Why some people think that there is no virus in Thailand when most people actually do not have any symptoms ?

[rupert the bear]

masks handwashing etc ,we must keep onboard with this of course but we must also acknowledge the damage to the economy and the businesses and jobs being destroyed,we neeed to provide an option so people can earn a living.most people cannot get govt help now its stopped,a covid virus clear cert should be provided by people wishing to enter and then a test at the airport,stay isolated till the result arrives,24/48 hrs and then your good to go.the harm to our long term prospects is immense at the moment and many people here will never have a job in the future and govt assistance is nil.thailands been fortunate as tere were huge nos of mainland tourists here,we have low nos of tests it does seem unlikely these millions of mainlanders were not infected as they infected many other countries where they travelled in much smaller nos.the govt here insisted they were allowed to keep coming longer than just about any other country too.chinas nos and transparency are false,ask the disappearing nurses and drs.we must be able to handle clusters and small outbreaks effectively as they will happen,look at vietnam,s korea .hk-that arrived from china,the borders are porous.we must open to allow travel to people who must visit other countries/return for personal ,business and medical reasons.the north korea approach wont work long term

[CorpusChristie]

2 minutes ago, rupert the bear said:

masks handwashing etc ,we must keep onboard with this of course but we must also acknowledge the damage to the economy and the businesses and jobs being destroyed,we neeed to provide an option so people can earn a living.most people cannot get govt help now its stopped,a covid virus clear cert should be provided by people wishing to enter and then a test at the airport,stay isolated till the result arrives,24/48 hrs and then your good to go.the harm to our long term prospects is immense at the moment and many people here will never have a job in the future and govt assistance is nil.thailands been fortunate as tere were huge nos of mainland tourists here,we have low nos of tests it does seem unlikely these millions of mainlanders were not infected as they infected many other countries where they travelled in much smaller nos.the govt here insisted they were allowed to keep coming longer than just about any other country too.chinas nos and transparency are false,ask the disappearing nurses and drs.we must be able to handle clusters and small outbreaks effectively as they will happen,look at vietnam,s korea .hk-that arrived from china,the borders are porous.we must open to allow travel to people who must visit other countries/return for personal ,business and medical reasons.the north korea approach wont work long term

So difficult to read with no capitalisation, spaces or paragraphs 

[sungod]

1 hour ago, uhuh said:

How do you know about this?

Check the MoH website in Myanmar, plus daily reports in press. 

[vermin on arrival]

On 8/3/2020 at 3:45 PM, uhuh said:

You mentioned Taiwan (24m people),  which doesn't seem to have a disease reservoir.

Same for New Zealand AFAIK, and Mauritius and quite a few of small islands and territories. 

Vietnam is bigger (95m) and most probably didn't have a disease reservoir for quite a while,  the current outbreak has probably been imported. That can happen if you have hard to control land borders,  and that may happen to Thailand, too.

 

I think it is circulating at a low level everywhere (except for maybe in some truly isolated places). You have the migrant workers leaving Thailand for Cambo, Laos and Myanmar and testing positive. Also, look at the current outbreak in Australia which appeared to be almost covid free. I don't believe anyone is blaming that on overseas travelers importing it.

 

Taiwan has had two cases of a Thai and a Japanese (both asymptomatic) being repatriated recently and testing positive on arrival at their home counties from Taiwan, and they couldn't find the source. Taiwan also just had a Belgian engineer(also asymptomatic) who arrived in May and was tested before and after his 14 day quarantine and then tested positive on his way out. The health authorities don't know if this is just residue from his March infection, or if he was infected in Taiwan. In one article, which I can't seem to locate, it was admitted that they believe that they have low levels of asymptomatic cases that are circulating, but they are not testing for.

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3979063

 

 

[Why Me]

7 hours ago, rupert the bear said:

masks handwashing etc ,we must keep onboard with this of course but we must also acknowledge the damage to the economy and the businesses and jobs being destroyed,we neeed to provide an option so people can earn a living.most people cannot get govt help now its stopped,a covid virus clear cert should be provided by people wishing to enter and then a test at the airport,stay isolated till the result arrives,24/48 hrs and then your good to go.the harm to our long term prospects is immense at the moment and many people here will never have a job in the future and govt assistance is nil.thailands been fortunate as tere were huge nos of mainland tourists here,we have low nos of tests it does seem unlikely these millions of mainlanders were not infected as they infected many other countries where they travelled in much smaller nos.the govt here insisted they were allowed to keep coming longer than just about any other country too.chinas nos and transparency are false,ask the disappearing nurses and drs.we must be able to handle clusters and small outbreaks effectively as they will happen,look at vietnam,s korea .hk-that arrived from china,the borders are porous.we must open to allow travel to people who must visit other countries/return for personal ,business and medical reasons.the north korea approach wont work long term

It's bad enough TV dropped in 2014 the English test to join the forum. But at least they could have replaced it with an optional gibberish filter.

[rabas]

12 hours ago, steelepulse said:

I came across this question a number of months ago and it still holds true today.

 

Q  What do they call a person with no symptoms?  

A  A healthy person.

Let me  introduce you to Mary Mallon, Typhoid Mary Mallon because of how many she unknowingly sickened and killed. She was a silent carrier for many years. They kept trying to lock her up but some kept saying no problem she was not ill ...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Edited August 4, 2020 by rabas

[Scott]

Off-topic and inflammatory posts and replies removed.  

 

[vermin on arrival]

On 8/3/2020 at 3:45 PM, uhuh said:

You mentioned Taiwan (24m people),  which doesn't seem to have a disease reservoir.

 

Here is the article concerning the case of the Belgian. An NTU professor says he believes there the Belgian most likely contracted the case in Taipei in late June, and that he is certain that there are a small number of asymptomatic case in Taiwan. The Taiwan CECC denies this.

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3980229

 

[vermin on arrival]

On 8/3/2020 at 3:45 PM, uhuh said:

You mentioned Taiwan (24m people),  which doesn't seem to have a disease reservoir.

 

And here is another case just from today. Japanese man who returned to Japan after a trip to Taiwan. Was negative and did his quarantine in Taiwan (negative covid test required on both sides of it) and then returned to Japan and tested positive. For sure, there is a some small level reservoir in Taiwan.

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3980974

 

I feel this relevant to the Thailand case because Taiwan practiced much more rigorous controls starting in January when Thailand was pretty laissez-faire with travel restrictions, etc. All of the contacts are testing out negative in all 4 cases I mentioned for Taiwan. If Taiwan is having this, then most definitely Thailand also has some low level reservoir here. Again this can be seen in the migrant workers returning to their home countries from Thailand who test positive on return. I believe it's willful self delusional to think otherwise. It seems every country wants to show that their countries are doing wonderfully and all the cases are coming from the bad foreigners and that the other nations are the problem.

 

  However, the asymptotic cases are most likely less infectious. Most likely if the safety protocols in daily life are maintained there will no major outbreak here now. I think the hysteria over the asymptomatic Egyptian in Rayong was away over the top. I do think the situation is well under control in both Taiwan and Thailand, but covid is here.

[jadee]

Shouldn't the title of these thread be ..."when most people actually DO have symptoms?" - I don't get the OP's point - he wants hand gel, right? Or he thinks there is still covid? 
All I can say is I hope mask wearing continues forever because Thai women look so attractive and mysterious when they wear a mask - I have a total mask-fetish now. Masks let them show their best features (usually hair and eyes) and cover their big noses and mouths (and usually yellowed teeth). 
Viva la mask! 

[Peter Denis]

On 8/3/2020 at 2:14 AM, Mama Noodle said:

Because Thailand charges foreigners several hundred dollars for the privilage. 

 

On 8/3/2020 at 2:28 AM, Yinn said:

You need thai people pay for you test?

 

Why would I need a test to confirm something that I KNOW already?

Or is the test just meant to feed the paranoia about the Invisible Army of Asymptomatic Spreaders?

Why is it so difficult to admit that Thailand is virtually Covid-free?

And I write 'virtually' for the sake of those idiots that want to test ALL of the population on the argument that you can never be 100% sure that there are no infectuous persons running around silently spreading the Virus. 

[scoupeo]

On 8/4/2020 at 2:47 PM, CorpusChristie said:

What is that based on ?

I think that the virus isnt here , you think that I am stupid .

Why do you think that the virus is here ?

 

Really, some people still don't know ? Maybe you need to go back to live in EU or US, many people like you there (the ones who are not yet dead)...

 

 

[CorpusChristie]

Just now, scoupeo said:

 

Really, some people still don't know ? Maybe you need to go back to live in EU or US, many people like you there (the ones who are not yet dead)...

 

 

"Here" as in Thailand , NOT "here" as in the whole World 

[Peter Denis]

On 8/4/2020 at 6:29 PM, rabas said:

Let me  introduce you to Mary Mallon, Typhoid Mary Mallon because of how many she unknowingly sickened and killed. She was a silent carrier for many years. They kept trying to lock her up but some kept saying no problem she was not ill ...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Are you suggestion that Mary's off-spring has migrated to Thailand to continue the work of their great-grandmother over here?

[ukrules]

Everywhere inside the green oval shape has been relatively COVID free, including the provinces of China shown on the map.

 

They have all had cases but in lots of them they came much later than the original outbreak, after significant mutation and re-importation.

 

 

You had to to go far into China for a large outbreak to happen in Wuhan which is in Hubei, top right corner of the map or just outside the circle before you start to see 1000's of deaths in Bangladesh.

 

This is a huge continuous 'relatively safe zone' crossing plenty of borders.

 

Why?

[vermin on arrival]

5 minutes ago, ukrules said:

You had to to go far into China for a large outbreak to happen in Wuhan which is in Hubei, top right corner of the map or just outside the circle before you start to see 1000's of deaths in Bangladesh.

 

This is a huge continuous 'relatively safe zone' crossing plenty of borders.

 

Why?

Maybe genetics. Or maybe the wave already passed through with many minor cases.

 

Interesting article from Taiwan says an antibody study of at risk people in one county which had only had 19 confirmed covid cases already came up with 3,000 people testing positive for covid antibodies. They haven't even completed all 10,000 of the people in the study (in a county of 1.3 million people in central Taiwan) and will have the results available August 25. This is from a country which has only had 480 confirmed cases to date and 7 deaths amid a population of 23.8 million. They haven't even done this in the hots spots of Taipei and New Taipei city. Most likely Taiwan had tens of thousands of minor cases of covid.

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3983632

 

I suspect that there was a large amount of cases that already went though Thailand, most of them mild. Unfortunately, there is no antibody study being released here. The one mentioned in the Bangkok Herald has been retracted as the editor said there has been some reason to doubt it's veracity. However, if Taiwan which had much more proactive measures being done is showing so many past infections, most likely there were more here. However if they are here now, they are most likely mild.

 

Slightly off topic, but related to the issue of how many asymptomatic carriers there may be and this relates to IFR, I just watched a July 23 interview with Anders Tegnell of Sweden. At one point when he was asked what he thought covid's IFR would eventually come out to be, he said between .1 and .5% the same as you guessed it....a bad flu season. He also talked about Sweden's antibody testing, immunity and T cell immunity. It was interesting.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh9wso6bEAc

 

 

 

 

[473geo]

29 minutes ago, ukrules said:

This is a huge continuous 'relatively safe zone' crossing plenty of borders.

 

Why?

Perhaps years of exposure to malaria and dengue have a positive effect on immune resistance to covid

[3NUMBAS]

you have to ask yourself why thailand appears to have immunity unlike most other nations who have too many cases ,its too suspicious or is it under reporting ?

[pookondee]

Im not into these Y.T conspiracy theories, such as the virus is a hoax or whatever.

 

But a lot of doctors and researchers are now saying this idea of being infected yet remaining completely asymptomatic, is complete hogwash.

 

One guy even made referance to it being akin to a schoolboy playing hooky from school for a month..

Then he goes back to the teacher and explains he was sick, but it was no use going to the doctor since he had no symptoms.

 

Its just a load of rubbish.

 

If you listen to the WHO and others, nearly DAILY they are coming up with the silliest speil they can dream up, so as to suggest this Covid is approaching the WORST possible case scenario.

 

Next thing we will be hearing that after having Covid it will stay in your system for years and then one day you will suddenly drop dead when all the bugs wake up again.

Its absolute BS.

 

And you've got to wonder why that is?

Why are these xxxxwits constantly lining to propagate rubbish and make it all sound as worse as it can possibly be?

[Jingthing]

22 minutes ago, 3NUMBAS said:

you have to ask yourself why thailand appears to have immunity unlike most other nations who have too many cases ,its too suspicious or is it under reporting ?

I agree it's somewhat of a mystery. There has definitely been underreporting and sparse testing but there is also strong evidence that the end results seen in many other countries, packed hospitals and mass deaths, haven't happened either. So I guess might as well not look a gift horse in the mouth and hope Thailand keeps it's good results going on. 

[pookondee]

25 minutes ago, 3NUMBAS said:

you have to ask yourself why thailand appears to have immunity unlike most other nations who have too many cases ,its too suspicious or is it under reporting ?

My theory is, a large portion of Thailand people (or Bangkok at least) have been carrying around something in their systems for quite a while. 

 

In 2018 i got a terrible cough and i was sick for months and only just managed to dodge hospitalisation.

 

My Thai gf gets something like it every year, but then she got something really nasty, around mid 2019.

 

During the whole time (2018 onwards) because we'd gone through all this before we noticed how just about every 2nd person, EVERYWHERE seemed to be coughing and sick. 

 

Im not suggesting it was full on Covid, but really, it seems a miracle that Covid didnt absolutely take-off, given how so many seemed to be in very poor health and coughing badly BEFORE the Covid struck.

[vermin on arrival]

9 minutes ago, pookondee said:

Im not into these Y.T conspiracy theories, such as the virus is a hoax or whatever.

 

But a lot of doctors and researchers are now saying this idea of being infected yet remaining completely asymptomatic, is complete hogwash.

 

One guy even made referance to it being akin to a schoolboy playing hooky from school for a month..

Then he goes back to the teacher and explains he was sick, but it was no use going to the doctor since he had no symptoms.

 

Its just a load of rubbish.

 

If you listen to the WHO and others, nearly DAILY they are coming up with the silliest speil they can dream up, so as to suggest this Covid is approaching the WORST possible case scenario.

 

Next thing we will be hearing that after having Covid it will stay in your system for years and then one day you will suddenly drop dead when all the bugs wake up again.

Its absolute BS.

 

And you've got to wonder why that is?

Why are these xxxxwits constantly lining to propagate rubbish and make it all sound as worse as it can possibly be?

Well it's not a hoax, but the medical establishment always tries to scare people into doing what they think is in our or societies best interest. In general, they don't want to accept any deaths. Also once they went all in convincing governments to shut down society, the economy and international travel, it is pretty hard to back away from that and say...oh never mind.

 

Some researchers think the completely asymptomatic cases are people who are immune and that the problem is in the way the PCR test detects the illness. They believe the test is in this case detecting the rna strands of destroyed virus which have been crushed by the person's t-cells as infections when the person is really non-infectious/has inherent immunity.

 

Also, so you know the you tube interview I put up above was not some conspiracy theorist. Anders Tegnell is Sweden's head epidemiologist. He is a controversial figure since Sweden took a different approach with mixed results. It's interesting that, while he regrets what happened in the nursing homes early in Sweden's epidemics, he feels generally good about the situation in Sweden now.

[vermin on arrival]

21 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I agree it's somewhat of a mystery. There has definitely been underreporting and sparse testing but there is also strong evidence that the end results seen in many other countries, packed hospitals and mass deaths, haven't happened either. So I guess might as well not look a gift horse in the mouth and hope Thailand keeps it's good results going on. 

Not just Thailand, most of SE and East Asia. Even the hot spots of the PI and Indonesia, which have packed hospitals, just don't compare to the west in mortality rates. Something more is going in here.

 

Even if one goes with excess deaths in Thailand it is only  like 2400 in March...maybe more in Feb. Not the huge numbers elsewhere (although some suggest things were hidden in the pneumonia figures).

[ukrules]

15 hours ago, vermin on arrival said:

Even the hot spots of the PI and Indonesia, which have packed hospitals, just don't compare to the west in mortality rates. Something more is going in here.

I've heard this phenomenon described as a population that is 'robust' due to prior exposure with either the same thing or something very similar (perhaps an ancestor if you will) which produces protective T cells, B cells, antibodies, etc.

 

This might explain why they were quite happy to sit back and do nothing in Thailand until the newly mutated European strain started to make some people ill in Bangkok. I wonder if the currently prevalent strain is a mutation too far for the previous 'robustness'.

 

Remember the genome was sequenced in Bangkok very early in January and published on January 12th, I believe the 'lockdown' of businesses started on or around March 12th.

 

So they waited a full 2 months with confidence that nothing was going to happen right up until the point where it started exploding in Europe and then coming back over to SEA, things very rapidly changed then.

 

[mommysboy]

We're beginning to see countries like UK and Sweden actually live with the virus.  My feeling is that some sort of cross immunity is at play in Thailand, due to the nasties that were going around late last year.  It could be Thailand has spooked itself in to financial ruin.  Still, just about everyone has got it wrong one way or another.  But the track Thailand is on is an absolute disaster.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8611359/Number-Covid-19-patients-needing-hospital-treatment-plummeted-96-April-data-shows.html

[uhuh]

18 hours ago, vermin on arrival said:

Maybe genetics. Or maybe the wave already passed through with many minor cases.

 

Interesting article from Taiwan says an antibody study of at risk people in one county which had only had 19 confirmed covid cases already came up with 3,000 people testing positive for covid antibodies. They haven't even completed all 10,000 of the people in the study (in a county of 1.3 million people in central Taiwan) and will have the results available August 25. This is from a country which has only had 480 confirmed cases to date and 7 deaths amid a population of 23.8 million. They haven't even done this in the hots spots of Taipei and New Taipei city. Most likely Taiwan had tens of thousands of minor cases of covid.

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3983632

 

I suspect that there was a large amount of cases that already went though Thailand, most of them mild. Unfortunately, there is no antibody study being released here. The one mentioned in the Bangkok Herald has been retracted as the editor said there has been some reason to doubt it's veracity. However, if Taiwan which had much more proactive measures being done is showing so many past infections, most likely there were more here. However if they are here now, they are most likely mild.

 

Slightly off topic, but related to the issue of how many asymptomatic carriers there may be and this relates to IFR, I just watched a July 23 interview with Anders Tegnell of Sweden. At one point when he was asked what he thought covid's IFR would eventually come out to be, he said between .1 and .5% the same as you guessed it....a bad flu season. He also talked about Sweden's antibody testing, immunity and T cell immunity. It was interesting.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh9wso6bEAc

 

 

 

 

The lasr sentence in the article from Taiwan:

CECC experts had cautioned before that the test may not reflect the actual infection rate in Changhua as antibody test kits available on the market are not very accurate. They said this was one of the reasons why the CECC has decided against countrywide mass testing for COVID-19 so far.

[JimGant]

On 8/2/2020 at 11:24 PM, geriatrickid said:

No Thailand  isn't as good as the reports. Thailand would be a special case, and unique if it was.

What about New Zealand?

[ukrules]

3 hours ago, JimGant said:

What about New Zealand?

I could believe due to New Zealands remoteness that the number of cases was very low all along.

 

Not here though, especially with the number of flights coming from Wuhan, I mean they literally found a case of COVID in a Wuhan tourist just down the road from me here in Hua Hin.

 

[vermin on arrival]

7 hours ago, uhuh said:

The lasr sentence in the article from Taiwan:

CECC experts had cautioned before that the test may not reflect the actual infection rate in Changhua as antibody test kits available on the market are not very accurate. They said this was one of the reasons why the CECC has decided against countrywide mass testing for COVID-19 so far.

Yes, I read that, but the CECC is at odds with NTU, and has a vested interest in keeping the case numbers low. They didn't ever want nationwide PCR or antibody tests in Taiwan. They only ever tested the very ill or contacts of very ill. If it comes out that thousands and thousands of people in Taiwan had it, there policies may be considered overkill. In addition, let's face it the vaunted PCR test is also not very accurate.

 

At an interview about the mystery Belgian case the CECC shot down the NTU's professor assertion that Taiwan had a reservoir of asymptomatic cases. Do you see the vested interest that the CECC might have in that? Their professional reputation rests on the laurel that they have kept Taiwan covid free. The head of the CECC is like a rock star there. People ask him for his autograph when he is in public.

 

The article: NTU professor says Belgian case most likely infected in Taipei in June

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3980229

 

And FYI. National Taiwan University are no slouches. National Taiwan University is widely considered the best university in Taiwan. The QS World University Rankings (2020) placed it at 69th worldwide and 22nd in Asia. According to Times Higher Education (2020), NTU ranks 120th in the World University Rankings.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Taiwan_University

 

I think the Taiwan CECC did a good job, but is covering their asses here.

Edited August 10, 2020 by vermin on arrival

[uhuh]

PCR is a lot more accurate than all these antibody tests on the market. 

 

The hope that thousands and thousands of people have had the virus and no symptoms whatever is a mainstay on TVF, strangely it doesn't fit very well with what's happening in the US or the UK, in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Sweden, Spain etc etc 

 

I know that NTU is not an institution to be dismissed easily,  so I am curious what results they will publish in September.