Thailand reports 18 new coronavirus cases, no new deaths

[Bkk Brian]

Here we have the official line, 40 tested positive was a machine error!

 

Health officials on Monday said machine error led to a false report of 40 new coronavirus cases in Yala province over the weekend.

Deputy Public Health Minister Sathit Pitutecha said the samples might have been contaminated in testing procedures, resulting in false positives. All of the 40 samples later came out negative in another testing, Sathit said.

 

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/crimecourtscalamity/2020/05/04/officials-say-yalas-virus-cases-are-false-positives/

[mrfill]

4 hours ago, rkidlad said:

Read a report of 40 people yesterday who were tested positive in Yala. Whoever oversees the tests didn’t like the numbers and they were tested again. After second round of testing, the 40 were then found to be negative. They will be tested again in Bangkok, apparently. 
 

Would be interesting to know if all these tests were done using the same test kits. If so, where do these test kits come from and where else have they been used?

The UK ordered 3.5m tests and when they were received and tested were found to be 55% accurate and were not used. It doesn't require much mind stretching to imagine that some countries are using tests with this level of accuracy, especially if they are very cheap...

[Bkk Brian]

28 minutes ago, mrfill said:

The UK ordered 3.5m tests and when they were received and tested were found to be 55% accurate and were not used. It doesn't require much mind stretching to imagine that some countries are using tests with this level of accuracy, especially if they are very cheap...

That was anti body tests, not the same as PCR tests which are the recognized method and the ones also used in Thailand

[HHTel]

4 hours ago, ParkerN said:

Is today's count (ignoring the 'no reported deaths' part) higher than yesterday's? I ask because I for one am expecting an imminent 2nd wave. That and I consider this government to be amoral and inveterate liars.

Hmmm.  Yesterday's figure was 3.  Today's figure is 18.  

18 is higher than 3 so the answer is hmmm YES, today's count is higher than yesterday's.

However, the 18 are all from quarantine so the net increase in local cases is ZERO!

[DrTuner]

50 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

Here we have the official line, 40 tested positive was a machine error!

 

Health officials on Monday said machine error led to a false report of 40 new coronavirus cases in Yala province over the weekend.

Deputy Public Health Minister Sathit Pitutecha said the samples might have been contaminated in testing procedures, resulting in false positives. All of the 40 samples later came out negative in another testing, Sathit said.

 

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/crimecourtscalamity/2020/05/04/officials-say-yalas-virus-cases-are-false-positives/

Uh-huh, I see, mmm-hmm, yes yes, machine error. Reminds me of the bank tellers in the 80's, "computer error".

[HHTel]

That's not true .... yet.  Contact tracing is being carried out and further tests will be done.  All tests will be sent to the BKK laboratory for analysis.  Negative at the moment but not official as yet.

[vermin on arrival]

From the Nation "Regarding reports that 40 people were found to be infected in Yala, Taweesin said the cases were found during Yala’s proactive testing. He said 311 people were tested of whom 271 were negative and 40 were positive. However, the provincial health officers doubted the positive result because of the high rate of 30 per cent when the average rate is 4-5 per cent. “The cluster finding was good news. However, more data needs to be analysed and all will be retested,” said the spokesman. "After the process, this piece of information will be reported as soon as possible," he added."

[DrTuner]

20 minutes ago, vermin on arrival said:

From the Nation "Regarding reports that 40 people were found to be infected in Yala, Taweesin said the cases were found during Yala’s proactive testing. He said 311 people were tested of whom 271 were negative and 40 were positive. However, the provincial health officers doubted the positive result because of the high rate of 30 per cent when the average rate is 4-5 per cent. “The cluster finding was good news. However, more data needs to be analysed and all will be retested,” said the spokesman. "After the process, this piece of information will be reported as soon as possible," he added."

Spinning at 15,000 RPM.

[ParkerN]

1 hour ago, vermin on arrival said:

From the Nation "Regarding reports that 40 people were found to be infected in Yala, Taweesin said the cases were found during Yala’s proactive testing. He said 311 people were tested of whom 271 were negative and 40 were positive. However, the provincial health officers doubted the positive result because of the high rate of 30 per cent when the average rate is 4-5 per cent. “The cluster finding was good news. However, more data needs to be analysed and all will be retested,” said the spokesman. "After the process, this piece of information will be reported as soon as possible," he added."

40 positive out of 311 tests is not 30%. Or did I read it wrongly?

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by ParkerN

[vermin on arrival]

1 minute ago, ParkerN said:

40 positive out of 311 tests is not 30%. Or did I read it wrongly?

 

 

No it's not. Nice catch. It's around 13%. Maybe this is the confusion of 13 and 30 in non native speakers.

[ParkerN]

1 hour ago, vermin on arrival said:

No it's not. Nice catch. It's around 13%. Maybe this is the confusion of 13 and 30 in non native speakers.

Well it isn't that, 30 cases out of 311 tests is 9.64%. Seems like basic numeracy. Or the absence thereof.

 

Is Taweesin Wisanuyothin actually qualified in anything? Anything at all?

Edited May 4, 2020 by ParkerN

[JCP108]

17 minutes ago, ParkerN said:

Seems like basic numeracy. Or the absence thereof.

 

Is Taweesin Wisanuyothin actually qualified in anything? Anything at all?

Spin?

[MJKT2014]

4 hours ago, ParkerN said:

why? Is one nationality inherently worth less than another?

According to the Covid19 office we interpret the poster thus, how else to explain the smiley icons left of the 18 infected foreigners?

[DirtyHarry55]

So the Thai Center for COVID19 Situation Administration (CCSA) or Thai government have released a poster on their Facebook

celebrating the fact that 0 Thais are infected  but they don't seem to care about the 18 infected migrant workers.
Talk about insensitive to foreigners or what ?


 

[JCP108]

54 minutes ago, DirtyHarry55 said:

So the Thai Center for COVID19 Situation Administration (CCSA) or Thai government have released a poster on their Facebook

celebrating the fact that 0 Thais are infected  but they don't seem to care about the 18 infected migrant workers.
Talk about insensitive to foreigners or what ?


 

Right. And, how can they expect Thai people to follow the directives to do social distancing and not travel between provinces when the message is only dirty foreigners get sick and Thai people are magically protected?

[Krataiboy]

11 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Strange because they reported 40 new cases last night:

 

A second set of swabs from 40 asymptomatic in-patients at a hospital in Yala, southern Thailand, were sent to a laboratory in neighbouring Songkhla for analysis. Now the health office has confirmed the 40 new Covid-19 cases in Yala. The huge spike in local cases has sent health officials scurrying to trace those who had been in contact with the contaminants. 

 

https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/cv19-asia/cv19-thailand/40-confirmed-covid-19-cases-surface-in-southern-yala-province

 

Although an update on that this morning is that they have now retested those 40 cases and they were found to be negative? I've heard of false negative tests before but this is a first for false positive.

Diagnostic tests are imperfect, and they produce false positives and false negatives, according to the American Council on Science and Health. They say, "Even if kept to a minimum, minor inaccuracies create substantial problems".

 

https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/04/14/coronavirus-false-positives-false-negatives-and-trouble-covid-19-mass-testing-14715

[anchadian]

 

Richard Barrow in Thailand 

 

@RichardBarrow

·

The CCSA said 17 of the 18 infected are female, one of whom is reportedly only 10 years old. What a 10-year-old is doing in a detention facility raises serious questions about domestic and international laws on child protection #Thailand #COVID19

[Venom]

19 hours ago, DrTuner said:

They now have a problem in that the test kits, whatever they are, have finally reached the provinces (at least Phuket and Yala, a good thing in itself), but the local labs are leaking the results to the public, instead of MoPH backing them up in the backlog in Bangkok. 

 

Hard to keep the propaganda intact.

54 dead out of 70,000,000 are not bad odds. That's equivalent to about an average days traffic fatalities and far less than the seasonal flu kills in Thailand. 

[MJKT2014]

4 minutes ago, Venom said:

54 dead out of 70,000,000 are not bad odds.

I would also factor in the odds of the numbers not being altogether real. For that they would have to test everyone else who has died in the meantime as a negative for the virus - do those numbers get published?

[Bkk Brian]

56 minutes ago, Venom said:

54 dead out of 70,000,000 are not bad odds. That's equivalent to about an average days traffic fatalities and far less than the seasonal flu kills in Thailand. 

I wonder how many dead there would be if the extreme lockdowns, social distancing and other measures were not in place?

[ThailandRyan]

Then there are those that believe the numbers the Government, who has lied to everyone for the past few years, is putting out....WOW talk about living in the dark...

[JCP108]

1 hour ago, Venom said:

54 dead out of 70,000,000 are not bad odds. That's equivalent to about an average days traffic fatalities and far less than the seasonal flu kills in Thailand. 

lol

 

So, in the past about 2k people have died on average per month from the normal flu. Researchers seem to be in agreement that Covid-19 is more infectious than the typical flu virus and much, much more deadly (in re a percentage of people infected who die from it). Also, the first reported case outside of China was in Thailand. So, they got a head start on infections and ran with it for many weeks before the first restrictions were put into place. Even if the researchers were all wrong. Even if the Covid-19 virus is similar in infection rates and mortality rates to the typical flu, around 8k people should have died in Thailand from Covid-19 in the first four months of this year.

 

To believe the 54 number, you would have to believe that while everywhere else in the world Covid-19 seems to be worse than the typical flu, in Thailand, it is miraculously only 0.6% (read that as point six percent as bad, not sixty percent as the number is adjusted) as bad as the flu in mortality outcome. 

 

We are to believe that Covid-19 is about 1/200th as bad as the typical flu in Thailand despite being so much worse everywhere else in the world? 

 

lol

Edited May 5, 2020 by JCP108

[HHTel]

Just ONE new case today.

Yesterday, all 18 were from quarantine/detention giving a net result of ZERO new cases locally.

 

Really looking forward to a game of pool!!!!!!

[HHTel]

5 hours ago, anchadian said:

 

Richard Barrow in Thailand 

 

@RichardBarrow

·

The CCSA said 17 of the 18 infected are female, one of whom is reportedly only 10 years old. What a 10-year-old is doing in a detention facility raises serious questions about domestic and international laws on child protection #Thailand #COVID19

Of course, Trump would have handled it better.  He'd have separated the child from it's mother and put the child in a cage!!!

[dabhand]

3 hours ago, JCP108 said:

lol

 

So, in the past about 2k people have died on average per month from the normal flu. Researchers seem to be in agreement that Covid-19 is more infectious than the typical flu virus and much, much more deadly (in re a percentage of people infected who die from it). Also, the first reported case outside of China was in Thailand. So, they got a head start on infections and ran with it for many weeks before the first restrictions were put into place. Even if the researchers were all wrong. Even if the Covid-19 virus is similar in infection rates and mortality rates to the typical flu, around 8k people should have died in Thailand from Covid-19 in the first four months of this year.

 

To believe the 54 number, you would have to believe that while everywhere else in the world Covid-19 seems to be worse than the typical flu, in Thailand, it is miraculously only 0.6% (read that as point six percent as bad, not sixty percent as the number is adjusted) as bad as the flu in mortality outcome. 

 

We are to believe that Covid-19 is about 1/200th as bad as the typical flu in Thailand despite being so much worse everywhere else in the world? 

 

lol

Not sure where you are  sourcing the monthly flu deaths as the 2k figure seems extremely high when looking at the Department of Disease Control reports, located here:

https://ddc.moph.go.th/en/details.php?topic=high

As examples,

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/filedata/Department of Disease Control Weekly Disease Forecast No.90 Influenza (2 Jan 2017).pdf

Period from 1 Jan to 27 Dec 2016 - 167,220 patients and 44 deaths

Then

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/filedata/Department of Disease Control Weekly Disease Forecast No.131 Influenza (23 Oct 2017).pdf

Period 1 jan to 16 Oct 2017- 152,594 patients and 36 deaths

Then

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/filedata/Department of Disease Control Weekly Disease Forecast No.185 Influenza (11 Nov 2018).pdf

Period 1 Jan to 11 Nov 2018 - 141,044 patients and 28 deaths

Then

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/27920191219084104.pdf

Period 1 Jan to 23 Sep 2019 -  271,931 patients and 18 deaths

 

Yes, I do have too much time on my hands!!

[JCP108]

2 hours ago, dabhand said:

Not sure where you are  sourcing the monthly flu deaths as the 2k figure seems extremely high when looking at the Department of Disease Control reports, located here:

https://ddc.moph.go.th/en/details.php?topic=high

As examples,

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/filedata/Department of Disease Control Weekly Disease Forecast No.90 Influenza (2 Jan 2017).pdf

Period from 1 Jan to 27 Dec 2016 - 167,220 patients and 44 deaths

Then

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/filedata/Department of Disease Control Weekly Disease Forecast No.131 Influenza (23 Oct 2017).pdf

Period 1 jan to 16 Oct 2017- 152,594 patients and 36 deaths

Then

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/filedata/Department of Disease Control Weekly Disease Forecast No.185 Influenza (11 Nov 2018).pdf

Period 1 Jan to 11 Nov 2018 - 141,044 patients and 28 deaths

Then

https://ddc.moph.go.th/uploads/files_en/27920191219084104.pdf

Period 1 Jan to 23 Sep 2019 -  271,931 patients and 18 deaths

 

Yes, I do have too much time on my hands!!

I appreciate the information.

 

Also,

 

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/181/11/898/87147

 

...states that around 4k deaths in Thailand are attributed to influenza on average each year. (In reading the supportive relevant materials, I do see that a very large percentage of deaths are not attributed to a specific cause which raises validity questions.)

 

So, let me revise my earlier model with new information:

 

If around 4k people die in Thailand per year, that's 333/month. In the first four months of a typical year, that would mean around 1,333 deaths officially counted at flu a and b deaths. 

 

So, 54/1,333 would give a new ratio of the current reported deaths due to Covid 19 in Thailand in the first four months of the virus being about 4% s deadly as the typical flu. Still highly inconsistent with data from other countries. (And, in my opinion, suspicious even if you allow for the strain in, say, the United States being more deadly than here and count in some degree of influence on mortality rates in the West due to their not eating very much somtam.)

Edited May 5, 2020 by JCP108

[dabhand]

3 hours ago, JCP108 said:

I appreciate the information.

 

Also,

 

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/181/11/898/87147

 

...states that around 4k deaths in Thailand are attributed to influenza on average each year. (In reading the supportive relevant materials, I do see that a very large percentage of deaths are not attributed to a specific cause which raises validity questions.)

 

So, let me revise my earlier model with new information:

 

If around 4k people die in Thailand per year, that's 333/month. In the first four months of a typical year, that would mean around 1,333 deaths officially counted at flu a and b deaths. 

 

So, 54/1,333 would give a new ratio of the current reported deaths due to Covid 19 in Thailand in the first four months of the virus being about 4% s deadly as the typical flu. Still highly inconsistent with data from other countries. (And, in my opinion, suspicious even if you allow for the strain in, say, the United States being more deadly than here and count in some degree of influence on mortality rates in the West due to their not eating very much somtam.)

The linked article is interesting but the period covered, from 2005 to 2009, was just prior to the introduction of the Thailand influenza campaign of 2010, plus the results may have been impacted by the 2009 pandemic year (hence this vaccine campaign). It is highly likely that the campaign would have had a positive impact on influenza deaths going forward.   

 

https://www.tm.mahidol.ac.th/seameo/2018-49-2/09-7294-19-266.pdf

This  paper was prepared, based on 2010-11 info, in an attempt to calculate the benefit of this campaign and seems to suggest that inpatient treatment (likely to be the more serious cases) for ILI (Influenza-like illness) did reduce by some 25%. Indeed the reduction for the youngest (6 mths to 2 years) was quite dramatic at 60%.  It does note that outpatient treatment was not affected, but that would be unlikely to have any effect on flu mortality rates, unlike the inpatient reductions.

There may well be subsequent studies that show how the vaccine campaign moved forward and whether, or not, the vaccine uptake increased in later years. Highly likely, though,that the improvement in death rate would have, at the very least, remained and more likely to have resulted in further reductions in future years. Whether to the figures as as noted in the more recent DDC reports?  That is maybe a step too far.......