Pattaya and the virus: Resort's special events obliterated for at least next six months

[webfact]

Pattaya and the virus: Resort's events schedule obliterated for at least next six months

 

Picture: Sophon Cable

 

Almost all major events due to be held in Pattaya over the next six months have been cancelled as officials in the resort battle to prevent any outbreak of the coronavirus. 

 

The PR Pattaya Facebook page listed several dozen sports meets and festivals that have either been completely cancelled or postponed.

 

Participants or visitors to Pattaya from now until September are advised to contact organisers to see the status of these events.

 

The move comes after officials took the decision to urge organisers to cancel "unnecessary" special events like sports meets, concerts and other entertainment.

 

This has led to the immediate cancellation of two music festivals and a St Patrick's day parade in the coming two months as previously reported on Thaivisa.

 

Meanwhile, Pattaya's mayor Sontaya Khunpluem told Sophon on Facebook that the government had contacted his administration to step up Covid-19 screening at places like the local airport, port, railway station and bus station.

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2020-03-05

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[manicmike68]

Yet the songkran festival is still a go?

[PatOngo]

So what should we do? Sponsor a thieving ladyboy? ????

[darksidedog]

It seems the penny has finally dropped and they understand this is not a problem that is going to go away in a matter of weeks. One suspects this is also slowly dawning on TAT who are going to have to revise their projected tourist numbers, as a loss of only 6 million tourists in the year, down to 34 Million from 40 Million now seems hugely optimistic. I doubt they will reach even half, even if the outbreak many suspect is going to hit Thailand doesn't materialize.

[neeray]

34 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

I doubt they will reach even half, even if the outbreak many suspect is going to hit Thailand doesn't materialize.

IMHO, it's not going to materialize. Unless the numbers being reported are completely bogus, it's not advancing fast enough to become a major epidemic.

Quite possibly, certain ministries are exploiting the virus so that they can grab their "15 days of fame" (similar to 15 minutes of fame) and then claim victory for good management which avoided a major outbreak.

Why? Because they are all in need of public support and don't care how much harm they bring to the working class while aggrandizing themselves.

[Jingthing]

Please cancel all organized Songkran events asap. 

[champers]

So 2 hours of St Paddy's Day parade is more of a health risk than 10 days of Songkram?

[CLW]

1 hour ago, champers said:

So 2 hours of St Paddy's Day parade is more of a health risk than 10 days of Songkram?

Because Coronavirus is only brought to Thailand from foreigners or people coming from abroad. 

There is no human to human infection in Thailand.

Thais seem to be immune against it as the number of cases has not increased for weeks.

 

*Sarcasm mode off*

[spiekerjozef]

Great, no more road blocks.

[bkk6060]

I am very surprised there have been no reported cases here.  Although lighter, there are still people from all over the world coming here.

Maybe all that disinfecting worked. ????

[NCC1701A]

by now everyone should be aware of the magnitude of what is happening here in Thailand and world wide.

 

look for shortages of auto parts, tires, electronics, food, drinking water, paper towels, toilet paper, masks, supply line disruptions, airlines and transportation closures. 

 

300,000,000 school children are out of school now.

 

there are months to go with is.

[RichardColeman]

3 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

 

look for shortages of auto parts, tires, electronics, food, drinking water, paper towels, toilet paper, masks, supply line disruptions, airlines and transportation closures. 

 

NO beer shortage yet though

[NCC1701A]

45 minutes ago, spiekerjozef said:

Great, no more road blocks.

expect the opposite. the police will start checking temperatures at special road blocks setup all over Thailand to detain people.

you will be taken to the same facility they are using for the returning Thai workers from Korea.

[Kerryd]

Glad we were able to have the Burapa Bike Week party in February without any problems !

I was watching the crowds everyday to see how many people would be wearing masks during the 3 days. Saw a couple of (Thai) joggers one morning. Some municipal workers doing maintenance on the grounds and, in the middle of the day, I saw 1 Asian guy (don't know if he was Thai) wearing a mask - but his wife and child weren't !

No reports of anyone catching the virus from that event (which ended over 2 weeks ago) and still no reports of anyone in Pattaya having been infected.

I mentioned as much to the Immigration Officer I spoke to yesterday. He was wearing a mask and he asked me something (wasn't I worried or something) and I noted that there weren't any infections in Pattaya and that most of the cases were in Bangkok.
I also noticed that none of the other (Western) foreigners were wearing masks (but 3 Asian women who were there had masks on).

Read an article yesterday about "mistakes made" that have helped spread the virus, like people who were tested and cleared only to be found later to have been infected. And ones who were tested as positive and then accidentally released. And things like the poor manner in which the infection was handled on the one cruise ship. 
Apparently the (American) CDC also screwed up by refusing to use the test kits the World Health Organization was issuing. The CDC decided to make it's own testing kits which turned out to be ineffective and resulted in infected people being cleared and released.

Of course, it was the WHO themselves who initially said that cancelling flights to/from China was a bad idea ! They said that back in January when the first few countries started banning flights from China.
I shook my head at that one.
"Lets see, we know the centre of the epidemic is Wuhan, China, but we think it is a bad idea to ban travel to/from that area. Much better to let potentially infected people travel freely around the world."

Hopefully whatever idiot thought that up was fired soon after.

The infections cropping up in other parts of the world also seem to be because of stupid mistakes. In Italy, they tested a guy who was infected. That person was then allowed to freely wander around the hospital for over a day before anyone thought to quarantine him !

Or the woman in England who thought she might be infected and instead of contacting a hospital (who would have sent an ambulance apparently) or using a private vehicle, she took an UBER to the hospital (and presumably never said anything to the driver) !

In South Korea, a Christian cult group performed a mass wedding and told the attendees to remove their masks. Apparently the cult is somewhat secretive and nobody really knows who is a member or how to get ahold of them. That lead to a spike in infections there.

It seems that most of the victims are still "elderly" (65+ being the median age) or those with underlying health conditions.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons so many in China have died could possibly be due to the high number of heavy smokers in that country. As this virus is a variation of the Flu (influenza) it primarily affects the lungs. I remember what a normal cold/flu was like back in the day when I was a smoker and I probably wasn't even in the same league as your average Chinese smoker (when it came to amount smoked and quality of the product). A regular cold/flu was bad enough back then, this bug would probably have an even worse effect. 

I haven't seen anything (yet) about how many of the fatalities may have been smokers but I'd guess a large number of them (in China at least) were heavy smokers. Add to that the amount of smog present in so many of their larger cities, it's no wonder they have such a high mortality rate. 
(Saw a "smog map" yesterday showing the amount of pollution over Eastern Asia, before the virus and just recently. While South Korea still showed large amounts of pollution, much of Eastern China had gone from heavily polluted to almost clear - compared to what it used to look like.)

That might also account for why the mortality rate in the rest of the world is (apparently) much lower. Fewer heavy smokers breathing less polluted air (and being somewhat younger than the median age for fatalities) - as well as probably having access to better healthcare.

And the UK just announced (yesterday) that companies employing more than 10 people have to give them 2 weeks of paid leave starting on 6 Mar !
That ought to put a huge hit on the economy ! 2 weeks of virtually no production while still having to pay regular wages ! Ouch !

Oh well. I was so looking forward to not going to the Music Festival (again) ! Whatever will I do ?

But the Tourism Minister said that all the virus will be gone by Songkran so no worries !

[hobobo]

52 minutes ago, Kerryd said:

Glad we were able to have the Burapa Bike Week party in February without any problems !

I was watching the crowds everyday to see how many people would be wearing masks during the 3 days. Saw a couple of (Thai) joggers one morning. Some municipal workers doing maintenance on the grounds and, in the middle of the day, I saw 1 Asian guy (don't know if he was Thai) wearing a mask - but his wife and child weren't !

No reports of anyone catching the virus from that event (which ended over 2 weeks ago) and still no reports of anyone in Pattaya having been infected.

I mentioned as much to the Immigration Officer I spoke to yesterday. He was wearing a mask and he asked me something (wasn't I worried or something) and I noted that there weren't any infections in Pattaya and that most of the cases were in Bangkok.
I also noticed that none of the other (Western) foreigners were wearing masks (but 3 Asian women who were there had masks on).

Read an article yesterday about "mistakes made" that have helped spread the virus, like people who were tested and cleared only to be found later to have been infected. And ones who were tested as positive and then accidentally released. And things like the poor manner in which the infection was handled on the one cruise ship. 
Apparently the (American) CDC also screwed up by refusing to use the test kits the World Health Organization was issuing. The CDC decided to make it's own testing kits which turned out to be ineffective and resulted in infected people being cleared and released.

Of course, it was the WHO themselves who initially said that cancelling flights to/from China was a bad idea ! They said that back in January when the first few countries started banning flights from China.
I shook my head at that one.
"Lets see, we know the centre of the epidemic is Wuhan, China, but we think it is a bad idea to ban travel to/from that area. Much better to let potentially infected people travel freely around the world."

Hopefully whatever idiot thought that up was fired soon after.

The infections cropping up in other parts of the world also seem to be because of stupid mistakes. In Italy, they tested a guy who was infected. That person was then allowed to freely wander around the hospital for over a day before anyone thought to quarantine him !

Or the woman in England who thought she might be infected and instead of contacting a hospital (who would have sent an ambulance apparently) or using a private vehicle, she took an UBER to the hospital (and presumably never said anything to the driver) !

In South Korea, a Christian cult group performed a mass wedding and told the attendees to remove their masks. Apparently the cult is somewhat secretive and nobody really knows who is a member or how to get ahold of them. That lead to a spike in infections there.

It seems that most of the victims are still "elderly" (65+ being the median age) or those with underlying health conditions.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons so many in China have died could possibly be due to the high number of heavy smokers in that country. As this virus is a variation of the Flu (influenza) it primarily affects the lungs. I remember what a normal cold/flu was like back in the day when I was a smoker and I probably wasn't even in the same league as your average Chinese smoker (when it came to amount smoked and quality of the product). A regular cold/flu was bad enough back then, this bug would probably have an even worse effect. 

I haven't seen anything (yet) about how many of the fatalities may have been smokers but I'd guess a large number of them (in China at least) were heavy smokers. Add to that the amount of smog present in so many of their larger cities, it's no wonder they have such a high mortality rate. 
(Saw a "smog map" yesterday showing the amount of pollution over Eastern Asia, before the virus and just recently. While South Korea still showed large amounts of pollution, much of Eastern China had gone from heavily polluted to almost clear - compared to what it used to look like.)

That might also account for why the mortality rate in the rest of the world is (apparently) much lower. Fewer heavy smokers breathing less polluted air (and being somewhat younger than the median age for fatalities) - as well as probably having access to better healthcare.

And the UK just announced (yesterday) that companies employing more than 10 people have to give them 2 weeks of paid leave starting on 6 Mar !
That ought to put a huge hit on the economy ! 2 weeks of virtually no production while still having to pay regular wages ! Ouch !

Oh well. I was so looking forward to not going to the Music Festival (again) ! Whatever will I do ?

But the Tourism Minister said that all the virus will be gone by Songkran so no worries !

War and Peace will be a pleasant breather after this

[hotchilli]

7 hours ago, manicmike68 said:

Yet the songkran festival is still a go?

Not for me...

[toenail]

So sad ( and scary) to see what this virus scare & unknown sickness is doing to the world’s economy. 

[thaibeachlovers]

Sounds like it might be a nice time to go stay in Pattaya, but are there less baht buses on the road?

[thaibeachlovers]

37 minutes ago, toenail said:

So sad ( and scary) to see what this virus scare & unknown sickness is doing to the world’s economy. 

Give it time. They've barely got started ruining the economy.

Expect crime to be a growth industry.

[Sharp]

So shut the whole world down for a 2-5% mortality rate added to the fact pre-existing / chronic conditions and age playing a major part in the unfortunate deaths surely the fact that 95% have or will recover at present should add a bit of commonsense on the subject and procedures going forward 'just sayin' oh and don't even mention the main stream media BS.. 

[overherebc]

4 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

by now everyone should be aware of the magnitude of what is happening here in Thailand and world wide.

 

look for shortages of auto parts, tires, electronics, food, drinking water, paper towels, toilet paper, masks, supply line disruptions, airlines and transportation closures. 

 

300,000,000 school children are out of school now.

 

there are months to go with is.

So happy you didn't include beer vodka and tonic.

You had me worried for a minute

 

[Bell1234]

And yet the biggest one of all the Songkran festival will not be haha.. To much money to lose even with the worst drought in 20 years.

[fforest1]

7 hours ago, Bell1234 said:

And yet the biggest one of all the Songkran festival will not be haha.. To much money to lose even with the worst drought in 20 years.

I think they will not cancel Songkran because that would make to many farangs happy.....The majority of farangs despise Songkran...... 

Edited March 6, 2020 by fforest1

[LittleBear57]

No water for three days due to drought. Corona virus transferred in large gatherings. So lets have a massive water fight all over the country, masks are dangerous especially when WET.

[glennb6]

29 minutes ago, LittleBear57 said:

No water for three days due to drought. Corona virus transferred in large gatherings. So lets have a massive water fight all over the country, masks are dangerous especially when WET.

gf works at big c, came home last night and said 3 festivals to be canceled, and her friend/coworker said songkran will be nixed too. not an official announcement.

[PhonThong]

Just got back from our vacation in Thailand. Had a great time!

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by PhonThong