UAE bans citizens from travelling to Thailand, Kuwait suspends flights

[Bkk Brian]

7 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

From the figures in your link and the ones you quoted  the fatality rates are China 3.37%, Sth Korea 1.0% and Italy 3.03%.I'm failing to see the high death rate compared to China as both South Korea and Italy have a lower fatality rate than China.

 

Indeed I stand corrected however I'm not convinced by Chinese stats currently. Thats why I'm only looking at those two countries.

[KhaoYai]

After reading this I immediately called Etihad for an update as I fly to Bangkok from Manchester on Saturday. I was concerened that they may have staffing issues because as far as I know, all their cabin staff live in Abu Dhabi so I wondered if they would be treated the same as UAE citizens.  I was told that the ban does not affect non UAE staff and they have no plans to suspend any flights at the moment but if I'm worried, check back on Friday.

 

Obviously the situation is fluid but its worrying.  Abu Dhabi, much the same as Dubai, is a major hub so I understand the UAE's concerns that so many people, travelling from all over the world, pass through their airports - doesn't help me much though ????

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by KhaoYai

[WaveHunter]

53 minutes ago, Lingba said:

they are telling us 34....maybe its really another number

 

I think it's fair to assume that it is far, far more than the 35 currently being reported as of this morning's update.  The fact that all statistics have not changed in over a week is very suspicious in how transparent government sources are being.

 

Though I have no definitive proof, it seems to me that the economic interests in preserving tourism revenues by still allowing and even encouraging Chinese tourism, is more important than the safety of those living in the Kingdom.  I mean, Chinese tourism accounts for around 1/3 of the annual tourism revenue here.

 

The lack of transparency that seems to be occurring here is not much different then what has been occuring in China as far as I can tell.

 

Oh wait!!!!  New numbers just came out!  I still think they are under-reporting but here they are, as of about 5 minutes ago:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

 

[sambum]

7 hours ago, stevenl said:

Nothing, they're just panicking due to the number of Chinese visitors to Thjailand.

 

The panic and reactions by governments are simply due to overreaction by uninformed people on social media.

So why would governments "panic" due to "overreaction by uninformed people on social media."?

[FarFlungFalang]

6 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

Indeed I stand corrected however I'm not convinced by Chinese stats currently. Thats why I'm only looking at those two countries.

I'm also watching them along with Iran which is reported to have as many as 50 deaths from 61 reported cases,now thats a high fatality rate. 

[IAMHERE]

43 minutes ago, dcnx said:

There isn’t a cure. There’s only recovery. You can also catch it more than once.

I'd like to know the source of this. 

[observer90210]

Very bad news .... !....fewer tourists and foreigners to harass on arrival by immigration....how will those boys and girls in brown uniforms manage now ?!!

[P100]

7 hours ago, fforest1 said:

Dont worry the new smart cars will be out getting those overstayers.....

I heard BMW is now building smart cars to catch Corona virus. Head up display and fully connected to internet with 6G. Thai military start saving for that one !!

[Canuck1966]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

You're right about one thing, comparing it to the flu is ignorant, the flu has far more impact on health than this does.

Two words

 

VESTED INTEREST

 

You must be really hurting to post such tripe

[stevenl]

2 minutes ago, Canuck1966 said:

Two words

 

VESTED INTEREST

 

You must be really hurting to post such tripe

Not at all, love it without Chinese. So someone disagrees with you, and you find it necessary to start a personal attack.

Edited February 25, 2020 by stevenl

[tifino]

can't see it too far away, where as on a chess board;

 the number of Moves (available countries) left, will reach a Stalemate

 

 

the Pawns represent all those from the Innocent (honest) countries 

[WaveHunter]

1 hour ago, Bkk Brian said:

One thing with the outbreaks in both South Korea and Italy, it can now give us a benchmark on trends, mortality rates and severity. 

 

Currently Italy has 231 confirmed with 7 deaths.

South Korea has 893 confirmed with 9 deaths.

 

Thats a very high death rate compared to the statistics that came out of China and of course death is the ultimate price paid for catching coronavirus, if your one of the unfortunate ones that becomes critical then you have a long stay in hospital with intensive treatment.

 

I'm keeping my eye on those two countries.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

That's the way I see it to.  Singapore, South Korea, and Italy are much better benchmarks of the reality of this outbreak because the governments of these countries have been highly transparent right from the start, unlike China.

 

If you look at the numbers in these places and compare some of the statistics to China's reporting it's very obvious even on casual glance that China has got to be vastly under-reporting their number.  Some experts believe it may be by a factor of x3 to x10.  Those are unbelievably BIG numbers if true, not just accidental errors in calculation.

 

[Jumbo1968]

7 minutes ago, IAMHERE said:

I'd like to know the source of this. 

There are no cures for viruses and viruses like the flu can be had multiple times.

[Bangkok Barry]

7 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

So does this mean the regular Emirates and Etihad flights between LHR and BKK, via UAE are suspended?

 

How do you come to that? The UAE has banned their own citizens from flying to Thailand. Emirates are even still flying to China (Beijing) although I believe they've suspended their flight to Singapore and Melbourne. But these things are changing daily. I'm due to fly back to Bangkok from Dubai on Sunday and it's anyone's guess what the situation will be then. It might be that I can stretch out on the plane, or there'll be no plane at all.

[WaveHunter]

28 minutes ago, Canuck1966 said:

Two words

 

VESTED INTEREST

 

You must be really hurting to post such tripe

I think the poster is just playing devil's advocate.  Nobody could really believe the prudent thing is just to ignore what is happening, and what all the expert scientists are now saying. 

 

When the World Health Organization, which has been dragging its' heels from Day One of this crisis finally starts using the word "Pandemic" the way they did yesterday, you know this is really serious and not to be trifled with by making such cavalier remarks as the poster made.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by WaveHunter

[Redline]

7 hours ago, Canuck1966 said:

Going to be lots of overstay issues kicking in soon, if these bans continue!

The smart BMW must be the thoroughly confused!

[humbug]

25 minutes ago, WaveHunter said:

This is a fast moving situation.  We may not have conclusive studies that prove without doubt that asymptomatic people can spread the virus but there is enough evidence to strongly believe that is exactly what is happening. 

 

You simply can not have the escalating numbers you are seeing all around the world despite containment efforts if asymptomatic people are not spreading it.  

 

So what do you do now?  Do you wait for conclusive proof or do you err on the side of caution and assume it is so?  I think the latter is the more prudent way to go.  Unfortunately, much stricter measures are going to be needed to control this.

 

I don't think it's a big leap at all to assume that many more will become infected.  In fact, given the present rate of spread and the failure of present containment efforts to do any more than merely slow the spread down a little, I don't see any way that it can fail to infect many more people, and for a long time to come.

 

Sadly, China's delay in handling this back in December when there was a real chance of containment has probably already closed the window for containment.  There are just too many carriers spread out to all points on the globe now; many of whom were asymptomatic and thus fell through the safety net as they seeded other geographic regions.

 

That's the way many of the leading epidemiological experts view the situation at least, though politician, bureaucrats and other talking heads would have us believe otherwise.

the best way is to side with caution, and even though most cases will be mild, it’s better to take some action, start with social distancing, especially public places, taxi drivers with their famous hygiene will be a hot bet of infections, it’s already among us in nearly all places, people waiting for news are just really waiting for the cover ups, the mention about December in CCP China for containment is key, this is what happens when you lie and deceive people through control measures of media, same on this land, life is cheap and these gangster regimes don’t care about people just greed

[Mark17AA]

7 hours ago, Canuck1966 said:

Wonder if we will have TIT for TAT.

Sounds like a good slogan for the tourist board to me????

That sounds absolutely right... great new slogan for Thailand mentality.

[Jumbo1968]

4 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

How do you come to that? The UAE has banned their own citizens from flying to Thailand. Emirates are even still flying to China (Beijing) although I believe they've suspended their flight to Singapore and Melbourne. But these things are changing daily. I'm due to fly back to Bangkok from Dubai on Sunday and it's anyone's guess what the situation will be then. It might be that I can stretch out on the plane, or there'll be no plane at all.

Emirates staff are Dubai based and I would think there would also be some UAE Pilots and Cabin Crew, what happens then, only the non UAE Staff can travel ?

[DannyCarlton]

1 hour ago, vermin on arrival said:

Well, I just got back from Chaeng Wattana immigration today to extend my 30 days. Thought it would be deserted with the dearth of tourists. Instead it was the most packed and busiest I ever saw it. I got there at 10:15AM and was number 244 with 147 people wait. Could not believe it, and when I got to section K, I saw why-probably 80% of the extenders were mainland Chinese (probably cornonavirus refugees). There were so many people there they had extra rows of plastic chairs for seating, they had more staff to handle Chinese language translation, and a pre-check table to look over the documents to handle the heavy work load. I got out at 2PM, plenty of time for infection to take place. If I contracted it today, I wouldn't be surprised.

 

Same at Jomtien yesterday. Queues like I've never seen before. I didn't go inside just sat outside and saw a group of 8 young Chinese guys coming out, probably doing extensions.

[Bangkok Barry]

6 minutes ago, Jumbo1968 said:

13 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

How do you come to that? The UAE has banned their own citizens from flying to Thailand. Emirates are even still flying to China (Beijing) although I believe they've suspended their flight to Singapore and Melbourne. But these things are changing daily. I'm due to fly back to Bangkok from Dubai on Sunday and it's anyone's guess what the situation will be then. It might be that I can stretch out on the plane, or there'll be no plane at all.

Emirates staff are Dubai based and I would think there would also be some UAE Pilots and Cabin Crew, what happens then, only the non UAE Staff can travel ?

 

I think you will find that very, very few Emirates flight staff are from the UAE. A very tiny number.

[Jumbo1968]

1 minute ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I think you will find that very, very few Emirates flight staff are from the UAE. A very tiny number.

I agree but the staff from the Emirates or not will be staying in Dubai after there trips from various parts of globe where there is coronavirus.

Its a bit hypocritical to ban their own citizens from travelling when the Crew could be bringing coronavirus to the UAE as we know aircraft use a recycling ac system. 

[WhyamIhere]

Rather puzzling!  A country that invites all Chinese in is reporting one of the lowest rates of new infections?   

Edited February 25, 2020 by WhyamIhere
Choice of word

[terryofcrete]

7 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

 

Them Russians dont give a S#it so Im recommending UK to Moscow to Phuket

The cheapest flight from Dublin to BBK is Aeroflot and the duration is as good as Emirates, Qatar or Etihad... the only problem is Aeroflot ... better than they used to be but still so lacking in comfort and other areas .. Used to travel to Moscow to see family posted there and I know. Still it’s there as an option if I need a cheapie Charlie... 

[KhaoYai]

10 minutes ago, Jumbo1968 said:

Its a bit hypocritical to ban their own citizens from travelling when the Crew could be bringing coronavirus to the UAE as we know aircraft use a recycling ac system.

I understand where you are coming from but - and its only a guess, I would think that staff are told to self isolate when they have a stopover in an affected country - Thailand especially.

 

I believe both UAE airlines - Etihad and Emirates have quite severe financial problems at the moment. There will be strong resistance to an outright ban on flights.

Edited February 25, 2020 by KhaoYai

[ukrules]

6 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

I would really like to know the specific reasons why the UAE issued the ban.

They have people on the ground in Bangkok, I suspect this is a 'diplomatic warning shot'.

 

Note that they have not restricted arrivals from people who have been in Thailand inside the last couple of weeks - and that in itself is very telling.

 

[KhaoYai]

2 minutes ago, ukrules said:

They have people on the ground in Bangkok, I suspect this is a 'diplomatic warning shot'.

I would agree. I think a lot of countries are gobsmacked that Thailand has not banned Chinese citizens.

[ukdave51]

It would seem there are lots of people on here with contacts inside the Thai government, are maybe, dare I say it...they are guessing. 

[Zack61]

5 hours ago, NanLaew said:

You do know that China has slapped a travel ban on their great unwashed leaving the country?

 

No? Maybe Kuwait and the others don't know either.

And this has been the one thing that has slowed the spread into Thailand. If Prayut and his cronies had their way with their open arms policy it would be well and truly a sh*t show by now. Thailand is still being used as a staging ground for many Chinese students trying to return to their countries of study by putting in their 2 weeks of quarantine in a third country before being allowed to return.

[hotchilli]

8 hours ago, BobbyL said:

It is all getting very bizarre. 

The only thing bizarre is that Thailand had open doors from China over the new year period, with direct flights from Wuhan, allowing thousands of Chinese into the country, yet it boasts the lowest rate of infections?

Truly bizarre.... maybe these other countries don't believe the Thai figure either!