Committee Agrees to Reduce Travel Quarantine

[OumarhindaOunsingha]

1 hour ago, AndrewMciver said:

 

You can't hide deaths or hospitals over filling - which is what is happening in Europe. 

 

Thailand hospitals are very quiet. If the virus was raging through the population then these hospitals would be busy. 

 

Is there Covid cases in Thailand? Most likely ... but nothing on the level of Europe or the USA. 

What hospitals are over filling in Europe? Where did you get this idea? Here in Denmark we opened nearly totally up two months ago, and now we have 125 hospitalisations, 18 in intensive care, and 6 in respirator. We are six million people in this country. We have around 2-3 deaths per day from corona. What exactly constotutes "over filling" in your definition? 

Jesus! What is wrong with people these days... Everyone with just the slightest trace of a brain can so easily conclude, based on cases versus deaths for all Scandinavian countries, that covid no longer pose a threat against human health, generally. 

Thailand must realise this FACT and fully open, direct the money towards the hospitals and learn to treat covid patients like we are here in Scandinavia, and extremely few deaths will be found in Thailand.

End of f'ing story!

[Sheryl]

23 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

The consensus is that she acquired the Virus in Quarantine prior to being let out.  The ASQ Hotel has been removed from the list of the hotels allowed due to lax procedures apparently.

 

However, this was just released in another OP:

Dr Sopon Iamsirithaworn, director of the Disease Control Department’s Bureau of General Communicable Diseases, said on Thursday the French patient’s test did not match that of two other foreign guests at the same hotel who tested positive. He said tests showed the woman had contracted the infection 17 days earlier, which rules out the Samut Prakan hotel.

 

 

 

 

There is no way tests can show she was infected 17 days prior, no such test exists.

 

They can (and apparently have) ruled out cross infection between her and the 2 other guests, that is all.

[ThailandRyan]

4 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

There is no way tests can show she was infected 17 days prior, no such test exists.

 

They can (and apparently have) ruled out cross infection between her and the 2 other guests, that is all.

I know Sheryl, these medical professionals and then the MOPH I feel are inept with there failed deduction and reasoning.  It makes one really wonder what there end game really is.  Then try to fathom Anutins latest proposal to reduce quarantine to 10 days.  I am sitting here scratching my head.

[ExpatOne]

Brace yourself for another lock down soon because it’s impossible for this to work out in a positive way. Greed is bad.

[ExpatOne]

22 minutes ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

What hospitals are over filling in Europe? Where did you get this idea? Here in Denmark we opened nearly totally up two months ago, and now we have 125 hospitalisations, 18 in intensive care, and 6 in respirator. We are six million people in this country. We have around 2-3 deaths per day from corona. What exactly constotutes "over filling" in your definition? 

Jesus! What is wrong with people these days... Everyone with just the slightest trace of a brain can so easily conclude, based on cases versus deaths for all Scandinavian countries, that covid no longer pose a threat against human health, generally. 

Thailand must realise this FACT and fully open, direct the money towards the hospitals and learn to treat covid patients like we are here in Scandinavia, and extremely few deaths will be found in Thailand.

End of f'ing story!

If you were American I’m guessing you would be wearing a red hat everywhere and refusing to cover your face. 

[joecoolfrog]

23 hours ago, essox essox said:

IF they are going to do this then why extend the state of emergency NOT make any sense !!

Ah but you are assuming the state of emergency relates directly to the covid pandemic. I would suggest other considerations are paramount in the good generals thinking.

[maqui]

1 hour ago, Flying Saucage said:

And also it is quite clear that European tourists, if tested negative, would not pose a big danger when arriving to Thailand, as the Thai climate helps to prevend a spread of the virus even if one is tested false negative.

The theory that warm weather would stop the spread (as also propagated by the Great Orange Leader of the Free World in March and April) has been debunked - by reality. Or else, India, Brazil, the Philippines would not claim top spots behind the US. The July surge in Spain was not caused by Scotland-typical drizzle and fog, but by the peak tourist season. These hot-climate countries don´t report so many cases just because they test 10 times as many persons as the US. They don't. Rather, the opposite: a surge in cases despite warm weather and despite a lower test rate.

It´s the degree of coordinated social distancing, mask-wearing and tracing new infections that results in either fewer or more infections.

In Europe and the US, the curves started to rise again 2-3 weeks after the start of the vacation season when people believed that the virus wildfires had burnt out. But even a few leftover hotspots in the underbrush (like the handful of initial infections in last February, to say nothing about 50 daily new infections per 100,000 population) suffice to incinerate everything again when politicians declare that "we have rounded the corner" and, with great fanfare, de-emphasize distancing or, in some countries, even politicize masks.

 

 

 

 

[alyx]

1 hour ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

What hospitals are over filling in Europe? Where did you get this idea? Here in Denmark we opened nearly totally up two months ago, and now we have 125 hospitalisations, 18 in intensive care, and 6 in respirator. We are six million people in this country. We have around 2-3 deaths per day from corona. What exactly constotutes "over filling" in your definition? 

Jesus! What is wrong with people these days... Everyone with just the slightest trace of a brain can so easily conclude, based on cases versus deaths for all Scandinavian countries, that covid no longer pose a threat against human health, generally. 

Thailand must realise this FACT and fully open, direct the money towards the hospitals and learn to treat covid patients like we are here in Scandinavia, and extremely few deaths will be found in Thailand.

End of f'ing story!

Not contesting your reply but, regarding your sentence "Here in Denmark we opened nearly totally up two months ago", I am kind of confused as I am particularly looking at your country to conduct a personal matter with my partner over there. Unless we choose to fly from Thailand to Denmark directly (which is kind of out of the way from the point of view of visa obtention as we have no links with that kingdom ) we would not be allowed to get from another European country (France, Italy  and others: I am pretty sure that Sweden is also on this list) to Copenhagen: far from "nearly totally opened up" ...Let's watch Thursday's meetings to see how this evolves....not positively if you ask me

[Jeffr2]

1 hour ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

Why on earth is Denmark not doing well? And Sweden? What nonsense! I am Danish, btw...

No way you are from Denmark or you would know about the crazy increase of CV19 cases.

[Flying Saucage]

24 minutes ago, maqui said:

The theory that warm weather would stop the spread (as also propagated by the Great Orange Leader of the Free World in March and April) has been debunked - by reality

 

This is not correct and a completely false narrative:

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238339&type=printable

 

https://jvi.asm.org/content/88/14/7692

 

In fact, there is a very strong dependence on temperature, relative and absolute humidity on how the Coronavirus is transmitted. But the whole processes of transmission are very complex, and also includes density of population, wearing of maskes and other things. But, the climate plays a very strong role.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Flying Saucage

[maqui]

1 hour ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

Here in Denmark we opened nearly totally up two months ago, and now we have 125 hospitalisations, 18 in intensive care, and 6 in respirator. We are six million people in this country. We have around 2-3 deaths per day from corona

Denmark has 9,700 active cases at present. DK's death rate is the same as Germany's, 125 per 1M. 

Exponential spread means: once you have suppressed the infection cases via distancing measures, the number of daily new cases remains low for a number of weeks, like between July and August. Then, with relaxed distancing and without a vaccine, the curve will start to rise, more and more steeply. The curve below  shows that active cases in DK have doubled within 2 weeks, since October. It´s almost vertical now. So DK will see tens of thousands of new active cases in November.

Only a fraction of them require hospitalization, perhaps 4%. 4% of 10,000 is 400. 4% of 100,000 is 4000. How many spare beds for infectious cases does DK have? 4,000? 8,000? With a doubling time of 1 week, you would reach the capacity limit after a few weeks. That´s exponential growth. 

The mortality rate rises with a time lag of several weeks. First, people go through 5 - 14 days of mostly symptom-free incubation time, then 1 week of sickness, then hospitalization for some of them; then exitus, 3-5 weeks after the infection, for the most severe cases. So the rising infections in late October will only become visible as a rising death curve in the second half of November. You don´t seem them now because the exponential death curve starts with a time lag.

In last March, DK had less than a 1,000 active cases, which grew to 4,000 by mid-April. What makes you think that 10,000 active cases in late October represent a better a starting point for November and December?  

 

[AndrewMciver]

1 hour ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

What hospitals are over filling in Europe? Where did you get this idea?

 

Many cities - Paris, Northern UK cities are seeing intensive care unit beds filling up. 

 

Manchester UK - covid cases some of the highest per 100,000 in the world. Hospitals are filling up, and if the curve continues they predict they will run out of intensive care beds very soon. 

 

You forgot the scenes in Italy back in March - where they had people lying on floors in hospitals?  Italy has one of the most advanced health care systems in the world and was bought to it's knees in some regions. 

 

Thailand has never had these scenes in any of their public hospitals. Whilst it's not the only indicator, it is one example of why you can assume that the virus has not hit Thailand very hard. So whilst you may keep up your conspiracies of 'Thailand aren't testing', 'Loads of Covid in Thailand' - other than a conspiracy you have no evidence. 

 

A more pertinent question would perhaps by how on earth did it escape the full effects of the virus? 

Edited October 30, 2020 by AndrewMciver

[maqui]

2 minutes ago, Flying Saucage said:

 

This is not correct and a completely false narrative:

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238339&type=printable

 

https://jvi.asm.org/content/88/14/7692

 

In fact, there is a very stron dependence on temperature, relative and absolute humidity. But the whole processes of transmission are very complex, and also include density of population, wearing of maskes and other things. But, the climate plays a very strong role.

Are you kidding: 

"Experimental studies in guinea pigs demonstrated that influenza virus transmission is strongly modulated by temperature and humidity." 

A study on (1) influenza using (2) guinea pigs, published in (c) 2014?

 

And a study published by Egyptian Al Shams university, (a) received on April 08, 2020?

There were hardly any cases in Egypt in March that could be investigated, certainly not with changing weather patterns. 

( b) It was a meta-study: not based on their own patient data, but a review of other science papers published in the Prospero database. Those other articles must have been based on medical data that were collected in January and February. That was a little better and more scientific than just reviewing Wikipedia articles in last March and early April - but by how much? 

 

If we add some hand-waving: "The interplay of temperatures and humidity may reduce or increase the viral reproduction rate", then we are where we are now:

We see that a warm-climate has had no discernible effect on India, the Middle East, Spain, Brazil, the Philippines, etc. We could say: "perhaps, without a warm climate, the infection rates in these countries might have been even worse." 

What do we do with this information? I'd certainly still ask all international arrivals to present a negative Covid test before boarding; and would make a second rapid test upon arrival at BKK airport. And I would require that also Thai citizens are subject to negative tests before boarding. Then a maximum of 5 days of ASQ and a third test. That should take care of the vast majority of risks. But warm weather and humidity is not an argeument on its own.

 

[maqui]

3 hours ago, Flying Saucage said:

big indoor parties of Arab and Turkish families with hundreds of participants

The same Arab and Turkish families had parties in Spain in July? And they have now spread all over France, the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Germany?

Hm - they must have been celebrating the stealthy Ottoman conquest of Europe, 5 centuries after the last attempts of the Turkish sultans had failed near Vienna.

And now they bring the Christian occident to its knees by using a Chinese virus? Sneaky b*st*ds. Somebody should alert Qanon: the global conspiray extends far beyond the pizzeria in Washington D.C.

Edited October 30, 2020 by maqui

[The Now Factor]

How reliable can the testing currently used be when samples from a sheep,a goat,and a piece of pawpaw fruit come back as covid positive??

Sounds like something outta a comedy skit only the joke is on us.

[maqui]

3 hours ago, androokery said:

most if not all of the people eligible for this 10 day quarantine have been tested before their flights. And we know that an extremely low percentage of these have been found     to be infected during the 14 day quarantine. Almost all of the infections found have been among the untested Thai travellers. 

That's the point. Most of the PCR tests (e.g. Abbott's) offer 99% sensitivity (true positives) and only 1-2% false negatives if the swabs are taken properly.

If also Thai passengers were required to have a negative test, the infection risk on incoming flights would be much less than 1% if during the flight masks and distance between occupied seats were maintained.

At Frankfurt airport, Germany, they offer rapid PCR tests with a turnaround time of 4 hours. Take a (second) test just before boarding, receive the result by e-mail before you arrive in BKK. A second test would reduce false negatives to less than 0.01%, 1 in 10,000. If the first was positive, 2-3 days before boarding, you knew that you should not take the plane. If the second test, just before boarding, comes back positive while you are in the air, too bad for the passenger - upon arrival in BKK, you would be quarantined.

Do a third test at BKK airport, or after 3 days in your hotel. This will reduce the false negative rate to 1 in 1M. 

If 1 in 1M still looks risky to TH, then they should compare it with their road fatality rate.

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by maqui

[The Now Factor]

4 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Sweden's approach has been proven to have not worked.  Denmark is not doing well either.

One thing you can't dispute about Sweden's approach, they haven't committed economic hari kari.

[maqui]

23 minutes ago, The Now Factor said:

One thing you can't dispute about Sweden's approach, they haven't committed economic hari kari.

"The GDP fall, however, is larger than in Finland and Norway. It’s difficult to meaningfully evaluate the impact of different coronavirus strategies using this metric, because of the differences between the countries’ economic structures. For example, Sweden depends less on tourism, an industry hit particularly hard by the pandemic, than do Italy and Spain. Still, the lenient Swedish approach to the pandemic, involving fewer formal restrictions, likely did dampen the economic impact of the pandemic.

But the death toll here has been much higher than in our Nordic neighbors. As of Tuesday, the cumulative number of deaths from coronavirus infections per million people was 52 in Norway, 64 in Finland, and 118 in Denmark, according to Johns Hopkins University. In Sweden it was 581 — not that far below the United States with 673."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/20/sweden-economy-pandemic-strategy/

 

Sweden has a better health-care system than the US - most Western countries have. And Sweden's government has probably not actively spread propaganda against mask-wearing and distancing, like the US federal government did. 

In the end, the Swedish government, like all other governments, made a conscious or not-so-conscious choice between death rates deemed acceptable and a GDP decline deemed acceptable. Most countries tried to keep the death rate at 1/10 of Sweden's. And nonetheless, your Scandinavian neighbors saw a less severe GDP decline for much lower death rates. So the Scandinavian medal should probably go to Norway and Finland, which paid a lower mortality price for better economic results.

Whether the French and Spanish governments botched their Covid strategy and got both high mortality and lower GDP despite stricter measures - or whether they were more vulnerable than Sweden because of tourism - that's harder to determine. In the case of the US, it's relatively clear: an awesome failure of federal government, 1984 style: "war is peace. truth is fake news. sickness is health. we turned the corner"

Edited October 30, 2020 by maqui

[maqui]

3 hours ago, NightSky said:

Why not allow foreigners to go to their homes purchased in Thailand and initiate strict tracing rules for the full 14 days..

Remember the Egyptian soldier who strolled through a department store the day after he arrived, in last July, rather than staying at his hotel?

That´s why.

[KhaoNiaw]

4 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

You still do not get it. It is not about Thailand not having serious cases as you want to ascribe to, by saying that the Hospitals are not full and people are not dying.  The issue is about the not testing and finding the Asymptomatic cases or those that have what may seem like a low level cold, or flu or something else.  Folks do not go to the hospitals or clinics here unless they are really ill.

That's not true. A lot of Thais will go to a hospital or clinic for the most trivial symptoms that most people from western countries wouldn't even consider going in for. 

[maqui]

6 hours ago, OumarhindaOunsingha said:

Nonsense! Sweden has plenty of cases, but not deaths, Denmark has plenty of cases, but nearly no deaths. Why don't people understand these simple graphs??

You understand that deaths follow infections with a time lag of 3 - 5 weeks? Sweden's case rate has more than tripled just since mid-October and will double again within another 2 weeks. You will see the death curve rise after mid-November.

If the death curve does not rise some weeks after the infection rate has tripled, only 2 explanations would be possible:

1) Darwinian lottery: The most vulnerable patients were already removed from the lottery between March and June, when Sweden´s mortality rate was 8 - 10 times as high as in Finland or Norway. Good for the hardened younger Swedes who will now show to the virus that real vikings do not roll over and show their bellies to tiny germs.

2) New treatments: Swedish hospitals can now offer new treatments, like Trump's experimental drugs, to most of their future patients in November and December. Can they?

 

[ThailandRyan]

1 hour ago, AndrewMciver said:

A more pertinent question would perhaps by how on earth did it escape the full effects of the virus? 

How do you know that it did?, and please spare me the hospitals being overfull, and the bodies piling up semantics.  There have been plenty of deaths that exceed the normal average numbers, especially viral pneumonia.  Once again, people die in the village, no autopsy is performed, they are then cremated, never tested, so we will never know.  It is not a conspiracy theory, it is just plain old fact.  Even if there is Covid running around here, it is not as bad as the west and the European countries.  But to say it escaped is a misnomer unless you want to disregard the excess deaths and lack of testing.  Enjoy your beliefs and I will enjoy mine.

[maqui]

13 hours ago, GeneH said:

Thailand does indeed have covid19 in the country and Thailand is not doing nationwide testing so they can prove they're virus free.

Probably there are border-crossers that carry the virus from Myanmar or Cambodia into Thailand. But being illegal border-crossers, they will have limited contacts with the Thai population. Not many of them will start to work as Uber drivers in Bangkok within a week after they arrive. Probably not many as waiters or waitresses in a restaurant, either. They can become spreaders if they ride trains or buses without masks. After 10 days, they would no longer be contagious, but either immune; or, in 1% of all cases, dead, without being registered in a hospital which would remain inaccessible to them.

So the viral reproduction rate among the border-crossers probably is substantially below 1.0 because they have to practice social distancing for lack of a valid work permit. If lower than 1.0, they will not cause waves of infection among the Thai population, so they may continue to fly under the Covid radar. Whereas tourists would be in contact with a multitude of other tourists and Thais working the tourism sector: virus reproduction rate of 2.0 or higher. That happened in July in Spain, Florida and other vacation spots and led to renewed exponential growth.

TH does not need to prove that they are virus-free, except for propaganda reasons. They only need to keep the case load low enough that the health system is not overwhelmed, like in Italy in last March. That would be hard to hide from the public: 100,000 Thai nurses and doctors would not all keep their jaws shut while they are running out of PPE and ICU beds.

[maqui]

35 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Once again, people die in the village, no autopsy is performed, they are then cremated, never tested, so we will never know.  It is not a conspiracy theory, it is just plain old fact. 

Only in villages with a population of 100 or 200? Because an epidemic in a densely populated city with 8M inhabitants could hardly go unnoticed. That would be an epidemic more typical of the remote rain forests in New Guinea or the Congo.

Would the suppression of information be so perfect that, out of thousands of doctors and nurses in city hospitals and private clinics, not a single health worker could even mention a shortage of PPE, ICU beds and dead bodies piling up in hospital basements, either on Facebook, Twitter, TicToc or Line? Even if it were not Covid - an equally high caseload of pneumonia would also make the news.

If the government were able to keep a so perfect lid on unwelcome information, they could have done a better job to curb political protests. Hard to believe that a conspiracy works perfectly to suppress unwelcome public health information, but all other aspects of public life follow the usual Monthy Python playbook of ineffective bureaucracies.

 

[The Theory]

Yes, kill whatever is left from tourism. ???? Why don't you make it "no quarantine" and finish this tourism story once forever !!! ????????????

[Jeffr2]

9 hours ago, The Now Factor said:

One thing you can't dispute about Sweden's approach, they haven't committed economic hari kari.

Actually, their economy has done worse than their nearest neighbors.

[Truth Will Set You Free]

What people will do for the love of money......Open the door and lets get this second wave so the world will know Thailand claims to  the controllers of the virus. Once it starts up again. This so called protector of their people will really see their true colors. 
 

This will ensure the demonstrator fighting for change a 100% take over of this BS government. ????????????????

[tomauasia]

1 hour ago, Truth Will Set You Free said:

What people will do for the love of money......Open the door and lets get this second wave so the world will know Thailand claims to  the controllers of the virus. Once it starts up again. This so called protector of their people will really see their true colors. 
 

This will ensure the demonstrator fighting for change a 100% take over of this BS government. ????????????????

Second waive will only happen if Chinese enter. If passports are sructunized and tourists intelligent. Thailand can open to white when airports open or vaccine available..But Chinese no 

[nickmondo]

stick to 14 day quarantine, or no quarantine at all

10 days and then watching the tourists like Big Brother is just ridiculous

 

 

[Almer]

Im sure everybody is pleased with that inc the ASQ hotels.

People are going into quarantine and at a later stage going positive, Europe is seeing a second wave equal to the first, yet Los intend reducing the quarantine stage.

This must surely be a translation problem.