Thailand reports four new coronavirus cases, one new death

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Thailand reports four new coronavirus cases, one new death

 

FILE PHOTO: Social distancing markers are seen in a train during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bangkok, Thailand May 6, 2020. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/File photo

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand reported four new coronavirus cases and one more death on Saturday, bringing the total to 3,004 cases and 56 deaths since the outbreak started in January.

 

A 68-year-old man from Bangkok died, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, spokesman for the government's Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration.

 

Of the new cases, two are from the southern province of Yala, where the authorities are aggressively testing people due to high infection rates. One was linked with previous cases and one had a risk history from public places, he said.

 

Slowing numbers of new cases have prompted Thailand to cautiously allow some businesses to reopen after weeks of semi-lockdown.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-05-09

 

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(Reporting by Orathai Sriring and Kitiphong Thaichareon; Editing by William Mallard)

[condobrit001]

It's difficult to reconcile the fact that here in Thailand we have had only 56 Covid19 deaths since February whereas the UK has over 600 deaths per day on a regular basis! Both countries have a similar population of 65 million or so. If the figures are to be believed, Thailand is doing a great job and the UK IS'NT. Thailand's figures do not represent a pandemic, more of an inconvenience. I applaud the Thai government for their response, but surely if they maintain strict immigration checks, the rest of the Thai economy should be allowed to return to normal as soon as possible?

[Guderian]

Here's a bit more detail of the new cases, courtesy of the Pattaya News:

 

"Of the four new cases, two were from proactive Covid-19 testing in Yala, near the border to Malaysia.

One new case was a close previous contact of a confirmed case in Bangkok and the last was a woman in Prachin Buri who had recently returned from a red zone, or active infection area, in Phuket."

 

Does that reset the Bangkok new case counter back to zero, I wonder? Almost everybody wants Bangkok to reach White Zone status as the country won't start getting back to normal until it has. And will the Prachin Buri case be treated as an imported Phuket case?

 

 

[Guderian]

17 minutes ago, condobrit001 said:

It's difficult to reconcile the fact that here in Thailand we have had only 56 Covid19 deaths since February whereas the UK has over 600 deaths per day on a regular basis! Both countries have a similar population of 65 million or so. If the figures are to be believed, Thailand is doing a great job and the UK IS'NT. Thailand's figures do not represent a pandemic, more of an inconvenience. I applaud the Thai government for their response, but surely if they maintain strict immigration checks, the rest of the Thai economy should be allowed to return to normal as soon as possible?

You're quite right, and the people who sneer at the Thai statistics should look at Vietnam, which has a population 50% larger than Thailand yet has had no C19 deaths and only 288 cases in total.

 

External health organisations have looked at Vietnam's unlikely success and said that, as the only source for the numbers is the Health Ministry, they can't be trusted completely. All the same, (and as in Thailand) just about everybody has a smart phone and spends half their life on social media, so if there were tens of thousands of cases being dragged off into quarantine and mounds of bodies waiting to be cremated people would know about it. That's clearly not the case, so they gave Vietnam the benefit of the doubt and said that its numbers should not be considered to be unreliable.

 

So Thailand is not some ridiculous outlier that has no precedent and there for the data must be fake, it's actually done a poorer job than Vietnam. That country's success was attributed largely to the fact that it still has a deeply entrenched Communist party system which was able to implement the government's restrictions immediately and strictly. Well, our own governments in the West have used the "war" analogy to describe C19, and the Communist system is quite well suited to wartime.

[CRUNCHER]

Much the same can be said for Cambodia - 122 cases and no deaths. A fair bet the figures are not quite right, but far from a disaster. Quite unlike China, Europe and USA.

 

Could the fact that these three countries are in the same part of the world have anything to do with it - Climate, genetic make up of local population etc?

[DrTuner]

25 minutes ago, CRUNCHER said:

Could the fact that these three countries are in the same part of the world have anything to do with it - Climate, genetic make up of local population etc?

Yes, and my current going theory is this:

 

Would be easy enough to check, if Thailand got swarmed over with the D614 variant and a lot of people were asymptomatic, they might have gotten lucky, same as other countries in SEA.

 

But "too expensive to do antibody tests" at something like 400baht/head.

[DrTuner]

17 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

No mounds of bodies.

Not in Thailand. They BBQ them so just ashes. I don't exactly remember, is the BBQ usually next morning or day after? 

 

In China they only started to find out about the extent when they saw how many urns the crematoriums needed.

 

That said, I don't think there have been mass deaths in Thailand. My theory calls for a very widespread asymptomatic contagion. I would love to see it debunked or verified, which is possible if they'd only do the antibody testing.

Edited May 9, 2020 by DrTuner

[garygooner]

You mean 20 right, not 20k!

According to some reports in the UK doctors are writing reason for death 'Covid 19' on death certificates without even testing, especially at care homes, because the persons had symptoms such as pneumonia. UKs figures could be much lower. 

[dinsdale]

2 hours ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Of the new cases, two are from the southern province of Yala, where the authorities are aggressively testing people due to high infection rates.

I don't understand. Aggressive testing due to high infection rates yet low infection rates nationally. Infact almost zero. How can you have high infection rates when the infection rate is almost zero. My mum use to tell me lie long enough and you're sure to be found out.

Edited May 9, 2020 by dinsdale

[ukrules]

19 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

 

That said, I don't think there have been mass deaths in Thailand. My theory calls for a very widespread asymptomatic contagion. I would love to see it debunked or verified, which is possible if they'd only do the antibody testing.

Even then they would need to use the new accurate tests which have only appeared in the last week or two, with accuracy that is I believe in the 99.x% range these are good enough for surveys, some of the others had serious problems and accuracy levels in the 80% range.

 

Those crappy tests were perhaps good enough for repeatedly testing a single person but useless when it comes to extrapolating a populations infection rate.

 

Then there's the question of why would it be widespread and asymptomatic (or at least mild enough to avoid detection by medical professionals) here, I suspect the answer to that lies somewhere in an earlier incarnation of the virus which we're not aware of, not yet anyway. Something like this could explain low numbers in the rest of China.

 

For example, did the sh!t only hit the fan when it mutated in Wuhan? There's plenty of talk about the main 2 strains but for all we know there could be a far less harmful common ancestor for these.

Edited May 9, 2020 by ukrules

[JCP108]

23 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Not in Thailand. They BBQ them so just ashes. I don't exactly remember, is the BBQ usually next morning or day after? 

 

In China they only started to find out about the extent when they saw how many urns the crematoriums needed.

 

That said, I don't think there have been mass deaths in Thailand. My theory calls for a very widespread asymptomatic contagion. I would love to see it debunked or verified, which is possible if they'd only do the antibody testing.

I'm with you. I personally think that it's most likely Thailand did get started early. But, widespread infection happened without as many severe cases so fast as we have seen in the United States and most of Europe. 

 

However, it causes me profound frustration and sadness each time I see someone here post that there couldn't have been widespread deaths here because we haven't seen it in a social media post. When hospitals run at 110% it looks just like 100% and the only people who know are the ones with the actual spreadsheets with the real numbers. Same here. And, so far, they aren't sharing them with us. Really could be a lot worse than we are being told. Social media might save us. But, lack of such posts so far is a pretty thin support to the idea that there haven't been a lot of extra deaths here. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by JCP108

[roger101]

 I said a long time ago that to find the true number a deaths due to the virus is to check every person who dies.

There are on average 500 deaths per day in Thailand. If there were 50extra deaths a day it wouldn't get noted to he summery of deaths next year.

[elliss]

1 hour ago, CRUNCHER said:

Much the same can be said for Cambodia - 122 cases and no deaths. A fair bet the figures are not quite right, but far from a disaster. Quite unlike China, Europe and USA.

 

Could the fact that these three countries are in the same part of the world have anything to do with it - Climate, genetic make up of local population etc?

 

            Inborn  immune systems ,  against malaria, etc..

 

[DrTuner]

32 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Even then they would need to use the new accurate tests which have only appeared in the last week or two, with accuracy that is I believe in the 99.x% range these are good enough for surveys, some of the others had serious problems and accuracy levels in the 80% range.

I saw you mentioning these before, I haven't seen any info, would you have a link or other pointers. Very interested in the advances there.

[DrTuner]

14 minutes ago, graemeaylward said:

Interesting! It would be interesting to compare deaths from Pneumonia for the same period over the last couple of years.  That might give us a clearer picture.

Bear in mind that's only provinces and apparently they use some archaic system of transferring files ( would not be surprised if thats excel files) to transfer data, there's even a monitoring system on that site. So it's a lagging indicator and lacks the month-by-month resolution. Still, at least something.

[DrTuner]

36 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Then there's the question of why would it be widespread and asymptomatic (or at least mild enough to avoid detection by medical professionals) here, I suspect the answer to that lies somewhere in an earlier incarnation of the virus which we're not aware of, not yet anyway. Something like this could explain low numbers in the rest of China.

 

For example, did the sh!t only hit the fan when it mutated in Wuhan? There's plenty of talk about the main 2 strains but for all we know there could be a far less harmful common ancestor for these.

That could be answered here: 

 

 

D614 and it's mutated G614 version. The timeline seems to fit.

[Baerboxer]

2 hours ago, condobrit001 said:

It's difficult to reconcile the fact that here in Thailand we have had only 56 Covid19 deaths since February whereas the UK has over 600 deaths per day on a regular basis! Both countries have a similar population of 65 million or so. If the figures are to be believed, Thailand is doing a great job and the UK IS'NT. Thailand's figures do not represent a pandemic, more of an inconvenience. I applaud the Thai government for their response, but surely if they maintain strict immigration checks, the rest of the Thai economy should be allowed to return to normal as soon as possible?

 

The UK was slow to respond. Borders are still open and they're only just saying that incoming people will have to go into quarantine. No checking or screening is done at airports for arriving passengers.

 

There's one big difference for starters.

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed. 

[SkyFax]

2 hours ago, DrTuner said:

I would love to see it debunked or verified, which is possible if they'd only do the antibody testing.

If they did that and your theory was debunked would you just then say it is 'propaganda' like you do many things else the MOPH says with which you disagree?

[yuyiinthesky]

2 hours ago, CRUNCHER said:

Much the same can be said for Cambodia - 122 cases and no deaths. A fair bet the figures are not quite right, but far from a disaster. Quite unlike China, Europe and USA.

 

Could the fact that these three countries are in the same part of the world have anything to do with it - Climate, genetic make up of local population etc?

As explained here, the virus went through these countries already before anyone was looking. When testing started, using PCR tests, which only catch fresh infections, it was too late already.

 

 

[DrTuner]

2 hours ago, SkyFax said:

If they did that and your theory was debunked would you just then say it is 'propaganda' like you do many things else the MOPH says with which you disagree?

No, if it was debunked with actual valid data. I'd then create the next candidate theory until I find one that gets verified. MoPH data would do if I had access to all of it. I'm not doubting the actual data they have, but the derivative indicators they've created and are presenting as gospel.

[Jumbo1968]

In this day of social media surely if hundreds of friends ad family were more than normal it would be all over Facebook, Twitter etc ?

Tha Thais closed the airports, any returning Thai is forcibly quarantined, the U.K. have never closed any airports, ports  etc. They have announced that from the end of the month any arrivals have to self quarantine, what a farce, so for the next 3 weeks thousands still arriving !
It’s all about money and when the Challcellor decides he is not going to pay people 80% of their wages for sitting at home in the coming weeks there will be a massive return to work.

[DavisH]

4 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

The UK was slow to respond. Borders are still open and they're only just saying that incoming people will have to go into quarantine. No checking or screening is done at airports for arriving passengers.

 

There's one big difference for starters.

Is the tunnel connecting the UK and France still open? Not closing the borders early on was a big mistake. 

[Teee]

2 hours ago, DavisH said:

Is the tunnel connecting the UK and France still open? Not closing the borders early on was a big mistake. 

Yes still open....but if you go to France you have to self isolate 14 days.

 

Actually only about 6 trains a week going to France and i think 3 a week to Brussels

[EricTh]

10 hours ago, Guderian said:

You're quite right, and the people who sneer at the Thai statistics should look at Vietnam, which has a population 50% larger than Thailand yet has had no C19 deaths and only 288 cases in total.

 

External health organisations have looked at Vietnam's unlikely success and said that, as the only source for the numbers is the Health Ministry, they can't be trusted completely. All the same, (and as in Thailand) just about everybody has a smart phone and spends half their life on social media, so if there were tens of thousands of cases being dragged off into quarantine and mounds of bodies waiting to be cremated people would know about it. That's clearly not the case, so they gave Vietnam the benefit of the doubt and said that its numbers should not be considered to be unreliable.

 

So Thailand is not some ridiculous outlier that has no precedent and there for the data must be fake, it's actually done a poorer job than Vietnam. That country's success was attributed largely to the fact that it still has a deeply entrenched Communist party system which was able to implement the government's restrictions immediately and strictly. Well, our own governments in the West have used the "war" analogy to describe C19, and the Communist system is quite well suited to wartime.

 

I think it's human nature for some people.

 

It's just like back in the school days, if your classmates got better grades than you, he must have cheated in the exams. LOL

 

 

 

[EricTh]

9 hours ago, CRUNCHER said:

Much the same can be said for Cambodia - 122 cases and no deaths. A fair bet the figures are not quite right, but far from a disaster. Quite unlike China, Europe and USA.

 

Could the fact that these three countries are in the same part of the world have anything to do with it - Climate, genetic make up of local population etc?

 

Certainly not climate and genetics. Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia were hit much harder than the nearer countries to China which are Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam.

 

Ironic , isn't it?

Edited May 9, 2020 by EricTh

[Canuck1966]

They reckon this thing started in October so it could have killed lots of Thais in November, December & January

 

[SkyFax]

11 hours ago, DrTuner said:

13 hours ago, SkyFax said:

If they did that and your theory was debunked would you just then say it is 'propaganda' like you do many things else the MOPH says with which you disagree?

No, if it was debunked with actual valid data.

So this just goes round in circles as you reserve the right to determine what is or is not actual valid data.

[superal]

22 hours ago, garygooner said:

You mean 20 right, not 20k!

According to some reports in the UK doctors are writing reason for death 'Covid 19' on death certificates without even testing, especially at care homes, because the persons had symptoms such as pneumonia. UKs figures could be much lower. 

I can tell you why hospitals etc are writing Covid 19 on death certs . They receive an enhanced payment from the government over and above their allotted budget and that was told to me just 2 days ago by a guy in the know , unbelieveable but true , so UK stats could be way out .

[DrTuner]

8 hours ago, SkyFax said:

So this just goes round in circles as you reserve the right to determine what is or is not actual valid data.

Of course I do. Until there's a third party, independent multi-national (non-China) investigation into Thailand's data integrity, I'll be the judge of it when making my own calculations. There's zero transparency around here so not holding my breath on such an investigation taking place.

 

MoPH's vital stats data f.ex. should be pretty reliable, as it's connected directly to the civil IT system which works well. Do they publish the month-by-month mortality numbers? No, they do not. None of the actual underlying raw data is available to the public, only the fudged anylyses with DIY indicators.