Thailand reports 50 new coronavirus infections for total of 322

[DrTuner]

13 minutes ago, anchadian said:

https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/thailand-covid-19-updates-country-will-pay-a-huge-price-if-it-fails-to-impose-full-lock-downs-fast-with-help-from-the-army

 

Thailand Covid-19 Updates: Country Will Pay A Huge Price If It Fails To Impose Full Lock Downs Fast With Help From The Army

Thailand Covid-19 Updates: Director-general of the Department of Disease Control, Dr Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoen, announced today (19^th March) that there are 60 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, of which 43 were linked to boxing stadiums, entertainment venues, and religious ceremonies.

Quote

Should Thailand fail to close the country in time, the spread would be extremely rampant considering that Thais are generally irresponsible and lack self-discipline and do not know how to impose self-isolation or even social distancing.

The only solution is to lock down the country for six weeks or longer, with the army in control to stop movements and maintain isolations till all infected are tracked and identified and treated and the spread is stopped.
 

 

They know their own. So, he's proposing six weeks or longer with army deployed for enforcement. First bets are in.

Edited March 20, 2020 by DrTuner

[Misty]

One of our Thai staff suggested that the government may be reluctant to "lock-down" Bangkok because so many people are informally employed.  Under lockdown these folks would lose their jobs, and, having no money would return upcountry thereby spreading coronavirus widely.

[champers]

5 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

Where ever the opportunity arises there's always that sniping remark , that little dig aimed at foreigners in this .. Need to go and look in the mirror and confess their own shortcomings in its proliferation .. Like some of the S K returnee's who legged it instead of doing quarantine .. fr'instance .. 

Chinese are foreigners too, as are most of the 16,000 Muslim worshippers who massed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where some Thais were infected. Oh, and the Koreans in Korea where some of the Thai little ghosts got infected.

[Mavideol]

2 minutes ago, Misty said:

One of our Thai staff suggested that the government may be reluctant to "lock-down" Bangkok because so many people are informally employed.  Under lockdown these folks would lose their jobs, and, having no money would return upcountry thereby spreading coronavirus widely.

greed will not let them lock down BKK, money much more important then people's health

[Skallywag]

45 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Well let's do some math ..

 

Ok so I'll have to take over 65 from 2018. 

 

Let's say a moderate 60% will get it ..

 

(3,289,576+4,239,992) * 0.60 = ‭4,517,740.8‬. Take 4.5M, easier. And let's take your 2%, 

 

Social distancing, folks.

Sorry, I just do not accept that 60% of people will get infected.  China has turned the corner with only 0.0076% being infected in Wuhan (81,000 out of 11 million)  

Italy currently has 35,000 cases, that is only 0.0006% of the population.  

2% of 35,000 is 700 hospital beds

[natway09]

If they had not been so "money hungry" there would not be any overseas arrivels 

[DrTuner]

2 minutes ago, Skallywag said:

Sorry, I just do not accept that 60% of people will get infected.  China has turned the corner with only 0.0076% being infected in Wuhan (81,000 out of 11 million)  

Italy currently has 35,000 cases, that is only 0.0006% of the population.  

Both locked down the country, it's only the start of infections and there's nobody with the capacity to test everybody. The reason for lockdowns is not to prevent the infections from occurring, that's impossible now without a vaccine. It's to flatten the curve so the health system does not collapse completely. Big difference between 60% infected in three months or three years.

[Yorkshire Tea]

12 minutes ago, Misty said:

One of our Thai staff suggested that the government may be reluctant to "lock-down" Bangkok because so many people are informally employed.  Under lockdown these folks would lose their jobs, and, having no money would return upcountry thereby spreading coronavirus widely.

Surely lockdown means nobody returns upcountry.  The problem at the moment, is the half hearted effort, close bars etc, but allow the exodus from the cities!

[jaiyen]

"100% under control"  !!   The translation was slightly wrong. It should have read                   "100% under controlled" !

[Skeptic7]

Wow 322...such staggering, mind-blowing numbers. 

[Arkady]

5 hours ago, Tingnongnoi said:

There is no narrative from what I have seen from any Thai's online outside of Anutin that foreigners are responsible, the only place im seeing that narrative is currently from the easily offended on Thaivisa. There is a ton of flak and blame being aimed at Thais at the boxing community though right now from other Thais

I would agree with that. Most Thais seem worried about catching it from other Thais. 

[Chazar]

meanwhile another 2-3-400? died of "pneumonia"

[DrTuner]

26 minutes ago, ubon farang said:

50 new cases of the virus . 60 more dead on the roads. One they worry about the other they dont give a rats ar se about. No prizes for guessing which one they care about most 

Oh, is the "but there are more roads deaths" argument in danger? Ok we'll have to wait for the actual death toll to come up. After that it'll be "but Spanish flu was worse", then "The plague was worse", then "but the dinosaurs went extinct". Only way to gain the coveted #1 hubbahubba spot is for mankind to go extinct. There's just no winning.

Edited March 20, 2020 by DrTuner

[DrTuner]

Aaand the last update for the DDC image with the numbers was on the 18th, Thai version does not have the number of pending results. So it's this again, let's see what carpet they find next to try to sweep the situation under. Last pending results count in the Thai language report for 19th is 3109. 

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/situation.php

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/situation.php

 

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by DrTuner

[Arkady]

32 minutes ago, Misty said:

One of our Thai staff suggested that the government may be reluctant to "lock-down" Bangkok because so many people are informally employed.  Under lockdown these folks would lose their jobs, and, having no money would return upcountry thereby spreading coronavirus widely.

This may be true. In the Tom Yam Kung crisis, rural people who had been working in Bangkok migrated back to their villages en masse and there pictures in the papers of fleets of idle Bangkok taxis with no one to rent them any more. But there was a huge mitigating factor.  That was that the recession was not global.  It mainly affected SE Asia. Tourism started booming due to the collapse of the baht and there was work to be found in the tourism industry. 

 

Unfortunately this time the whole economy is getting whacked even without a lock down yet and the drift back to villages has probably already started.  Another negative factor that was not there in 1997 is the large number of foreign migrant workers likely to be laid off. Burma, which claims not to have a single case yet, doesn't want theirs back.

[Arkady]

One thing I am not clear about is the definition of Patients under investigation (PUI) in the MOPH stats. Anyone know the answer?

 

[JCP108]

5 minutes ago, Arkady said:

In the Tom Yam Kung crisis...

There was a Tom Yam Kung crisis?!

[Misty]

4 minutes ago, Arkady said:

This may be true. In the Tom Yam Kung crisis, rural people who had been working in Bangkok migrated back to their villages en masse and there pictures in the papers of fleets of idle Bangkok taxis with no one to rent them any more. But there was a huge mitigating factor.  That was that the recession was not global.  It mainly affected SE Asia. Tourism started booming due to the collapse of the baht and there was work to be found in the tourism industry. 

 

Unfortunately this time the whole economy is getting whacked even without a lock down yet and the drift back to villages has probably already started.  Another negative factor that was not there in 1997 is the large number of foreign migrant workers likely to be laid off. Burma, which claims not to have a single case yet, doesn't want theirs back.

Well, we managed to keep one in Bangkok. Rather than move upcountry, that Thai staff (and her cat) has moved in. Shortened her commute.  

[MobileContent]

According to a C8 official in Udon Thani Province the biggest challenges is to keep Thai returnees in quarantine. They face many challenges as those returnees show up at BigC or Tesco and having large scale drink parties in the villages.

 

He thinks Udon has at least 500 - 800 infections and he is very upset.

[rosst]

7 hours ago, khunpa said:

For sure and this is going to take much longer than expected.  As each country around the world now faces constant growing numbers, medical supplies and protective equipment will soon start to run out. Soon everybody around the world, will understand the true meaning and results of a Pandemic. 

 

Feel so sorry for all the Thais who live from day to day, with no savings and now no jobs too.

Yes, the poor and the elderly will be the losers in this battle. 

The economic tsunami is the second wave that will cause untold devastion 

[Sheryl]

1 hour ago, Skallywag said:

Sorry, I just do not accept that 60% of people will get infected.  China has turned the corner with only 0.0076% being infected in Wuhan (81,000 out of 11 million)  

Italy currently has 35,000 cases, that is only 0.0006% of the population.  

2% of 35,000 is 700 hospital beds

 

We do not actually know that this is the case. And we won't know until a representative sampling of the population is done to test for antibodies.

 

81,000 were the diagnosed cases. We know that people can be completely asymptomatic with this virus and the only time aysmptomatic people were tested was if they were close contact of a known case. We do not yet have any handle on the true number of asymptomatic cases. (Given the tough measures taken by the Chinese authorities, pretty good bet that a lot of people with mild symptoms laid low to avoid detection as well).

 

For all we know, 60% of Wuhan may have been infected...in which case the fatality rate would be much,  much lower than currently thought.

 

Italy's epidemic (which is now over 41,000) is geographically concentrated in just one region, and not evenly spread there either.

 

As a percent of the population of Lombardy the confirmed cases are something like 0.4% overall but much higher in some villages.  And of course same thing applies re not knowing true number infected.

 

I heard somewhere that antibody testing in Wuhan had started. If so results will be very, very helpful and could  significantly change the models for this disease.

 

[bkkcanuck8]

5 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

We do not actually know that this is the case. And we won't know until a representative sampling of the population is done to test for antibodies.

 

81,000 were the diagnosed cases. We know that people can be completely asymptomatic with this virus and the only time aysmptomatic people were tested was if they were close contact of a known case. We do not yet have any handle on the true number of asymptomatic cases. (Given the tough measures taken by the Chinese authorities, pretty good bet that a lot of people with mild symptoms laid low to avoid detection as well).

 

For all we know, 60% of Wuhan may have been infected...in which case the fatality rate would be much,  much lower than currently thought.

 

Italy's epidemic (which is now over 41,000) is geographically concentrated in just one region, and not evenly spread there either.

 

As a percent of the population of Lombardy the confirmed cases are something like 0.4% overall but much higher in some villages.  And of course same thing applies re not knowing true number infected.

 

I heard somewhere that antibody testing in Wuhan had started. If so results will be very, very helpful and could  significantly change the models for this disease.

 

You can use smaller villages that were hit by the virus where the transmission was widespread as statistical pools to estimate mortality.  There are of course 2 strains of the virus (I think S and L with L having a higher transmission rate and higher mortality rate; while S is the one that mostly transmitted internationally; L was most common in Wuhan).

[Sheryl]

3 minutes ago, bkkcanuck8 said:

You can use smaller villages that were hit by the virus where the transmission was widespread as statistical pools to estimate mortality.  There are of course 2 strains of the virus (I think S and L with L having a higher transmission rate and higher mortality rate; while S is the one that mostly transmitted internationally; L was most common in Wuhan).

Even in a smaller village unless every single person was tested, your denominator will be too low and you can't really know by how much.

[DrTuner]

46 minutes ago, Arkady said:

One thing I am not clear about is the definition of Patients under investigation (PUI) in the MOPH stats. Anyone know the answer?

It probably stems from here:

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/file/guidelines/G_CPG_en.pdf

 

The guideline might have changed a bit, but if you look at the criteria box, you will notice Thais in general public that don't have contact with other PUIs, foreigners, ie. "the common somchai", only qualify as PUI if they already have pneumonia.

 

This would explain the slow growth of the PUI count. They can't get in from the door unless severely ill already.

[JCP108]

I think we're doomed here whether or not people are "locked down." Today, I pointed out that the official Thai health announcement said what I had already been saying which is social distancing is important. I was telling this to my wife and her friends who were sharing food out of a common dish. There was a small dog sitting on the table. They only response was to laugh at me with the special Thai laugh that means "what you just said is right...but, we are going to pretend you didn't say it and that actually the opposite is true."

 

Whether people stay where they are or go home, they will share food out of common dishes and drink from the same glasses and continue to not wash their hands when they go to the bathroom. 

[Skallywag]

15 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

We know that people can be completely asymptomatic with this virus and the only time aysmptomatic people were tested was if they were close contact of a known case. We do not yet have any handle on the true number of asymptomatic cases.

Not a certainty that asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people can infect someone with Covid19 in article I read from March 17.  If true to even a small percent could change things dramatically.  "While it's still unclear exactly how much of the current coronavirus outbreak has been fueled by asymptomatic, mildly symptomatic, or pre-symptomatic people, the risk is there",   "Haseltine recommends a testing system known as "contact tracing," which, he says, has already been implemented in Singapore and South Korea. The method involves testing everyone with symptoms first; then, after identifying those with the virus, attempting to find and test every person the infected individual has come into contact with over a period of two weeks"   https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/asymptomatic-carriers-coronavirus

[DrTuner]

8 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

Today, I pointed out that the official Thai health announcement said what I had already been saying which is social distancing is important. I was telling this to my wife and her friends who were sharing food out of a common dish. There was a small dog sitting on the table. They only response was to laugh at me with the special Thai laugh that means "what you just said is right...but, we are going to pretend you didn't say it and that actually the opposite is true."

The only way to get Thais to listen fast is to scare the <deleted> out of them, but then they completely flip into panic mode. Not a good idea.

 

I've now kept the pressure on for a few weeks with the family, dripfeeding them information relentlessly. Now they are alert and watching and not much comes as a surprise. They have altered their social behaviour a bit.

 

Note that this took constant reminding and enforcing. The panic that will now ensue is something people that have prepared are better riding out at home with a cold beer and snacks (bought pre-panic, of course) in hand. Good luck.

Edited March 20, 2020 by DrTuner

[jacob29]

26 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

81,000 were the diagnosed cases. We know that people can be completely asymptomatic with this virus and the only time aysmptomatic people were tested was if they were close contact of a known case. We do not yet have any handle on the true number of asymptomatic cases. (Given the tough measures taken by the Chinese authorities, pretty good bet that a lot of people with mild symptoms laid low to avoid detection as well).

 

For all we know, 60% of Wuhan may have been infected...in which case the fatality rate would be much,  much lower than currently thought.

I personally feel the 200k tests performed by South Korea says otherwise. There is no huge asymptomatic population in South Korea or they would have seen signs of it, and the mortality rate there is still uncomfortably high at 1%.

[DrTuner]

30 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

We do not actually know that this is the case. And we won't know until a representative sampling of the population is done to test for antibodies.

 

81,000 were the diagnosed cases. We know that people can be completely asymptomatic with this virus and the only time aysmptomatic people were tested was if they were close contact of a known case. We do not yet have any handle on the true number of asymptomatic cases. (Given the tough measures taken by the Chinese authorities, pretty good bet that a lot of people with mild symptoms laid low to avoid detection as well).

 

For all we know, 60% of Wuhan may have been infected...in which case the fatality rate would be much,  much lower than currently thought.

 

Italy's epidemic (which is now over 41,000) is geographically concentrated in just one region, and not evenly spread there either.

 

As a percent of the population of Lombardy the confirmed cases are something like 0.4% overall but much higher in some villages.  And of course same thing applies re not knowing true number infected.

 

I heard somewhere that antibody testing in Wuhan had started. If so results will be very, very helpful and could  significantly change the models for this disease.

 

There are also conflicting reports: https://www.theepochtimes.com/while-chinese-regime-claims-no-new-virus-infections-citizens-say-many-are-still-sick_3278515.html

 

Quote

But Chinese citizens describe a different reality.

In Wuhan, ground zero of the epidemic, residents witnessed long lines at hospitals while more facilities were reportedly being set up to accommodate ill patients.

 

I duly note epochtimes holds a grudge against CCP ( https://www.theepochtimes.com/about-us ), so beware of bias. As a disclaimer, so do I.

[charlie farnsbarns]

Susceptibility to viruses is Nature's way of keeping populations in check. Humans have clearly overstepped the mark and this is the price. Perhaps we should stop whining, let the virus do its job, and learn the lessons.

 

Actually, this mini-apocalypse actually gives me some hope there might be a restart along more sensible lines - a lifeline for humanity that no one had ever envisaged even a few months ago. If the virus is quashed too easily though it will only breed more human complacency and we will be back to the addiction for growth.

I say let it run, and if the reaper comes for me, well, I will hold out my hand.