15 new Covid-19 cases close to Thursday's lowest number in a month

[DrTuner]

4 hours ago, Guderian said:

And that brings me back to yesterday's moan, that there's no proactive testing of groups of underprivileged people living in cramped and crowded conditions, such as poor Thai people and immigrant workers. Buddha forbid, but refusing to find out what might be circulating in these populations is just inviting a second wave. Singapore admits that it made this mistake, it wouldn't take that much money or effort for the Thai government to try and avoid it. If a second wave does happen here, we're all going to be very sorry about it.

 

(Actually, maybe that should be a third wave rather than a second one, as it seems Thailand has already had two waves!)

I'm not too worried about those. They've very likely already had it, asymptomatic. It's when the borders are opened and possible new strains come in that we should get worried.

 

https://nextstrain.org/ncov

 

Write "Nonth" in the strain search field to get the one that was sequenced in Thailand. They did sequence more, but haven't uploaded to GISAID, however did claim ( a thread here on TVF ) it hasn't come back from Italy/US/etc to Thailand. The one they sequenced was an early strain from Wuhan and I suspect it's gone through a large part of the population since 8th of January when they were sequenced.

 

You'll also notice it's root path is different from the one that went to Europe/US. It split from the one sequenced on 8th of December 2019.

Edited April 24, 2020 by DrTuner

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, cyril sneer said:

Tomorrow- 11

Sun- 8

Mon- 6

Tues- 5

Wed- 3

Thu- 1

 

 

I don't think so, on Thursday it has to be 0 so they can pat themselves on the back, open the country with great fanfare on 1st of May and give themselves healthy bonuses.

[Yankeesvsredsox]

2 hours ago, smedly said:

They either don't want to know the results or don't want to pay for mass testing - either way the result is the same - they have no idea of disease spread or mortality rates in Thailand because it cost too much money to know such things - be very careful folks that live here - just because they ease lockdowns and produce these figures doesn't mean diddly squat  

The over 60 crowd has to be especially cautious 

[sandyf]

2 hours ago, smedly said:

They either don't want to know the results or don't want to pay for mass testing - either way the result is the same - they have no idea of disease spread or mortality rates in Thailand because it cost too much money to know such things - be very careful folks that live here - just because they ease lockdowns and produce these figures doesn't mean diddly squat  

What you want to know is quite irrelevant. What is important is reality and I saw that this morning in the hospital.

No ambulances queuing up, no families crying their eyes out, no dead bodies being taken away, no staff running around like headless chickens in PPE.

The staff were going about their work in an organised and constructive manner, patient seating arrangements had been altered in line with the emergency measures, screening was in place at all entrances, the canteen was operating as normal with people keeping their distance.

People want to know the reality of a situation not delusional ramblings.

[SantiSuk]

Might as well retitle these daily report threads 'Dr Tuner sounds off Again'

[DrTuner]

26 minutes ago, SantiSuk said:

Might as well retitle these daily report threads 'Dr Tuner sounds off Again'

I'd be happy if they'd stop the daily propaganda and there was a single thread. Would save me the trouble of the daily reply.

[Tondidi]

3 hours ago, garygooner said:

Cambodia & Myanmar about 5000 tests & 200 cases. 

Vietnam about 200,000 tests & only about 200 cases. 

Sure, it's good to test many, but..... 

So why are they considered of being high risk countries???

[Krataiboy]

5 hours ago, Guderian said:

The Pattaya News says this (I'm not sure if we're allowed to link to the article so I won't, it's easy to find if you want to read it yourself):

 

"Of the new cases, the majority were very close contacts, such as live in family members, of previous confirmed cases."

 

And that brings me back to yesterday's moan, that there's no proactive testing of groups of underprivileged people living in cramped and crowded conditions, such as poor Thai people and immigrant workers. Buddha forbid, but refusing to find out what might be circulating in these populations is just inviting a second wave. Singapore admits that it made this mistake, it wouldn't take that much money or effort for the Thai government to try and avoid it. If a second wave does happen here, we're all going to be very sorry about it.

 

(Actually, maybe that should be a third wave rather than a second one, as it seems Thailand has already had two waves!)

 

It won't be over until most of us have acquired immunity. And there's only one way Nature knows how to do that. . . 

 

 

[RayongBudgie]

39 minutes ago, sandyf said:

What you want to know is quite irrelevant. What is important is reality and I saw that this morning in the hospital.

No ambulances queuing up, no families crying their eyes out, no dead bodies being taken away, no staff running around like headless chickens in PPE.

The staff were going about their work in an organised and constructive manner, patient seating arrangements had been altered in line with the emergency measures, screening was in place at all entrances, the canteen was operating as normal with people keeping their distance.

People want to know the reality of a situation not delusional ramblings.

Exactly. The best evidence is the tangible evidence you can see. No Temples around my area working overtime on funerals. No Thai grapevine gossip that so and so has it. Still stick by heat and sunshine slows the spread myself. May not be true but certainly makes me feel better. Rainy season is nearly amongst us though so maybe things will change.

[JCP108]

13 minutes ago, Tondidi said:

So why are they considered of being high risk countries???

Not a bad question. One answer that has been put forth is that they are not China. Step Two: Open up Thailand for tourists from non-high risk countries.

Edited April 24, 2020 by JCP108

[DrTuner]

7 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

Step Two: Open up Thailand for tourists from non-high risk countries.

If the "non-high risk" is based solely on numbers of positive test results, not counting the testing coverage, that could backfire spectacularly.

[JCP108]

18 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

If the "non-high risk" is based solely on numbers of positive test results, not counting the testing coverage, that could backfire spectacularly.

But, isn't that the strategy in place here?

[DrTuner]

Just now, JCP108 said:

But, isn't that the strategy in place here?

No idea. MoPH has access to more info and is very likely using it to do strategies. The window dressing we see is a smoke screen. Follow the actual actions and we might gain some insight into what they got.

[FarFlungFalang]

30 minutes ago, RayongBudgie said:

Exactly. The best evidence is the tangible evidence you can see. No Temples around my area working overtime on funerals. No Thai grapevine gossip that so and so has it. Still stick by heat and sunshine slows the spread myself. May not be true but certainly makes me feel better. Rainy season is nearly amongst us though so maybe things will change.

There are 20,000 plus temples in Thailand it would only take one cremation at each temple over the span of the outbreak to deal with 20,000 deaths,do you think your going to notice any increase?Can you come up with a better argument than that?

[JCP108]

7 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

There are 20,000 plus temples in Thailand it would only take one cremation at each temple over the span of the outbreak to deal with 20,000 deaths,do you think your going to notice any increase?Can you come up with a better argument than that?

Might as well give up. I have tried to explain this. But, a lot of people see the number 20,000 and it's such a big and scary number (when thinking of, say, that many extra dead people and maybe you being next)...so, they just imagine that all of those people would load up in one spot, pop up real big, then a bunch of Thai people nearby would jump on FB and alert us. I've tried to disabuse people of that with zero success so far. 

[lkv]

1 hour ago, sandyf said:

What is important is reality and I saw that this morning in the hospital.

When is the last time you have seen hospital staff circulating on hallways with dead bodies before covid-19? 

 

Never, I would have thought so. You can assume they move bodies in a discreet way, not parading them in front of hospital visitors.

Edited April 24, 2020 by lkv

[DrTuner]

A surprising blast of honesty:

 

 

Quote

However, in reality, only 2,000 tests are conducted across the nation due to a lack of test materials.

 

The UNICEF thread mentioned max capability at BIDI for 1440/d. So, finally, that sounds legit. It still doesn't say what the max throughput at the reference labs is, but it's lower than that. Two reference labs must confirm for it to sho up in these daily threads.

[NoshowJones]

6 hours ago, topt said:

yeah....Hannnibal Smith (the boss) played by George Peppard in the original TV series.

 

That was meant to be a comedy as well.........

The stupidest show ever, all action, shooting, bombing, and no blood, sorry for going off topic.

[JCP108]

17 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

A surprising blast of honesty:

 

 

 

The UNICEF thread mentioned max capability at BIDI for 1440/d. So, finally, that sounds legit. It still doesn't say what the max throughput at the reference labs is, but it's lower than that. Two reference labs must confirm for it to sho up in these daily threads.

Hopefully we will get more information to make sense of this.

 

So that I understand correctly...if a person goes to a random hospital in Thailand and gets a test and it's positive, then is there a protocol for sending the lab first to official reference lab #1 and then to reference lab #2 to make it possible for it to get counted? Clearly a lot of tests are being performed which aren't going to both reference labs. What's that protocol to capture a sample into the process that would include the two official labs?

[DrTuner]

4 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

So that I understand correctly...if a person goes to a random hospital in Thailand and gets a test and it's positive, then is there a protocol for sending the lab first to official reference lab #1 and then to reference lab #2 to make it possible for it to get counted? Clearly a lot of tests are being performed which aren't going to both reference labs. What's that protocol to capture a sample into the process that would include the two official labs?

This might be bit out of date now, but here's the process: https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/file/guidelines/g_cpc.pdf

 

It does not state exactly when would two samples be taken and sent to two reference labs. 

 

If you're feeling up to it, trawling through these might get the answer: https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/guidelines.php

 

There's also always been the assumption that "reference lab" means the two WHO certified reference labs:

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-reference-laboratories-providing-confirmatory-testing-for-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=a03a01e6_8

 

Unknown if MoPH has expanded on that, but in the light of the shortage on RT-PCR materials causing the 2k/d bottleneck, it's very likely the labs that do have materials are those WHO certified labs.

Edited April 24, 2020 by DrTuner

[metisdead]

A post containing a graph that was copy and pasted from another site has been removed.  Please provide a valid link to the source of information when posting. 

[FarFlungFalang]

45 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

Might as well give up. I have tried to explain this. But, a lot of people see the number 20,000 and it's such a big and scary number (when thinking of, say, that many extra dead people and maybe you being next)...so, they just imagine that all of those people would load up in one spot, pop up real big, then a bunch of Thai people nearby would jump on FB and alert us. I've tried to disabuse people of that with zero success so far. 

Like the frog choking the pelican that's trying to swallow it I'll never give up!

[DrTuner]

1 minute ago, FarFlungFalang said:

Like the frog choking the pelican that's trying to swallow it I'll never give up!

Let's hope the government never does get straight with us, or we'll have a boring time in isolation with nothing to do ????

[jimn]

A look forward to the future after a vaccine is developed and a TV thread.

 

TV Poster 1 - They should apologise for not finding it sooner.

TV Poster 2 - It contains 5g virus

TV Poster 3 - Why didnt the UK join the EU vacination scheme.

TV Poster 4 - They said creating a vaccine was difficult they have been lying about it.

TV Poster 5 - Vaccines are racist

 

Do you get my point. I am so p**sed off with people on here always seeing the negative side.

[jimn]

7 hours ago, offset said:

I am still waiting to see the party goer from Chaiyaphum to be added to the death numbers and added to the provinces numbers to me it shows that not all numbers are correct

Maybe he has been Offset against someone else?

[Purdey]

Not sure if anyone else has pointed this out, but we hear the confirmed cases are for instance 2,854 and 15 confirmed cases a day. But no one mentions the Patients Under Investigation (PUI). These are the unconfirmed infections that "might" later be confirmed. This number stands at 47,961 with 200 to 300 added per day. Testing is falling behind.

[jimn]

4 hours ago, DrTuner said:

How's the NIH reference lab chugging along? Up to until 4th of April they seem to have done about 2500 RT-PCR tests:

 

 

And no idea how many the other WHO reference lab at Army had done.

 

You need two positives from two reference labs to end up as a confirmed case in these TVF threads. All others with only one reference lab result, "Probable". Private test only and positive? Not counted.

You are so negative about anything good about the virus, what is wrong with you? Are you like it all the time? I dont want to be rude but try and lighten up and see the positives in what the government are trying to achieve in a difficult situation.

[FarFlungFalang]

18 minutes ago, Purdey said:

Not sure if anyone else has pointed this out, but we hear the confirmed cases are for instance 2,854 and 15 confirmed cases a day. But no one mentions the Patients Under Investigation (PUI). These are the unconfirmed infections that "might" later be confirmed. This number stands at 47,961 with 200 to 300 added per day. Testing is falling behind.

It's been pointed out to death and mentioned many many times along with the abnormal number of viral pneumonia that rose exponentially when the outbreak started but they stopped publishing those figures many weeks ago funnily enough.The Thai people are naught but mushrooms to those that call themselves the "Government". 

[JCP108]

16 minutes ago, jimn said:

You are so negative about anything good about the virus, what is wrong with you? Are you like it all the time? I dont want to be rude but try and lighten up and see the positives in what the government are trying to achieve in a difficult situation.

We are applying critical thinking skills as the daily "good" news is suspicious when taken in context.

[DrTuner]

24 minutes ago, jimn said:

You are so negative about anything good about the virus, what is wrong with you? Are you like it all the time? I dont want to be rude but try and lighten up and see the positives in what the government are trying to achieve in a difficult situation.

Positivity is for people that don't have the tenacity to get facts.