interesting experiment would have been to test all Thais entering Indonesia,which would then give us a more realistic impression of actual infections in Thailand.

As private hospitals discover that the elderly expatriate cash cow is being forced to buy useless health insurance policies,one would hope that they have sufficient clout to pressurise the Health Ministry to rethink.

International Health Insurance policies have been a wonderful source of income for those parasitic institutions,and their loss of income and probably increased  number of unpaid bills will hurt.

We live in hope.

Why,if Thai hospitals are happy to accept overseas health insurance,does the Thai government insist on a Thai policy?

As most of those Thai health insurance policies are less than useful,I suspect that hospital management and owners will be amongst the first to complain to the Thai Government.

That this governmental edict had the potential to be unfair has been apparent for some months.Presumably the Insurance companies had been amongst the consulted advisors.

One had hoped that some sense might have been injected prior to its implementation but this has not been the case.

There are some possible lobby groups that might suffer secondary to its implementation.

The construction industry would surely suffer as retirees no longer list Thailand as a destination.

Ironically,the very industry that the edict planned to protect might also be one of the first to suffer--the health and hospital industry,particularly in holiday/retirement destinations.

The entire project needs to be rethought, but I fear this would slap egg in the face of the persons responsible for this unjust plan.

Panorama,or at least Johnathan Head could have a field day exposing the motives behind this policy.

Having spent sometime considering the motives behind the imposition of mandatory Thai company health insurances and subsequent denial of entry into Thailand without such insurance,I have applied logic to this imposition.

Only Thai insurances will be fully understood by Immigration officers,thus avoiding excessive delays at the airport immigration desks.

We should be grateful for this silver lining on an otherwise massive cloud.

One aspect of the new regulations may affect those with existing health insurance policies.This coverage may well be more extensive both in terms of the amount covered and the number of countries in which the policy is covered.In other words a far better insurance than being offered by the compulsory companies being touted by the government.

These policies seem to cover Thailand only,so individuals may have to double up on policies if they are moving between countries.

The offered policies are totally inadequate in terms of International and indeed Thailand health coverage,and this should be obvious both to the companies concerned and to any subscriber to these policies.

It is asking a lot,but the whole issue should be reconsidered,unless,as others have suggested,this is just a flagrant attempt at profiteering at the expense of people who are left with no choice.

When emigrating to a foreign country one should recognise that goalposts can change overnight,although in many cases[including myself]people assume that the status quo will continue for ever.

In Thailand the imposition of a mandatory health insurance is not the worst case scenario that people are making it out to be on TV.

However when one is 60 years old,relatively fit,the the prospect of ageing and related health disorders seldom registers on one's brain.These issues are swept under the carpet until one observes Health Insurance premiums rocketing,and in over 75's often denied.

A mandatory health insurance is a real wake up call to retirees,and like myself has added fuel to the realisation that sinking one's capital into a third world country was,in retrospect,a regrettable folly.

Hope they clear up the surrounding garbage whilst they are there.

A deep venous thrombosis is a well documented,although relatively rare, complication of long distance travel in a cramped sitting position.

There are several associated risk factors,amongst which is oral contraceptive[the pill} therapy.

Interestingly the lady developed what is termed a paradoxical embolus through a hole in the heart.A blood clot from a DVT will usually stay on the right side of the circulation resulting in a pulmonary embolus.

However in this case the embolus migrated through the hole in the heart to the left side of her circulation,thus lodging in a cerebral artery causing a stroke.

Fortunately she has made a good recovery.Could have been a lot worse.

I suspect Thai children are heading in the same direction if our swimming pool is any sort of guide.

Shame!

In order to further streamline the traffic flow into Pattaya,will the local administration be planning to synchronise the opening of the tunnel with a grand opening of the toll gates--just a thought.

Should be interesting when the inevitable breakdown of the traffic lights occurs.

Singapore has almost perfected the appropriate euphemism.

It goes by the name of "Compensated Dating"

Kinokuniya book shop.

He probably travelled to Japan with his gun in hold luggage,but just forgot to do this on the return journey.A plausible explanation,but doesn't exactly display intelligence.

I guess most countries harbour skeletons in their cupboard,and many of these will suppress publication of criticisms,or even enforce imprisonment of those that attempt to expose their faults.

As far as the cartoon itself is concerned I think the cartoonist missed an opportunity to point the finger at the appalling carnage on the roads in this country.Perhps next time.

My clocks were probably smaller than a grandmother clock,being pendulum wall and mantle clocks,as well as a couple of brass carriage clocks.I took them up by taxi and returned by taxi.

This was about one month ago.

As I said,the chap in Chitlom Skytrain station was probably the most convenient,but I had already organised for a clock company in Chinatown to do the repairs and cleaning.

The shop in Chinatown is Rianthong.Tel.no 022214350, 02226391, 022254029.

I think they had another outlet in Bangkok,but I had arranged to go to their Chinatown branch which only a taxi could find when armed with their contact no.

E.mail : [email protected]

I had to do a bit of time consuming research to find a reliable repair shop for the majority of places are only skilled in modern clocks,but Rianthong certainly did a professional job.

hope this is helpful.

Another possible source of information may be John Collingbourne,the auctioneer in Chayapeuk rd.

I seriously doubt if you will find a reliable antique clock repairer in Pattaya.I took my clocks to a small shop in Chinatown in Bangkok and was very pleaed with their service.However,I subsequently found a more convenient shop,located inside Chitlom Skytrain station.The chap speaks fluent English,and has a range of antique clocks on sale as well.

Total nightmare.

Expat----Hell!