Thailand encourages homemade sanitizers, masks amid scarce supplies

[snoop1130]

Thailand encourages homemade sanitizers, masks amid scarce supplies

By Panarat Thepgumpanat, Patpicha Tanakasempipat

 

 

BANGKOK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Thailand’s health authorities on Thursday encouraged people to make hand sanitizers and masks at home to guard against the spread of the new coronavirus.

 

Thailand, which has reported a total of 25 cases, put surgical masks and sanitizers under its list of controlled goods earlier this week, as the spread of the flu-like virus led to shortages in stores.

 

Due to lack of supply, health authorities demonstrated how to make sanitising liquids during a televised news conference.

 

“If you can’t find hand sanitizers in stores, make it yourself. Mix clean water with alcohol and carry it wherever you go,” said Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul at the conference.

 

“We have to protect ourselves against the virus. Eat hot food, use serving spoons, wear masks, wash your hands.”

 

On Thursday, Thailand started enforcing price control measures on surgical masks and hand sanitizers, amid scarce supplies in drug stores.

 

As a result, anyone selling overpriced masks and sanitizers faces punishment of up to seven years in jail or up to 140,000 baht ($4,507.41) in fines.

 

People are allowed to buy up to 10 masks with each purchase, and anyone exporting more than 500 masks per shipment must also obtain permission from trade authorities first.

 

Early on Thursday, Thais lined up outside a government pharmacy to stock up before sales started in the afternoon.

 

Many said they wanted to buy as much as they could due to fears of the virus outbreak, but could only buy 10.

 

“This isn’t really enough, but it’s good to have just in case,” said Chalida Potpanitpong, 65.

 

To ease the shortages, the Thai government started handing out 45,000 surgical masks for free from Thursday to Saturday at different “risky” locations, mostly tourist areas, in Bangkok.

 

It will also start selling millions of masks from Saturday onwards through government-sponsored stores across the country.

 

The 25 cases of the new coronavirus reported in Thailand include 16 Chinese and nine Thais. Nine have recovered enough to go home, while the rest remain in the hospital.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-06

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[Thian]

At the immigration there were 2 empty pumpbottles for the sanitizers...and we had to be there for 3 hours while nobody around us was wearing mouthmasks.....terrible and very unprofessional.

[YetAnother]

this whole thing presumes thai can understand the problem and the various real solution paths; ok; 0.1 %

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I had asked my wife to call around and check, and at least as of today, the only government GPO pharmacy that had any regular paper masks in BKK was the GPO pharmacy at the BKK CW Immigration building, and the staff there told her by phone that they had people queuing up.... But only paper masks, no N95 available.

 

[bangkokfrog]

Shame on you snoopy. This must be one of those "fake news" articles that PM Prayut said we should take no notice of. Am I wrong, or wasn't there a recent article where the esteemed ex-General promised that face masks would be available to all.

[connda]

25 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

Mix clean water with alcohol and carry it wherever you go,” said Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul at the conference.

Seeing that they seem to only sell Ethyl alcohol instead of isopropyl alcohol, you end up smelling like you've taken a bath in booze.

[connda]

3 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

I had asked my wife to call around and check, and at least as of today, the only government GPO pharmacy that had any regular paper masks in BKK was the GPO pharmacy at the BKK CW Immigration building, and the staff there told her by phone that they had people queuing up.... But only paper masks, no N95 available.

 

Interesting.  I'm living out in the sticks in rural Northern Thailand and the local grocery has plenty of masks. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I like homemade... Forget all that scientific 3M stuff. This is Thailand!!!

 

Some good examples from elsewhere that the locals can follow in heeding the government's advice...

 

 

     

Edited February 6, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

37 minutes ago, Thian said:

At the immigration there were 2 empty pumpbottles for the sanitizers...and we had to be there for 3 hours while nobody around us was wearing mouthmasks.....terrible and very unprofessional.

 None of the officers, none of the customers, or none of both?

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

21 minutes ago, connda said:

Interesting.  I'm living out in the sticks in rural Northern Thailand and the local grocery has plenty of masks. 

 Because the locals there have no idea what the coronavirus is? Or perhaps think it's some gift the government is planning to give to them as a welfare handout???

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

53 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

To ease the shortages, the Thai government started handing out 45,000 surgical masks for free from Thursday to Saturday at different “risky” locations, mostly tourist areas, in Bangkok.

 

Where exactly???  Nana, Cowboy, Patpong???  That kind of risky???

Edited February 6, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

An image from Wuhan, according to one of the UK tabloids:

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, snoop1130 said:

To ease the shortages, the Thai government started handing out 45,000 surgical masks for free from Thursday to Saturday at different “risky” locations, mostly tourist areas, in Bangkok.

 

From The Nation:

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30381691

 

Quote

 

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence has assigned the Royal Thai Army's Medical Department, Phramongkutklao Hospital and the Royal Thai Army Nursing College to send Army officials to distribute face masks in risk-prone areas of Bangkok such as crowded places and those with a lot of tourists, starting from Thursday (February 6).
 

The Army officials will provide 2,500 face masks in 18 areas, a total of 45,000 pieces, as follows:

[ALREADY PASSED] February 6, 7am to 9am -- at Victory Monument, BTS Victory Monument Station, and Santirat Witthayalai School; from 3pm to 5pm at Pratunam Market, BTS Ari Station, and Silom Road.
 

February 7, 7am to 9am -- at Suan Misakawan School, BTS Phya Thai Station, and Saphan Khwai; from 3pm to 5pm at MBK Centre, Pratunam Market, and Santiphap Park.

 

February 8, 8am to 10am -- at Central Plaza Lardprao, Chatuchak Weekend Market, and Ratchawat Market; from 3pm to 5pm at Central World, Siam Square, and Si Yan Market.

 

 

So if people were allowed to obtain the supposed 10 masks limit, that would equal serving about 250 people at each of the abovelisted locations.... 2500 masks per location.

Edited February 6, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[DrTuner]

Straight alcohol makes the hands very dry, add some aloe or glycerin in it. That's what I did, works fine.

[DrTuner]

Tip of the day: Buy a HEPA filter for a PM2.5 gadget and take out the filter part itself. Easy enough to wrap around your head 3 times. N95, jingjing.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

Quote

 

Ministry to sell 10 million face masks at Bt2.50 to Bt5 each

Feb 06. 2020

 

The Ministry of Commerce will put on sales 10 million face masks at Bt2.50 to Bt5 each, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawisit on Thursday (February 6).
 

“Sales will start at 9 am on Saturday (February ???? at the multipurpose yard on the third floor of the ministry. The masks will then be distributed to Blue Flag stores nationwide,” he said.

“We expected to sell 2 million masks within the second week of February. Deliveries to Blue Flag stores will continue until the target is reached," he added. He said the public is allowed to buy up to 10 pieces per person.
 

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health's Permanent Secretary Dr Sukhum Kanchanapimai has warned people not to hoard face masks, saying that it would only stay effective for five years after the production date.
 

Prayoth Benyasut, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Internal Trade (DIT), said face mask is a controlled product, subjected to a one-time purchase of no more than 10 pieces per person while export of the item is capped at 500 per shipment.

 

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30381703?

 

 

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, connda said:

Seeing that they seem to only sell Ethyl alcohol instead of isopropyl alcohol, you end up smelling like you've taken a bath in booze.

I do love the smell of Pattaya in the mornings.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, snoop1130 said:

To ease the shortages, the Thai government started handing out 45,000 surgical masks for free from Thursday to Saturday at different “risky” locations, mostly tourist areas, in Bangkok.

 

It will also start selling millions of masks from Saturday onwards through government-sponsored stores across the country.

 

I called the Ministry of Public Health coronavirus hotline tonight, and got an EN speaking rep on the phone. Explained what I had seen on the OP news report above and asked WHERE they were going to distribute the masks... After back and forth, the MoPH hotline rep had absolutely no idea about any mask distribution program and promised to call back (which hasn't happened yet)...

 

Meanwhile, I found the details on The Nation website from today and posted them above...

 

Perhaps the MoPH hotline was clueless because the two abovementioned mask distribution programs appear to be coming thru 1. the military, and 2. the Commerce Ministry.... Not that anyone would expect them to be sharing pertinent info with each other...

 

 

[Moonlover]

1 hour ago, connda said:

Interesting.  I'm living out in the sticks in rural Northern Thailand and the local grocery has plenty of masks. 

I'm living in rural north east Thailand and I couldn't less about  corona virus. And no one else around me seems bothered either.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Let's not forget, the FFP had just announced their public crowdsourcing initiative to try and help Thai people find places to obtain face masks...

 

And then suddenly later today, the government ends up announcing two different major initiatives to all of a sudden start distributing/selling face masks in a broad scale around Bangkok and elsewhere...

 

I'm sure, the timing was purely a coincidence!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

37 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The masks will then be distributed to Blue Flag stores nationwide,” he said.

“We expected to sell 2 million masks within the second week of February. Deliveries to Blue Flag stores will continue until the target is reached," he added. He said the public is allowed to buy up to 10 pieces per person.

 

The Blue Flag (Thong Fah) stores normally, as I recall, are for low-income Thai people who have registered and qualified for that government-sponsored program....

 

So one question here would be -- are the future mask sales thru the Blue Flag stores only going to be for targeted low-income Thais, or are they going to be open to the general public?

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

27 minutes ago, Moonlover said:

I'm living in rural north east Thailand and I couldn't less about  corona virus. And no one else around me seems bothered either.

 

I think the current degree of coronavirus concern around Thailand is probably directly correlated to the extent of Chinese tourists and tourism in that particular area.

 

[impulse]

48 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Straight alcohol makes the hands very dry, add some aloe or glycerin in it. That's what I did, works fine.

 

Plus, buy it at the paint stores as a solvent.   Methanol and ethanol- 100% strength.  No blue dye to stain clothing.

[DrTuner]

32 minutes ago, impulse said:

Plus, buy it at the paint stores as a solvent.   Methanol and ethanol- 100% strength.  No blue dye to stain clothing.

First I thought that ethanol wouldn't be available because you can drink it if untainted, but then I checked lazada and sure enough, food grade ethanol 95% being sold and very cheaply, 290b/1L. Can't be taxed at that price...

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

First I thought that ethanol wouldn't be available because you can drink it if untainted, but then I checked lazada and sure enough, food grade ethanol 95% being sold and very cheaply, 290b/1L. Can't be taxed at that price...

 

So what's the other 5% ingredient, for those products?

 

And then what... dilute it down to 70% ethanol with water to get the proper virus killing mixture?

 

[DrTuner]

9 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

So what's the other 5% ingredient, for those products?

 

And then what... dilute it down to 70% ethanol with water to get the proper virus killing mixture?

 

5% is usually water if untainted. When opened, ethanol in a bottle draws in moisture from the air and ends up as 95%.

 

Yes, dilute to 70% or a tad more if you add moisturizer or fragrance. 

 

EDIT: This is for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeotrope

Quote

A well-known example of a positive azeotrope is 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water (by mass) 

 

EDIT2: I wouldn't try to drink ethanol ordered from online no matter how "food grade" they advertise it being. Either it's bootleg or tainted, otherwise excise tax would have to be paid.

Edited February 6, 2020 by DrTuner

[bluesofa]

5 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Thailand’s health authorities on Thursday encouraged people to make hand sanitizers and masks at home to guard against the spread of the new coronavirus.

Hmm, reminds me of this:

[ukrules]

The government announced just a few days ago that there would be no chance of a shortage of face masks.

 

I didn't believe a word of it of course.

 

Here's a link to the article :

 

What would 'Deputy Minister and Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawisit' say about this now that there's none left just a few days after his announcement?

[englishoak]

Well thats great, meanwhile China are thanking Thailand for all the support sending masks, medical supplies etc etc... time to look after your own population maybe ?

[ChrisY1]

9 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

An image from Wuhan, according to one of the UK tabloids:

 

I don"t think even these are available in Thailand :))