Thailand to launch nationwide Covid-19 vaccination in May

[laocowboy2]

59 minutes ago, Flying Saucage said:

 

Well, I think a country which is "rich" enough to  buy a fleet of useless submarines and which is even thinking about building a bridge over the Gulf of Thailand during the planets biggest economical crisis should be able and willing to effort a good vaccine for it's people as well. It's all a question of priorities only.

 

For the logistics issue with the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, it should not be as difficult to solve this as many believe. Keep in mind that Thailand is able to permanently ship hundred-thousands of tons of LNG over the Gulf of Thailand, and fires even power plants with LNG.  And, LNG has a temperature of -160°C. So, if the transport of LNG at -160°C is that easy and that common, and as all the necessary cooling technology  and infrastructure exists in the country, it should not be so difficult to keep goods of a much smaller volume cold for transport at -70°C only.

 

The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine needs a temperature of -70°C, which easily can be achieved and maintained by the use of dry ice (which has a temperature of -79°C) and Styrofoam boxes. Both dry ice and Styrofoam are easily available in Thailand. And as well all the necessary cooling technology.

 

And if there is an issue with dry ice, there is still liquid Nitrogen available in masses. Companies like Linde, Praxair or Air Liquide produce hundreds of tons every day in Thailand, and the price of liquid Nitrogen is only 50 Baht per litter. It's cheaper than beer, and it easily can be stored for days in Thermos cans. Liquid Nitrogen is a very common commodity in industry.

 

Thailand can definitely handle this issue of cooling of vaccines easily. Again, it's only a question of the priorities of those at the top.

 

 

One current problem is that the Pfizer vaccine currently ships in 975 dose packages and so it only suitable for hospital/vaccination center usage. Hopefully smaller versions will be coming before too long.  For Thailand and many other countries the real issue will be to ensure - and verify - that the vaccine has been maintained at below -70c THROUGHOUT THE SUPPLY CHAIN. The key word here is verify - otherwise who knows whether you are getting the real active vaccine or not?

[VBF]

8 minutes ago, laocowboy2 said:

The UK (Pfizer) vaccination program starts with care home workers and residents - if they can get to the hospital (otherwise they need to wait as the vaccine comes in 975 dose batches that cannot (to date) be safely subdivided for further transport) Then over 80s and I believe front line health workers ( those actively dealing with Covid-19 patients or likely to do so. Then over 75s and so on. At my age (68) probability is that I would not be called for a jab until mid to late March - if they have enough. Supply of the Pfizer vaccine is going to be an issue until H2 2021. If other vaccines are also on offer, then things may speed up.

I haven't read this whole thread so apologies if this has already been posted but this appears to be the order in the UK at least 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55045639

 

As I'm 65 we both appear to be in the fifth group of lucky recipients   @laocowboy so I guess I might get winter 2021-22 in Thailand if all goes to plan, but as you say, there may be alternatives down the line. 

[Trip Hop]

I don’t know why they are placing such reliance on any vaccine? One of the UK’s senior medical officers even admitted when questioned on live radio yesterday that there is no evidence to date to support that just by having the vaccine, it will stop you getting the virus and passing it to others? In other words, it will lessen the effects if caught but you could still be asymptomatic and transmit it to others? Furthermore that if any current vaccine has a chance of stopping transmission, it is the AZN one due to the way it works?

Therefore the only real way out of this at present is rapid mass testing and isolation, of which I believe Thailand has no plans?

[VBF]

5 minutes ago, Trip Hop said:

I don’t know why they are placing such reliance on any vaccine? One of the UK’s senior medical officers even admitted when questioned on live radio yesterday that there is no evidence to date to support that just by having the vaccine, it will stop you getting the virus and passing it to others? In other words, it will lessen the effects if caught but you could still be asymptomatic and transmit it to others? Furthermore that if any current vaccine has a chance of stopping transmission, it is the AZN one due to the way it works?

Therefore the only real way out of this at present is rapid mass testing and isolation, of which I believe Thailand has no plans?

Surely the whole point of having any vaccine is that even if you do get and pass on the virus, it won't harm you?

Therefore if enough people are vaccinated it doesn't matter if they pass it around between them - i.e. transmit it to another vaccinated individual

[Lacessit]

11 hours ago, bodga said:

Thai  free,  farang 100k  baht, on renewal of  visa........... bye  bye  Thailand Wife and 7  condos

Do you have a Ph.D in pessimism?

[Mak25]

6 hours ago, drvin said:

[...] Also, of course Thai citizens should get it first. Do you think your home country would allow a Thai visitor to step in line before a citizen. [...]

Yes, I think so that there won't be a differentiation or there should not be. In general, everybody can contract and eventually spread the virus, no matter what nationality. In my country, any nationality tests for free as well. But again, I am aware that Thailand thinks differently.

[Bkktodd]

18 hours ago, zzzzz said:

Makes sense to give it to health care workers, the old and sickly and children

where does that leave us farangs? Farang kids as well?  Will  we get a free vaccine according to our age group?
will we be able to buy it?
if we are not able to get it, will we be forced to leave?
 

Free?  You pay. Its the thai way

[MasterBaker]

Thailand population is roughly 70mln people, to control spread you need 75-80% population immunized. 13mln dozes will not make any difference. I am not an immunologist, just reading the news...

[sandyf]

5 hours ago, maddermax said:

So how do they define 'the elderly and vulnerable groups'? All retirees here in Thailand are over 50 anyway so what is the cut-off age? Will be interesting to see if I get vaccinated when I turn up at a public hospital with my ID card showing me to be 75 years old!

Certainly interesting times ahead, and it may well turn out to be a postcode lottery.

One has to assume it will be implemented in much the same way as the current free flu vaccinations, they are limited to the over 60's and diabetics. Vaccination is carried out at government hospitals and you must be resident in the hospital area and be registered with the hospital.

I have been along twice for the free flu jab, first time there wasn't a problem but not so the second time. The woman in charge came along the queue checking ID and hospital cards kicking out those not complying with the criteria. When she saw me she just said no falang. My wife wasn't in the queue but my sister in law called her over and asked what was the problem. The woman said people had to be registered with the hospital, my wife said I was and took my cards and showed them, the woman looked puzzled but said again, no foreigner, Thai only. The body language implied it was a personal decision rather than policy, but not much you can say as she was government official rather than hospital staff.

That was Chonburi hospital, but I have never used that hospital other than the flu jabs. I use Bang Saen and hoping my doctor there will make the vaccine available. The fact that I live outside the hospital area will probably mean having to pay for it but prices there are quite reasonable.

 

[Yme]

19 hours ago, n00dle said:

 

Gee, I wonder why they would focus on providing the free vaccine to thai citizens. Seems downright unreasonable to me .

 

Just how entitled are you?

And of course other countries will also rightly refuse the jab to their none citizens too, such as foreign students, migrant workers, foreign workers, retirees, etc.

 

[sandyf]

23 minutes ago, MasterBaker said:

Thailand population is roughly 70mln people, to control spread you need 75-80% population immunized. 13mln dozes will not make any difference. I am not an immunologist, just reading the news...

Of course it will make a difference, go a long way towards the safety of the vulnerable.

When it comes to control, it is the countries where people are arriving from that need the vaccination more than the Thais. It is them that need to control spread.

Closed borders has worked fairly well so far so we can only hope not opened prematurely.

[ourmanflint]

18 hours ago, onthedarkside said:

After Admitting Mistake, AstraZeneca Faces Difficult Questions About Its Vaccine

Some trial participants only got a partial dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Experts said the company’s spotty disclosures have eroded confidence.

...

Officials in the United States have noted that the results were not clear. It was the head of the flagship federal vaccine initiative — not the company — who first disclosed that the vaccine’s most promising results did not reflect data from older people.

 

The upshot, the experts said, is that the odds of regulators in the United States and elsewhere quickly authorizing the emergency use of the AstraZeneca vaccine are declining, an unexpected setback in the global campaign to corral the devastating pandemic.

 

“I think that they have really damaged confidence in their whole development program,” said Geoffrey Porges, an analyst for the investment bank SVB Leerink.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

 

Scaremongering. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this vaccine, the only problems seem to be surrounding it's efficacy, but even at it's lower limit of 60% it is easily good enough to do the job it has to do

[Expat Tom]

FAKE NEWS???

[ourmanflint]

3 hours ago, markus said:

Why they take the AstraZenica vaccine?

As I read it has "only" 70% success rate.

The Moderna and the BioNTech vaccine has over 95%.

 

Someone know more? 

Vaccines only need a 60-70% success rate to stop spread of infection almost completely

[Trip Hop]

1 hour ago, VBF said:

Surely the whole point of having any vaccine is that even if you do get and pass on the virus, it won't harm you?

Therefore if enough people are vaccinated it doesn't matter if they pass it around between them - i.e. transmit it to another vaccinated individual

In an ideal world yes but you are not taking into account just how much of a mammoth task this is and how long it will take?  I think the UK is estimating at least 2 years to get everyone vaccinated and that is if everyone is willing to take the vaccine?  At present due to the way that any vaccine has had to be rushed through, not enough is known as to how long the vaccine will remain effective and as to whether the virus will mutate further making the vaccine obselete?  Therefore there has to be an effective and rapid way of testing available free to all to run parallel with any vaccine programme.  Whilst I do not believe that the Thai government figures are realistic due to their lack of testing, for some reason the virus does not seem to be affecting people in Asia as much as it is elsewhere in the world?  Therefore I believe that if they want to open up the tourist economy, they should be placing just as much emphasis on a quick, cheap and effective testing regime available to all in order to contain any possible outbreaks?

Edited December 4, 2020 by Trip Hop

[DogNo1]

It doesn't make medical sense to exclude any class of residents from vaccination.  There is some question about whether the vaccines confer immunity but they seem to reliably prevent infected people from developing severe symptoms.  It is worth getting vaccinated for that reason alone.  It is entirely possible that only Thai citizens will be offered free vaccinations.  Vaccinations will probably be a big money maker for private hospitals.  This is a country where even elderly foreigners can not get the reduced fares charged to elderly Thais.

[Jalasko]

A programme to monitor any adverse side effects will run from July until January 2022.

 

 

Hmmm more ladyboys on the way

[johng]

6 minutes ago, DogNo1 said:

but they seem to reliably prevent infected people from developing severe symptoms.

Most people infected don't develop severe symptoms anyway and wouldn't even know they where infected without a test.

[barney42bb]

And you may get it before then,,,, If you grant some travel concessions to UK.

 

Vaccines are in the large group of "Difficult Things".... That you can't copy.

[sevenhills]

21 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

mate, even soi dogs are ahead of us in the queue 

 

That's exactly how I want it, but the sheep first.

[sevenhills]

37 minutes ago, Jalasko said:

A programme to monitor any adverse side effects will run from July until January 2022.

 

 

Hmmm more ladyboys on the way

And there will be plenty of them, World wide.

[vandeventer]

So what would be the degree of protection by using the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine? Would it be more than 90% like some good vaccines? And why in May? That's a long way off. And will there be a choice of vaccines? After all most of us will be paying for them.

 

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, vandeventer said:

So what would be the degree of protection by using the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine? Would it be more than 90% like some good vaccines? And why in May? That's a long way off. And will there be a choice of vaccines? After all most of us will be paying for them.

 

Apparently some participants in the trials were accidentally given a half dose as the first dose out of two, which boosted the efficacy from 60% to 90%. Apparently that regime is now being tested for confirmation on a larger sample size.

The AZ/Oxford vaccine is a far more practical solution for countries who don't have the storage infrastructure for the more effective vaccines.

[Time to grow]

I am thankful that so many are lining up to be guinea pigs for these experimental treatments. Foolish as I believe it to be, the more participants in the experiment, the more data. Currently, there are no peer reviewed studies on the health, safety, or even efficacy for any of theses new vaccines. Those that have trusted the sales brochures from drug makers that have lists of fraud convictions as long as my arm are clearly not subscribers to science. Those that attempt to mandate vaccination are nothing short of fascist's. I thought we had learned these lessons as a species long ago but apparently I was wrong. Without science, we are nothing more than spoiled chimps and we will not survive as a species. The fascist's among us will make that short time period unpleasant.

[thairookie]

6 hours ago, Techno Viking said:

 

 

Given they are not buying enough to cover the Thai population to begin with I doubt any government purchased doses will be made available to the stinky farangs....they/we/you/me will be at the mercy of privately purchased doses at the private hospitals and clinics.

Since the Thais are COVID-free, they should start vaccinating the stinky farangs first.  If the farangs are clear, then the Thais have nothing to worry.

[Techno Viking]

9 minutes ago, thairookie said:

Since the Thais are COVID-free, they should start vaccinating the stinky farangs first.  If the farangs are clear, then the Thais have nothing to worry.

 

The Thai's that have been sneaking over land borders are testing positive, covid is out there in the community.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Techno Viking

[Autonuaq]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/mit-machine-learning-models-find-gaps-in-coverage-by-moderna-pfizer-other-warp-speed-covid-19-vaccines/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=29334542088402487580381695327613&mid=13188182&cid=2257218158

 

MIT machine learning models find gaps in coverage by Moderna, Pfizer, other Warp Speed COVID-19 vaccines

 

Vaccine makers need to take into account genetic diversity explicitly in clinical trials or risk missing coverage for some individuals, says MIT scientists.

 

Vaccines to block COVID-19 that are in development by Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and others, and that are currently in Phase III clinical trials, may not do as well covering people of Black or Asian genetic ancestry as they do for white people, a study released Wednesday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology indicated.

[Time to grow]

2 minutes ago, Autonuaq said:

MIT machine learning models find gaps in coverage by Moderna, Pfizer, other Warp Speed COVID-19 vaccines

 

It goes to show, from just one perspective, how little we know about these new mRNA vaccines.

[ThailandRyan]

1 minute ago, Time to grow said:

 

It goes to show, from just one perspective, how little we know about these new mRNA vaccines.

Yet everyone is putting their eggs into one basket really fast instead of seeing how the trials truly turn out.  To fast, to furious, and all for the money.

[Time to grow]

2 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Yet everyone is putting their eggs into one basket really fast

 

It's not surprising to me that the politicians are all endorsing the vaccines, they make a career out of lying. Or that the masses are buying the hype, but the scientific health and medical professionals are trained and paid to know better. It strikes me as criminally negligent, aka Malpractice on a grand scale. There are simply too many unanswered questions regarding this new experimental technology (mRNA) that require additional analysis.