Infections will skyrocket without social distancing, says official

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Infections will skyrocket without social distancing, says official

By The Nation

 

Anupong Sujariyakul

 

If the public were to ignore pleas to maintain safe social distancing, Thailand could have more than 25,000 people infected with the Covid-19 virus by mid-April, a Health Ministry official has warned.

 

Anupong Sujariyakul of the Disease Control Department said on Friday (March 27) that social distancing is crucial in reducing contagion.

 

He’s calculated that, if 80 per cent of residents make sure they strictly limit their contact with others and stay at least a metre away from the next person, 7,745 people would be infected by April 15, up from the current 1,136.

 

If 50 per cent of people take the recommended precautions, there would be 17,635 infections.

 

And if most people ignore the advice, there would be 25,225.

 

“It’s important to understand that a low rate of infection enables medical personnel to control the disease, but if the figure were to rise sharply, they could no longer do that,” Anupong said.

 

“At least 90 per cent of Thai people should adhere to social distancing so that we have enough hospital beds for the people most at risk of severe infection and death from the virus, such as those over 70 years old, people with congenital diseases, and children, who have low immunity to the virus.”

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30384932

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-03-27

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[Phuketshrew]

Many people just not grasping the seriousness of the situation. Just watching Sky News - In the UK police are stopping cars and getting close to unwound windows - no masks or protective gear. Hundred's of people on the streets applauding the nurses (which is commendable) but not many masks and very little social distancing. Unbelievable.

[4MyEgo]

They younger groups of Thai's don't seem to give a rats a$$ as we see groups of 20 or so drinking away, sad really, what happens when they go home and infect good old mum and dad or their grandparents and they pass away, hope it was all worth it then.

[Ian Nagle]

2 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

They younger groups of Thai's don't seem to give a rats a$$ as we see groups of 20 or so drinking away, sad really, what happens when they go home and infect good old mum and dad or their grandparents and they pass away, hope it was all worth it then.

Any age group can die. Age is no barrier but statistically the elderly and sick at higher risk.

[colinneil]

Social distancing, ha ha ha, thats a joke, all the usual village gossips  congregating next door for their daily session.

The only people practicing distancing is me and the misses, everyone else here business as usual.

Two women outside our gate this morning giving my wife grief about being married to the crazy hiding away farang.

[Logosone]

Too late.

 

The virus has long spread in large numbers in Thailand.

 

Social distancing will achieve nothing, except possibly, if done perfectly effect a very small slowing in transmission. That is all.

 

But any fantasy of containing the virus by lockdowns, travel restrictions, curfews and "social distancing" are just pure illusory beliefs. There is absolutely no hard data that shows social distancing can do anything else but achieve very small delays.

 

This study shows the whole isolation of Wuhan only bought the rest of China 3 days:

 

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/25/science.abb4218

[DrTuner]

Get this man to replace Anutin, ASAP.

 

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

[Tayaout]

In my village everyone were saying it won't come here. Now they all started wearing mask. They still don't wash their hands and still share spoons and the cup of water but at least they are conscious something bad is happening. My wife also told me that there is a lady that is supposed to self-quarantine that doesn't.

[DrTuner]

2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Too late.

 

The virus has long spread in large numbers in Thailand.

The sticks might still be salvageable. And given there are a lot of Yais there, well worth the effort. BKK is toast by now.

[4MyEgo]

9 minutes ago, colinneil said:

Social distancing, ha ha ha, thats a joke, all the usual village gossips  congregating next door for their daily session.

The only people practicing distancing is me and the misses, everyone else here business as usual.

Two women outside our gate this morning giving my wife grief about being married to the crazy hiding away farang.

We are fortunate to live in a village where everyone is doing the right thing, and my wife doesn't let anyone in, suffice to say when the electricity bill arrived by the guy on the bike at 9am yesterday, we were sitting on the porch having a coffee and as he got off his bike to go and put it in the mailbox, my wife jumped up and I said steady on girl, never rush to get bill, let alone for a younger man.......

[ParkerN]

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Posted 46 minutes ago

Infections will skyrocket without social distancing, says official

 

Bad news. Infections are going to skyrocket anyway.

 

If resolving the Covid-19 pandemic relies upon these numpties getting it right, then we're all snookered.

 

End of really. Call me a cynic but I don't have much faith in the usefulness of Thais. I'm sure there are some but I don't know what they might be.

[ParkerN]

1 hour ago, 4MyEgo said:

Two women outside our gate this morning giving my wife grief about being married to the crazy hiding away farang.

Water off a duck's back as far as I'm concerned.

 

If they were smarter than my gate or a handful of gravel, then I'd be a bit more concerned about that they think. As it is, they're people and they're free to think whatever they like, and good luck to them.

 

 

[Ian Nagle]

16 minutes ago, colinneil said:

Social distancing, ha ha ha, thats a joke, all the usual village gossips  congregating next door for their daily session.

The only people practicing distancing is me and the misses, everyone else here business as usual.

Two women outside our gate this morning giving my wife grief about being married to the crazy hiding away farang.

The "Mai phen rai" way of life has well and truly met its match.

[Chazar]

33 minutes ago, Phuketshrew said:

but not many masks

not  necessary

[NCC1701A]

what state of emergency?

 

having just done a 13 kilometer round trip from by house to Big C in Hua Hin and back I was shocked to see how normal everything was. 

 

as I left my hood the traffic which has been greatly reduced slowly increased as I headed to the more "no nonsense" part of town. 

 

the big differences in town is greatly reduced traffic, bars closed, massage closed, restaurants switched to take out, malls closed. But that was it, very business was open all the way across town. Maybe salon were closed. But not laundry.  

 

Building supply stores were selling concrete bricks and groups of Thai men were loading them on a pickup truck. I saw farang buying blue PVC pipe. Scooter sales and repair, cellphone shops, everything was open and people were everywhere.   

 

At least the Thais are wearing masks now in much larger numbers, I would say 80%. Still farangs in Big C no mask. All older white males seem to be this demographic.  

 

I never saw one policeman anywhere on my route.

 

 

 

[fforest1]

[Logosone]

29 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

The sticks might still be salvageable. And given there are a lot of Yais there, well worth the effort. BKK is toast by now.

 

It took just one Chinese guy to infect 150 plus countries.

 

What chance does does the Thai countryside have, the pool of women who service bars for Chinese, SKoreans, Japanese, Australians, Americans, Europeans....they are all returning from Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket.

 

This strategy can work somewhat at the beginning of a pandemic, but this has been going on for too long and Thailand is already infected.

 

[totally thaied up]

21 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

what state of emergency?

In my house, we have all locked down but the world goes on by us and I wonder what the <deleted> I am doing locked up when I see most my neighborhood up and about. 

 

What social distancing? Nah, not happening in my part of the world. Put my faith in that people might think right but in this case I am sadly mistaken. I could go on an say a lot more but I am just wasting my breath.

[DrTuner]

1 minute ago, Logosone said:

This strategy can work somewhat at the beginning of a pandemic, but this has been going on for too long and Thailand is already infected.

That's what I'd guess as well, but some part is optimistic (very uncharacteristic of me) and thinks there might still be a chance. The economic costs for social distancing in the sticks are lower so that should not be the main hurdle.

 

There's also history teaching us a thing or two..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/

Quote

Quarantine and other public health practices are effective and valuable ways to control communicable disease outbreaks and public anxiety, but these strategies have always been much debated, perceived as intrusive, and accompanied in every age and under all political regimes by an undercurrent of suspicion, distrust, and riots. These strategic measures have raised (and continue to raise) a variety of political, economic, social, and ethical issues.

 

Politicians and hoi polloi vs effective measures. Thailand has already <deleted> it's pants. The most stupid thing is if this had been handled immediately, like Singapore or Korea, no hard handed measures would have been needed at all.

 

 

[DrTuner]

2 minutes ago, totally thaied up said:

In my house, we have all locked down but the world goes on by us and I wonder what the <deleted> I am doing locked up when I see most my neighborhood up and about. 

It's tempting isn't it? Come to the dark side and all. Helps to imagine they have a Sims style infected diamond hovering above their heads. All it takes is one cough. If you're comfy at home, just keep looking out of the window for a few weeks.

[apophyss]

Social distancing ?

Same at immigration (we all see the picture) ?

 

[NCC1701A]

8 minutes ago, totally thaied up said:

In my house, we have all locked down but the world goes on by us and I wonder what the <deleted> I am doing locked up when I see most my neighborhood up and about. 

 

What social distancing? Nah, not happening in my part of the world. Put my faith in that people might think right but in this case I am sadly mistaken. I could go on an say a lot more but I am just wasting my breath.

yes quite shocked to see so much activity today.

i would say any program put into place will fail now.

maybe a shoot on sight order might work.

 

[Logosone]

5 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

That's what I'd guess as well, but some part is optimistic (very uncharacteristic of me) and thinks there might still be a chance. The economic costs for social distancing in the sticks are lower so that should not be the main hurdle.

 

There's also history teaching us a thing or two..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/

 

Politicians and hoi polloi vs effective measures. Thailand has already <deleted> it's pants. The most stupid thing is if this had been handled immediately, like Singapore or Korea, no hard handed measures would have been needed at all.

 

 

Would be nice. We won't even be able to tell of course, because as we saw from your excellent Iceland link only 50% of Covid19 infected have any symptoms at all. So they're indistinguishable from non-infected. And the Thai government will never test the whole population like Iceland. We'll never know.

 

Because 50% show no symptoms that's a huge contingent that can go around infecting people without anyone suspecting a thing. I think this is why the transmission of Covid19 is so fast.

 

Quarantines only work at the very beginning, when there's no or hardly any infected. Given the time now, with so many infected in Thailand quarantining Thailand may protect its neighbours, but I'd be surprised if the numbers don't go up substantially way beyond the figures in the OPs article.  Like I said, we'll never know, because full testing will never be done.

[BobbyL]

There isn't any real social distancing going on in central Bangkok apart from the fact that some places are closed. I am working from home but popped out earlier to 7/11 etc. Street sellers everywhere, people queuing to buy food and drinks etc and quite a few people not wearing masks. Without real enforcement this won't change. 

[totally thaied up]

5 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

It's tempting isn't it?

I understand how serious this is. If this goes exponential, nothing is going to stop it. I will stay at home, keep mine and my families health first above anything else. This morning I sat out the front of my house and had a coffee. I watched all the cars go past my place as I am on a main road. Seeing workers herded into cars to go to work (in back of trucks) as per normal. I have thousands of cars go past my place every day and nothing has changed. Yes, I do understand that just about everyone of these people must work or they won't have food on the table but something just isn't right if this is what we call a state of emergency. 

[Chazar]

56 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

I never saw one policeman anywhere on my route

Fear  not on the 250km drive from BKK to Pranburi turning off at the Cha Am turning and going thru HUA  HIN wife  reports  not  one single checkpoint  all the way yesterday from  5pm to 8pm on arrival

[Chazar]

14 minutes ago, totally thaied up said:

if this is what we call a state of emergency. 

because its NOT.............lip service  Thailand Number 1 yayyyyyy

[simon43]

Here in Luang Prabang (north Laos), there has only been 1 person identified as having the virus.  But everyone (except the few remaining foreign tourists) seems to be taking the risk seriously.  All shops are ordered closed, except for banks, pharmacies and the one supermarket.  Everyone must wear a mask and use hand-sanitizer at the entrance of the shop, and have their temperature measured.  All shop staff wear mask, eye glasses and gloves. The pharmacy is shrouded by plastic sheeting, with a small hole to buy your medicines.  Red lines have been drawn at shop entrances and check-outs to indicate the distance to keep apart.

[Andartecca]

I think hot weather can protect thailand

[madmitch]

This is the same man that just yesterday stated he expected 3,000 cases by the end of April.

 

He must have been reading the comments on Thaivisa and perhaps used someone with slightly more than a primary school mathematical ability to revamp the figures.