GroveHillWanderer

I don't think that's right. I came in on a non-immigrant O-A visa and after several years of doing retirement extensions, I switched to marriage extensions precisely because I didn't want to have to change my health insurance policy just to get outpatient cover (which I think is unnecessary and way over-expensive). In my experience, and as confirmed by multiple other posters on here (including UbonJoe) when doing an extension of stay based on marriage there is no requirement to show proof of health insurance, even if you originally had a non immigrant O-A visa.

Edit: There is also what's known as the"combination method" where you have some money on deposit and some in monthly income, adding up to the required yearly total. However that's often heavily discouraged by Immigration themselves and as far as I can tell, few people actually use it.

If you look at the actual printed (official) requirements on that paper, it clearly says: The scribblings below appear to be some kind of attempt to explain the monthly income method (although they do so almost completely wrongly) but in any event, as the printed text clearly states, the income method is just one of two alternatives. It's either the money on deposit OR a monthly income, but not both.

The article talks about, "20 baht banknotes with the Thai numeral not matching the Arabic one ..." This means the Thai numeral does not match the Arabic numeral. There is a difference between what we in the west call "Arabic numerals" and the numerals used in most Arabic-speaking countries nowadays. These are the numbers known as "Arabic numerals" in the west: 1234567890 They were called Arabic numerals to differentiate them from Roman numerals such as I, II, III, IV, V etc and were based on early versions of Arabic numerals such as the ones shown below from the 10th century. The numerals used in Arabic countries gradually changed under the influence of Hindi numerals into the ones used in Arabic countries today (which are the ones in the image you posted).

To use a foodbank, in virtually all cases, you need a referral from an authorized entity such as your local Citizens Advice centre, a social worker, your child's school or your local authority. After an interview process where they check your circumstances, you can be issued with a food voucher which will get you a food parcel sufficient for about 3 days. You can't just walk in and take food as and when you want, that's not how it works. See additional info below from Citizen's Advice UK. Using a food bank (Bolding added automatically by the site software, not me).

Yes, all the cases that reached court were dismissed by the judges hearing them, virtually all of them precisely because none of the complainants could produce even the slightest shred of evidence. When no evidence is offered to substantiate a complaint (and it wasn't) then a judge has no choice but to dismiss it. Only one of the election fraud cases reached the Supreme Court (the one where Texas was trying to invalidate results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and it was dismissed for lack of standing. As the Supreme Court ruling clearly stated:

Items bought outside of Thailand deteriorate in just the same way as those bought here. My computer, various containers, bags, suitcases, pairs of trainers etc that we have brought from outside Thailand have all suffered the same sort of deterioration mentioned by others above.

As is often the case it varied according to where you were. Here in Hua Hin we were able to register for vaccination in mid '21 (not sure if it was May or June but I got my first vaccination in June) just using your passport. They issued everyone with a dummy 13-digit ID number as part of the registration process. That number still appears on all my vaccination records.

One individual anecdote does not outweigh the statistics gathered from 10’s of thousands of people. Multiple studies have shown that the vaccinated, taken as an overall group (and not on an individual basis) are still less likely to contract Covid than the unvaccinated - even with Omicron. As stated in the FactCheck.org article below: Vaccinated People Not More Susceptible to COVID-19 Than Unvaccinated

Again, you're making the mistake that the CDC was trying to avoid people making - that immunity is an all or nothing proposition, and that it only comes in one flavour. Immunity is a relative term and you can have different levels of immunity. You can have partial immunity and it can be a high level of immunity or a low level of immunity. Covid vaccines do provide a level of immunity from CoVid-19 - however it was never complete immunity and unfortunately has got lower as each of several newer variants with higher transmissibility has come along. With Omicron, the level of immunity conferred by the vaccine is probably lower than with any previous variant but it still does confer a certain level of immunity.

Except that prior CDC definitions of a vaccine did not always say that vaccines conferred "immunity", as that AP fact checking article points out. Only some later ones did, and it was on the understanding that anyone familiar with immunology would be aware of, that "immunity" is a relative term and is never 100%.

They only changed that because too many people were (possibility deliberately) misconstruing "immunity" to mean "sterilizing immunity" - which it does not mean, and should never have been taken to mean. As Dr. Ryan Langlois, a microbiology and immunology professor at the University of Minnesota points out in the AP fact-checking article below, earlier CDC definitions did not always use the word "immunity" (though later ones did). CDC definition of a vaccine

A vaccine is simply a medical preparation that exposes the recipient to antigens from a known disease-causing pathogen, thereby stimulating an immune system response. Ideally yes, a vaccine would confer sterilizing immunity meaning a person would not become infected on exposure to the relevant pathogen but that is not a requirement for something to be called a vaccine. Perhaps the most easily recognised example of this are the flu vaccines that many people get every year. They do not provide 100% protection against catching the flu either - by they are still vaccines. All a product needs to do to qualify as a vaccine is what I laid out in the first paragraph above. So by what measure or logic, is a CoVid-19 vaccine "not a true vaccine"?

No, you could not. As already explained by several people, to keep your extension of permit to stay valid, you must get a re-entry permit before you go, otherwise your permit to stay automatically ends when you leave. They actually put a stamp in your passport now, when you get an extension, that tells you this. It says: Otherwise, on returning without either a re-entry permit (or a new, valid, longer term visa issued while you were away) you would only have been stamped in for 30 days visa exempt (assuming you were eligible).

Firstly, I don't know what your process for getting a re-entry is, but as far as I'm concerned it's absolutely no hassle whatsoever. I just get one automatically as part of the yearly extension process. Even if I didn't, it would still only be a simple five minute process at my nearest Immigration office (admittedly I'm lucky in that it's only five minutes from my house). Maybe I'm not understanding the situation correctly with the OP or maybe they aren't (I'm not sure) but for me the re-entry permit is highly useful if not absolutely critical. Without a re-entry permit, if you're on a yearly extension of permission to stay (and I don't know why else you'd even be thinking about one) you would lose your extension - as others have pointed out it would be automatically voided. On returning, would only get a 30-day visa exempt entry. Then if you wanted to stay long-term again, it would mean starting again from scratch by converting to an O visa - which to me represents a much bigger hassle than getting a simple re-entry permit before leaving. The scrapping of the TM6 and lack of need to report on returning have nothing at all to do with the reasons for getting a re-entry permit, which is to preserve the validity of your permission to stay. Note: For some reason, my replies keep getting changed to bold text half way through. Not sure why. I could go back and retype but it doesn't seem worth the effort.

No - for herd immunity to work, it requires that immunity - whether naturally or vaccine-acquired, stop transmission somewhere around 95% of the time (or more). This is known as sterilizing immunity. As has become glaringly obvious however, neither having CoVid-19 nor being vaccinated against it, gives rise to sterilizing immunity. As Khunper pointed out, it is much more likely to be like colds and flu where relatively large proportions of the population will get infected every year - and possibly even several times a year. Any chance of herd immunity started to recede with the Delta variant, and the chances have only diminished further with subsequent variants. Now, with the increased transmissibility and immune evasiveness of Omicron and especially the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, the prospect of herd immunity is really only a distant memory.

Except that they kind of are (though not completely) since they imply that no-one tried to intervene, whereas someone did. On hearing the cries, his uncle went to try and stop the beating, but unfortunately, "The group then reportedly took the boy away on a motorcycle ..." He was later returned, but was already dead.

I've read through that report and I don't see anything in it that shows excess mortality at +83% for the 25-54 age group. I did find a Reuters Fact Check that documents false claims circulating on social media about an 84% rise in excess mortality for 25-44 year-olds, though. Is that related to what you're claiming? Fact Check-No evidence that people aged 25-44 experienced an 84% increase in excess mortality

Google Maps and Tom Tom both saying it's still closed and to go via Nakhon Pathom.

Does anyone know what the latest traffic situation is? We're due to drive to Suvarnabhumi airport from Hua Hin today and Google is saying 3h 48 min avoiding "road closures on route 35.” (normally takes less than 3 hours). Anyone driven that way this morning? Is it still closed?

Actually it was Karl Marx who said it, although he did say it in reference to Hegel. The actual words (in translation) are: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852

No country (as far as I'm aware) gives unlimited guarantees on bank deposits. According to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission website, in Australia: Australian Government guaranteed deposits seal So if you had $750,000 in an Australian bank, only a third of it would be guaranteed.

The UK is on the list of "green" countries for which no Covid checks are carried out by the French, so that is definitely not a factor. French government Covid information Brexit is the only reason that there is a need for passport controls and so it clearly has everything to do with Brexit.

You can also pay Electricity bills (PEA or MEA) using True Money Wallet or Rabbit Line Pay, if you have them.

It's not really the EU punishing Brits though, is it? It's the EU sticking to the agreement negotiated with the UK (and which the UK signed off on) of ending freedom of movement between the EU and the UK. I get the distinct impression some people thought this would be a one way process - it's as if they thought the UK would be able to stop free movement of EU citizens into the UK but UK citizens would keep their complete freedom of movement into EU countries. This was never going to be the case, these kinds of restrictions are an inevitable consequence of no longer being a member state of the EU. You can't cancel your membership of an exclusive club and expect to still enjoy all the same benefits that you had when you were a member. It just doesn't work that way.