Social distancing? Forget it - BTS passengers packed in like sardines this morning

[webfact]

Social distancing? Forget it - BTS passengers packed in like sardines this morning

 

Daily News

 

Pictures on social media this morning showed passengers on Bangkok's BTS system packed in solid on trains and platforms. 

 

There may have been attempts at social distancing on platforms and at ticket queues but once on the trains it was a question of rubbing shoulders intimately with fellow passengers. 

 

Netizens expressed fears that such a situation would inevitably result in a new spike in coronavirus cases. 

 

Daily News reported that problems were exacerbated after many companies started requesting that office workers return to work after they had worked from home.

 

A breakdown on the system only added to commuters' woes. 

 

Watchara Takum posted pictures on the Green Line from Bang Na to Thong Lo stations while Pattypat Angel said it was her first day back at work and she was faced with this!

 

Source: Daily News

 

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[OnTheGround]

Same time,

Pattaya & Jomtien beach closed, Pattaya plod continue to arrest people on the beach, and fine them up to 100,000 or 1 up to 1 year in jail.

 

 

 

[keith101]

Saw the same thing this morning with people outside a bank maybe waiting to get their 5,000 baht 

[actonion]

Yes social distancing forget it.    ....its always been forgotten at the street markets in East Pattaya,  hundreds of people sholder to shoulder  many without masks ,....so why the ban on bars and restaurants??

[petermik]

When the first restrictions were announced here my reaction was...what about the BTS/MRT and public transport...absolutely blaady clueless the authorities here

[ThailandRyan]

up until today the MRT was nearly empty, but this morning the MRT was very very similar to the posted photos in the op.  All the seats which were marked with the red x were all sat in the minute the doors opened up.  Thais do not seem to want to wait until the next train. They were all in a rush to get somewhere, not sure if it was work now that some businesses have opened.  On the platforms they social distanced, but as I said once the doors to the train opened it was a free for all to sit and stand.  Instead of riding the train I exited the platform and went outside and grabbed a taxi to where I was going for my haircut......

Edited May 5, 2020 by ThailandRyan

[steelepulse]

Face masks giving people a false sense of security. 

[Makoshark]

Let’s see how the government resolves this issue.  I’m sure the number of infections will rise and that is a HUGE issue

[z42]

No doubt the zealots will be out soon berating people who are just out to make a living because they NEED to.

Probably the same people who have the "stay home - save lives" banner on their social media profiles, but who continue to support the meat industries who've caused practically every pandemic and zoonotic disease outbreak in 100 years.

 

Let's be realistic, quite a few probably will catch a cold, the flu, or even covid in such crowded places. But the thing is that most of these people will never experience the more serious symptoms, and an even smaller proportion may die.

 

If anytbing, this close confinement may help to build natural tolerances / immunity to covid.

 

Good to see things slowly picking up again.

 

 

[carabaothai]

it will be like this in every country I think

[Kinnock]

3 minutes ago, z42 said:

No doubt the zealots will be out soon berating people who are just out to make a living because they NEED to.

Probably the same people who have the "stay home - save lives" banner on their social media profiles, but who continue to support the meat industries who've caused practically every pandemic and zoonotic disease outbreak in 100 years.

 

Let's be realistic, quite a few probably will catch a cold, the flu, or even covid in such crowded places. But the thing is that most of these people will never experience the more serious symptoms, and an even smaller proportion may die.

 

If anytbing, this close confinement may help to build natural tolerances / immunity to covid.

 

Good to see things slowly picking up again.

 

 

Agree ..... and if there's no second wave, this will be proof that herd immunity was achieved in December/January when arrivals from Wuhan were at their peak.

 

What action is really needed is the prevention of wildlife sale in wet-markets and/or banning experiments on GM viruses in unsecured labs - before COVID-20 starts.

 

We only have the privilege of causing a great depression once per generation. 

[KhunBENQ]

7 minutes ago, z42 said:

Let's be realistic, quite a few probably will catch a cold, the flu, or even covid in such crowded places. But the thing is that most of these people will never experience the more serious symptoms, and an even smaller proportion may die.

One has to write it.

No way to wait for the magic vaccination or the world will go down the drain.

 

[saakura]

19 minutes ago, petermik said:

When the first restrictions were announced here my reaction was...what about the BTS/MRT and public transport...absolutely blaady clueless the authorities here

They could have called in experts from USA, UK, France, Italy etc to give good advise. These countries are so clued.

[Grumpy one]

Did anyone think it would not be its usual full to the brim.

Most of these folks are only trying to get to work

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by blackcab
Font normalised

[4MyEgo]

46 minutes ago, actonion said:

Yes social distancing forget it.    ....its always been forgotten at the street markets in East Pattaya,  hundreds of people sholder to shoulder  many without masks ,....so why the ban on bars and restaurants??

Control !!!

[sungod]

37 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

up until today the MRT was nearly empty, but this morning the MRT was very very similar to the posted photos in the op.  All the seats which were marked with the red x were all sat in the minute the doors opened up.  Thais do not seem to want to wait until the next train.

In all fairness if you are going to wait for the next train for a bit of space then you will be there all day.  These people have to go to work, no choice compared to having a haircut.

[BobbyL]

Inevitable. Once the country fully opens up there is no avoiding stuff like this on public transport. It was exactly the same right up until the moment they announced the lockdown. 

 

Let's hope masks really do stop the spread. 

[andersonat]

50 minutes ago, Makoshark said:

Let’s see how the government resolves this issue.  I’m sure the number of infections will rise and that is a HUGE issue

 

  =====>   The number of Covid-Cases will go up, the Government will blame the Workers/Unemployed sitting in groups supping alcohol, maintain the nighttime-curfew, and ban the sale of alcohol again.

Edited May 5, 2020 by andersonat

[sprq]

It's plain to me that Thais are ill informed about the best anti-Covid measures. The great majority think that wearing a mask is the best thing and only thing to do. I see this every time I go out and it was especially evident at Fortune Town mall yesterday where nobody was keeping distant from anybody except where they had to when sitting at banks and True and AIS outlets.

 

The government is hugely failing on this matter.

[phantomfiddler]

1 hour ago, OnTheGround said:

Same time,

Pattaya & Jomtien beach closed, Pattaya plod continue to arrest people on the beach, and fine them up to 100,000 or 1 up to 1 year in jail.

 

 

 

Comparing the MRT and Jomtien or Pattaya Beach really does make the whole thing seem somewhat ridiculous ????

[Mattd]

38 minutes ago, KhunBENQ said:

One has to write it.

No way to wait for the magic vaccination or the world will go down the drain.

 

Exactly, the vaccine might never be available, even it if it ever is, the logistics behind vaccinating people (even those who want it) are huge and extremely time consuming, time the world doesn't have, the poverty that is being created will make the virus look like a walk in the park.

All this lock down, wearing masks, ridiculous screens in restaurants, social distancing etc .etc. mean eff all in real world, people cannot abide and go to work, live etc. it is simply not possible, any pathetic attempts to do any of this is a total waste of time.

The so called killer virus originated with ONE person if the media is to be believed, which has since transmitted to millions, countries with severe lock downs have continued to see apparent infections and deaths for weeks and weeks after the lock down was enforced, simple logic says that is not possible, with an incubation period of 14 days then after 21 days of lock down should see the infection rate drop like a stone.

IMO it is all or nothing, so wear a mask properly, or don't bother, have a social distance of xx or don't bother and so on, you cannot have a halfway point.

[Walker88]

Very difficult to either know the rules, or deduce them from other allowances and/or prohibitions.

 

For example, this article yesterday:

 

 

had police warning people not to invite relatives or friends to one's home to have a beer.  At the same time, a group of friends or relatives ARE allowed to go together to a restaurant, sit for a few hours and have a meal, just so long as other tables are 1.5 meters apart and nobody drinks alcohol.

 

Then there's this article showing the crowding on the BTS, which shows much closer contact than some friends sitting around one's house chatting it up over a drink.

 

Many fresh markets in Bangkok have been open the whole time, with folks shoulder to shoulder. Construction workers leave the sites each night packed in the back of a pick-up. People can call a mototaxi and literally sit pressed against the driver's back.

 

On the other hand, one cannot walk alone along the beach in Pattaya.

 

One literally has to read through the list of rules, because common sense would not let anyone arrive at a proper answer.

[edwardandtubs]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

 Instead of riding the train I exited the platform and went outside and grabbed a taxi to where I was going for my haircut......

It would be a cruel irony if you contracted covid-19 from the taxi driver.

[edwardandtubs]

23 minutes ago, sprq said:

It's plain to me that Thais are ill informed about the best anti-Covid measures. The great majority think that wearing a mask is the best thing and only thing to do. I see this every time I go out and it was especially evident at Fortune Town mall yesterday where nobody was keeping distant from anybody except where they had to when sitting at banks and True and AIS outlets.

 

The government is hugely failing on this matter.

Some people think even having the mask hanging off their chin is offering them some protection.

[ThailandRyan]

2 minutes ago, edwardandtubs said:

It would be a cruel irony if you contracted covid-19 from the taxi driver.

It absolutely would, but this taxi driver had His Taxi seat and where he was sitting totally isolated by a plastic sheet taped around the center console, back of his seat to the door frame and the roof frame.....I should have taken a photo...

[edwardandtubs]

3 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

It absolutely would, but this taxi driver had His Taxi seat and where he was sitting totally isolated by a plastic sheet taped around the center console, back of his seat to the door frame and the roof frame.....I should have taken a photo...

That's not going to help much in the very confined space of a car. Droplets are going to circulate.

[Walker88]

7 minutes ago, Mattd said:

Exactly, the vaccine might never be available, even it if it ever is, the logistics behind vaccinating people (even those who want it) are huge and extremely time consuming, time the world doesn't have, the poverty that is being created will make the virus look like a walk in the park.

All this lock down, wearing masks, ridiculous screens in restaurants, social distancing etc .etc. mean eff all in real world, people cannot abide and go to work, live etc. it is simply not possible, any pathetic attempts to do any of this is a total waste of time.

The so called killer virus originated with ONE person if the media is to be believed, which has since transmitted to millions, countries with severe lock downs have continued to see apparent infections and deaths for weeks and weeks after the lock down was enforced, simple logic says that is not possible, with an incubation period of 14 days then after 21 days of lock down should see the infection rate drop like a stone.

IMO it is all or nothing, so wear a mask properly, or don't bother, have a social distance of xx or don't bother and so on, you cannot have a halfway point.

While your points about the effects of the lockdowns on business and incomes are valid, the point about the virus may not be.

 

The 'incubation period' is a range of when one acquires the virus and symptoms appear. Could be the next day one gets sick, could be a fortnight. The critical and unusual thing about CV-19 is that unlike SARS and MERS, and even Ebola, CV-19 can be spread even by those showing no symptoms. One person could be the transmission point, because that one person could be in contact with dozens of people, who could then contact dozens more, etc. Lunar New Year travel coincided with the outbreak, which kind of equates to a Perfect Storm.

 

As for deaths after the lockdowns were enforced, as any of these articles show, the lockdowns are often violated intentionally or through circumstances like commuting. There are also false negatives on tests, as well as faulty tests, so some infected people were able to move about, allowed to cross a border, etc.. Then there is the presence of the virus on inanimate surfaces, which can survive anywhere from a few days to as long as 17 days, depending on the surface material, ambient temperature and humidity, and the efficiency of cleaning.

 

Masks, too, are only partially effective, even N95 masks. The virus is tiny. Here's a comparison:  the size of the virus relative to a minivan is the same as the minivan relative to the entire planet Earth. Thus any mask one can breathe through, especially a surgical mask, is not going to stop something so small.

[blazes]

Well, at least this pandemonium on the BTS will give the whole world a good indication of what happens when you abandon 'safe-distancing'.

 

Maybe nothing noteworthy will happen?

 

Bangkokians are the guinea-pigs in an epidemiological experiment.

[redwood1]

Well the virus in not called a planned-demic  or scam-demic  for no reason....

Edited May 5, 2020 by redwood1

[Keyser Soze666]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

up until today the MRT was nearly empty, but this morning the MRT was very very similar to the posted photos in the op.  All the seats which were marked with the red x were all sat in the minute the doors opened up.  Thais do not seem to want to wait until the next train. They were all in a rush to get somewhere, not sure if it was work now that some businesses have opened.  On the platforms they social distanced, but as I said once the doors to the train opened it was a free for all to sit and stand.  Instead of riding the train I exited the platform and went outside and grabbed a taxi to where I was going for my haircut......

Seems like a big effort just to get your ears lowered?