Thais in Pattaya concerned by foreigners not wearing face masks

[jacko45k]

14 hours ago, Hans Rayong said:

"If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection."

So if I have not been tested, I should be wearing a mask? 

With potentially 14 days incubation before I know, is it not better to err on the side of caution? 

[Logosone]

6 hours ago, jacob29 said:

The infection counts in South Korea have been pretty stable for weeks now (~12% total growth in one week). In that same week period, deaths increased by > 50%. When someone is admitted critical in hospital/dies, that kicks off a new round of testing. So if their deaths increased by 50% from undiscovered cases, it's a certainty that new infections would spike with it. How could it not, these people got infected from somewhere, and will have infected others, and testing would reveal it (otherwise they would have a bunch of mystery cases with unknown origin, sharing no common cluster, which they don't). Also half of their cases are being imported from people returning home, so the growth rate for the week is closer to 6%. 

 

There is no way their 'true' case count is 20x what they've detected so far. As that would imply 100k+ cases in the wild, and that is going to show up as death counts when they pass it on to others. You seem to be assuming these mild/asymptomatic cases can't go on to infect others and result in serious cases/deaths. We know asymptomatic carriers spread it (from super spreaders). We know at least 25% of asymptomatic cases test will positive for the virus (from diamond princess). 100k asymptomatic cases would soon (in under a week) result in a new batch of 100k cases, of which many would progress to be serious/fatal. We're not seeing any sign of this happening.

Yes the increase in new cases has been less steep than before, but the curve is still going up.

 

You're right that given the testing in South Korea if someone dies AND IS IDENTIFIED as having Covid19 there would be further investigation and they might find further cases. I am not sure if such an investigation would be guaranteed to find all related cases, maybe only a small minority which are in the figures.

 

There could easily be a 20x true case figure and 100K cases in the wild. If you recall the study from Rambaut which proved that the virus is not man-made also looked at the origin. It found that the Bat version of Covid19 can not bind to human receptors, for that to happen a specifically adapted human receptor binding design was developed by the virus. This indicates that prior to the Wuhan market event the virus must have spread in humans undetected for a while until that mutation took place. Long enough for this adaptation to humans to take place. You will also recall that symptoms are very similar to pneumonia, so there is no guarantee that a case of death would automatically be tested and identified, it could slip through as another disease and surely has many times.

 

If we take the figures from the Iceland study about 50% of the infected show no symptoms at all.  Of course the asymptomatic people spread it. Your assumption that all of the asymptomatic cases would be identified by testing in South Korea, I think frankly overestimates the test/sleuth capacities in South Korea, excellent as they are. We also know that the mortality rate is very very small. Taking the 20 times multiple for German cases it could be as small as 0.04%. Now if a good portion of those deaths was due to pneumonia and not tested for Covid19, they could have slipped through the system quite easily.

 

 

 

 

 

[Logosone]

4 hours ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

When I travelled through Taiwan, I noticed that most Asian travellers and some

older senior aged non Asian travellers wore masks, while younger aged travellers

did not wear masks, and I even heard a few say, oh well if I get the virus, I will

be fine.  The me me generation for sure.  Unlike Germany, the location of Taiwan

as a transfer hub may have caused more cases, than what Germany got.  As well

Taiwan is a smaller sized island, with large population, and lots of tourists, at

least until they got restrictions. Maybe in a months time, we will see a different

set of numbers of cases and deaths, but for now many more people will die

around the world.  Looks like New York will have a lot more for sure.

Geezer

Beautiful island, Taiwan, isn't it? Love the place.

 

It should be noted that "in early February 2020, the Executive Yuan adopted the recommendations of professors Huang Li-min (黃立民) and Chang Shang-chwen (張上淳) of the National Taiwan University Medical School, advocating that healthy people do not need to wear masks in open spaces. On 8 February, Chen Shih-chung, commander of the Central Epidemic Prevention Center, further stated that there was no need to wear a mask on public transportation."

 

It is of course rather unlikely Taiwan has more cases than Germany as German's population is almost 4 times larger and the virus is spreading there. For now it is still true that even with over 100 deaths as a mortality rate Germany has a lower mortality rate than Taiwan but we will have to see if that continues.

 

The low current number of cases in Taiwan is more likely due to them not testing in sufficient numbers. The real number would be far higher. So Taiwan probably has a lower mortality rate.

[manhood]

In Thailand the health ministry supposed wearing a mask help to avoid getting infected and that was totally wrong. So foreigners know that and not wearing a mask. NOW we are in another situation as wearing a mask can protect others as mobody knows if he is infected and so easy to wear it. Sure it makes not much sense to wear it if you walk along an nearly empty beach!

[jacob29]

1 hour ago, Logosone said:

You're right that given the testing in South Korea if someone dies AND IS IDENTIFIED as having Covid19 there would be further investigation and they might find further cases. I am not sure if such an investigation would be guaranteed to find all related cases, maybe only a small minority which are in the figures.

You're telling me out of 100k new cases (for those they went on to infect), none of them managed to detect the source cluster? That's not realistic. It would mean contact tracing is completely pointless, if it can't detect a cluster/origin responsible for 100k infections. You talk as if 100k infections would result in a handful of severe cases/deaths, when it would be hundreds even with the most optimistic projections.

 

As for a 0.04% death rate, 0.018% of Italy's population has officially died, and they're nowhere near peak deaths. The actual number, is quite possibly double or triple that. There's just no way. Princess cruise results alone tell us this is impossible.

 

Four members of a single family dead. The odds against that happening for a 0.04% death rate virus are simply staggering.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/new-jersey-coronavirus-family-members-killed/index.html

[Logosone]

15 minutes ago, jacob29 said:

You're telling me out of 100k new cases (for those they went on to infect), none of them managed to detect the source cluster? That's not realistic. It would mean contact tracing is completely pointless, if it can't detect a cluster/origin responsible for 100k infections. You talk as if 100k infections would result in a handful of severe cases/deaths, when it would be hundreds even with the most optimistic projections.

 

As for a 0.04% death rate, 0.018% of Italy's population has officially died, and they're nowhere near peak deaths. The actual number, is quite possibly double or triple that. There's just no way. Princess cruise results alone tell us this is impossible.

 

Four members of a single family dead. The odds against that happening for a 0.04% death rate virus are simply staggering.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/new-jersey-coronavirus-family-members-killed/index.html

They did find some clusters in South Korea. Given that the Chief Medical Adviser in the UK has said that the real figure is ten or twenty times higher than the identified case number, assuming the 100,000 figure it would indeed be likely that they find some clusters. And they have, well done South Korea. But why would you assume they find all? Since 50% of carriers are asymptomatic, and the virus is literally transmitted by droplets in the air and invisible virus traces on materials, how could they possibly find all clusters? I don't think that's a realistic expectation. 

 

Most likely patient zero is not known in South Korea, and in all other countries, and the virus was spreading long before the  first patient was identified.

 

Take Germany, say 620000 cases, using the Vallance ten times multiplier and 541 deaths, that is a really low number. Of course the number gets smaller for deaths as the population goes down, Taiwan with 20 million plus only has 3 deaths (still higher mortality rate than Germany). South Korea also has a lower population than Germany so there would also be less deaths. There are not a lot of deaths relative to the number of infected. Anecdotal evidence of a whole family dying is of course just an exception and does not invalidate actual figures.

 

Also don't forget that people can die of Covid19 without them being diagnosed as Covid19. Because it looks like another disease. There must have been many cases of these misdiagnoses. Does South Korea test every person that dies for Covid19, I doubt it. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Logosone

[Rimmer]

A post has been removed:

 

14) You will not post any copyrighted material except as fair use laws apply (as in the case of news articles). Please only post a link, the headline and the first three sentences.

[KC 71]

5 hours ago, RJRS1301 said:

Although no studies have directly evaluated the biophysics of droplets and gas cloud formation for patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, several properties of the exhaled gas cloud and respiratory transmission may apply to this pathogen.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852

 

Please read the study as well as the newspaper report, 

 

Interesting

[jacob29]

2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

But why would you assume they find all? Since 50% of carriers are asymptomatic, and the virus is literally transmitted by droplets in the air and invisible virus traces on materials, how could they possibly find all clusters? I don't think that's a realistic expectation. 

We're speculating there's 100k in this category. That's 50% symptomatic. Do you seriously think that goes unnoticed in the current climate?

 

I just gave you actual figures that Italy is set to surpass 0.04% mortality rate, for the *entire country*. The death count is still climbing at a rapid clip. The four members of a family dying is something like a one in a trillion event. You can't brush that off as an outlier, it simply doesn't happen at a mortality rate of 0.04%.

[luckyluke]

14 hours ago, Yinn said:

I will be so lonely on TVF soon

You are already.

It would be nice to read the opinions of other Thais,

not only yours.

In the meantime feel free to continue to express your opinions.

Up to each of us in particular to assess the true value of them.

[Logosone]

40 minutes ago, jacob29 said:

We're speculating there's 100k in this category. That's 50% symptomatic. Do you seriously think that goes unnoticed in the current climate?

 

I just gave you actual figures that Italy is set to surpass 0.04% mortality rate, for the *entire country*. The death count is still climbing at a rapid clip. The four members of a family dying is something like a one in a trillion event. You can't brush that off as an outlier, it simply doesn't happen at a mortality rate of 0.04%.

Well, firstly of course a very large proportion of people who suspect they may have Covid19 because they know they have symptoms, will not come forward to be tested. This is because they may fear to be ostracised, or even forcibly put into quarantine, or just fear to go to a hospital in the current conditions. 

 

If those symptomatic carriers are forced to self-isolate at home, how could they possibly be identified? If they are not diagnosed with Covid19 and die, it is conceivable they are registered as pneumonia or other deaths unrelated to Covid19.

 

This Iceland study has shown  "that coronavirus is spread more through people with the virus who show no sign of being sick". But it also shows that very few of the population are infected. That could support your view of low numbers of infected, or it could just be due to Iceland's geographic position as an island with few Chinese, but it's worth considering.

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/03/25/Coronavirus-Iceland-s-mass-testing-finds-half-of-carriers-show-no-symptoms

 

Again that four members of a family died is an usual event and exception. I see the whole family did not die, still very unusual. But even less likely things have happened. Again, it does not invalidate sound numbers.

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Logosone

[jacob29]

1 minute ago, Logosone said:

If those symptomatic carriers are forced to self-isolate at home, how could they possibly be identified? If they are not diagnosed with Covid19 and die, it is conceivable they are registered as pneumonia or other deaths unrelated to Covid19.

Do you really think authorities are letting people self isolate in Korea, without testing their contacts? It's not the US.

 

You have not given me any sound numbers, only speculation that there might be a high number of carriers that have thus far evaded detection. Iceland has 200 infected cases, that tells us very little, it's too small a sample size. You certainly can't draw any conclusions on mortality rate from a sample size of 200. Italy has tested whole towns, 3% infection rate. You have provided no statistical evidence to support your position. Merely offered it as a possibility, and rejected evidence to the contrary as outliers.

 

 

[Logosone]

46 minutes ago, jacob29 said:

Do you really think authorities are letting people self isolate in Korea, without testing their contacts? It's not the US.

 

You have not given me any sound numbers, only speculation that there might be a high number of carriers that have thus far evaded detection. Iceland has 200 infected cases, that tells us very little, it's too small a sample size. You certainly can't draw any conclusions on mortality rate from a sample size of 200. Italy has tested whole towns, 3% infection rate. You have provided no statistical evidence to support your position. Merely offered it as a possibility, and rejected evidence to the contrary as outliers.

 

 

They have no choice. How would the authorities know? They only test where there is evidence of contact with Covid19. They're not testing the entire population, are they, like Iceland?

 

Iceland has tested 10,000, not 200. The sample size is not 200. I'm not drawing  a conclusion on a sample size of 200. I'm drawing a conclusion on mortality rate based on a ten or ten times multiple suggested by the UK chief medical adviser. 

 

If you think that is not sound, I wonder what you think is sound numbers.

 

A newspaper report of 4 people affected in a family is anecdotal evidence. As is clear most of that family was old. It does not affect the statistics in any way.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Logosone

[RJRS1301]

24 minutes ago, Logosone said:

They have no choice. How would the authorities know? They only test where there is evidence of contact with Covid19. They're not testing the entire population, are they, like Iceland?

 

Iceland has tested 10,000, not 200. The sample size is not 200. I'm not drawing  a conclusion on a sample size of 200. I'm drawing a conclusion on mortality rate based on a ten or ten times multiple suggested by the UK chief medical adviser. 

 

If you think that is not sound, I wonder what you think is sound numbers.

 

A newspaper report of 4 people affected in a family is anecdotal evidence. As is clear most of that family was old. It does not affect the statistics in any way.

It would be good to know the comorbidities of those who have died, but that can only be done with file audits, when matters slow down.

I would imagine not only age, but other factors including socioeconomic, immune responses  etc

 

[Hanuman2547]

In the USA you do not see people wearing the mask when they go out.  Not one expert speaking about the virus has stated that wearing a mask would prevent the spread of Covid-19.  Even in heavily hit places like Seattle, where it first started in the USA and has a higher number of positive cases and deaths than the entire country of Thailand, has anyone come out said that wearing masks would prevent the spread of the virus.  

[transam]

1 hour ago, luckyluke said:

You are already.

It would be nice to read the opinions of other Thais,

not only yours.

In the meantime feel free to continue to express your opinions.

Up to each of us in particular to assess the true value of them.

Good post....????

[sandrabbit]

I read the first page and then jumped to end so please don't flame me if I've repeated anything. I live in Rayong and I would estimate that about 60 to 70% of Thais are not wearing a face mask and the ordinary Thais in the street don't seem bothered about it including the neighbors in my street none of whom I've seen wear a mask. Even Makro with the notice on the door allowed people to shop last Friday without a mask. Possibly it will change now because the police clamped down over the weekend due to flaunting of the self isolation rules.

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, Hanuman2547 said:

In the USA you do not see people wearing the mask when they go out.  Not one expert speaking about the virus has stated that wearing a mask would prevent the spread of Covid-19.  Even in heavily hit places like Seattle, where it first started in the USA and has a higher number of positive cases and deaths than the entire country of Thailand, has anyone come out said that wearing masks would prevent the spread of the virus.  

Yeah but that message may be starting to be met with some resistance.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/experts-question-advice-against-face-mask-use-coronavirus.html
 

Quote

 

Experts Increasingly Question Advice Against Widespread Use of Face Masks

 

Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the message from Western public health authorities has been pretty uniform in stating that the public at large shouldn’t be wearing face masks to protect against COVID-19. Surgeon General Jerome Adams even sent an all-caps message to all Americans in late February imploring them to “STOP BUYING MASKS!” because they are “NOT effective” for the general public. Experts, however, aren’t so sure that’s the case, particularly considering that health authorities in some Asian countries have been calling on everyone to wear face masks to prevent the virus from spreading.

 

So where can I reliably buy masks? Where I bought before Lazada has none.

 

[MrMuddle]

In my village there is only me and my wife who have been wearing masks for the past few weeks. There is no such thing as social distancing, and life goes on as before. A time bomb waiting to happen, unfortunately.

People seem to be under the impression that if they passed the temperature check at Makro, three weeks ago, then they don't have the virus!  Really!!

[scubascuba3]

I've given in and now will wear masks going forward, I've noticed Thais in Pattaya becoming much more nervous with farang not wearing masks, i see it on facebook and i see it when they double take if I don't wear one. Very hot using one for exercise

[david555]

26 minutes ago, MrMuddle said:

In my village there is only me and my wife who have been wearing masks for the past few weeks. There is no such thing as social distancing, and life goes on as before. A time bomb waiting to happen, unfortunately.

People seem to be under the impression that if they passed the temperature check at Makro, three weeks ago, then they don't have the virus!  Really!!

More..... as you and wife wearing them, nobody else in village...… they sure think now  you must   be infected  …. as be a farang and using mask …..????   55555

Edited March 30, 2020 by david555

[david555]

8 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

I've given in and now will wear masks going forward, I've noticed Thais in Pattaya becoming much more nervous with farang not wearing masks, i see it on facebook and i see it when they double take if I don't wear one. Very hot using one for exercise

Welcome to " the saving face mask" only  club ????

[jacob29]

5 hours ago, Logosone said:

They have no choice. How would the authorities know? They only test where there is evidence of contact with Covid19. They're not testing the entire population, are they, like Iceland?

 

Iceland has tested 10,000, not 200. The sample size is not 200. I'm not drawing  a conclusion on a sample size of 200. I'm drawing a conclusion on mortality rate based on a ten or ten times multiple suggested by the UK chief medical adviser. 

 

If you think that is not sound, I wonder what you think is sound numbers.

 

A newspaper report of 4 people affected in a family is anecdotal evidence. As is clear most of that family was old. It does not affect the statistics in any way.

Now Korean's are going to hide out at home and risk death. For what? So they can be discovered and publicly humiliated by authorities for not disclosing their condition? You're stretching the bounds of believable here.

 

Iceland has 200 confirmed cases. You can't work out a reliable mortality rate from such a low infection count.

 

Also the family was not anecdotal, it happened. Only one was old, the others were 50's and one younger still I believe. Why do you reject this as an outlier, but won't do the same for Iceland. Never mind that Iceland isn't even an outlier, as assuming a 99% survival rate, you would expect all 200 people to survive about 13% of the time, which is nothing remarkable.

[Rimmer]

An inflammatory/derogatory post has been removed

[HHTel]

Watched last night's press conference from the WHO. Social distancing by the panel and reporters on a link.
One of the questions inevitably was the use of masks. They doubled down on the general public not to wear masks. They refused to criticise countries that are promoting the use of masks.

"There is absolutely no evidence that the wearing of masks can protect the wearer.(unless you're in the front line and exposed to the virus constantly). Quite the opposite. There is strong evidence that wearing a mask can increase the spread of the virus. There is a benefit psychologically and socially but that's the only benefit. A mask will protect others from an infected person"

 

 

 

[Con Peoples Fund]

On 3/29/2020 at 11:40 AM, edwinchester said:

Been out trying to buy a mask that will help stop a virus with no luck. Only ones available are the near useless paper like or homemade cloth ones.

Sadly this is the reality for most of us. Couldnt find ot afford any proper mask so make do with homemade ones which is basically useless but it gets us into places and also to avoid all the death stare from others with proper mask.

[RBOP]

On 3/29/2020 at 12:43 PM, JHolmesJr said:

want me to wear a mask?

make them available at pre-wuhan virus prices.

Im not paying $40 for 50 masks that only last a few hours.

You can stand in the long queues (100s) at Villa and other stores that sell masks at government regulated prices. But start lining up an hour early as sales are limited to a few thousand a day. 

[Matzzon]

On 3/29/2020 at 6:47 PM, smedly said:

were they at a market ?

 

Chances are - hospital waste 

 

They only sell to falang 

 

up to you

No they not only sell to farang.

They are directly from the main importer.