Thailand reports 198 new coronavirus cases, 1 death

[rooster59]

Thailand reports 198 new coronavirus cases, 1 death

By Reuters Staff

 

 

BANGKOK, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Thailand on Saturday reported 198 new coronavirus cases, bringing its total number of infections to 13,302 since the outbreak began last year.

 

The new cases included 18 imported cases and one additional death, taking the total number of coronavirus-related fatalities to 72, a COVID-19 taskforce said.

 

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-23

 

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[AlfHuy]

Headline:

 

Massive drop, compared to yesterday.

[FarFlungFalang]

4 minutes ago, AlfHuy said:

Headline:

 

Massive drop, compared to yesterday.

Pipped at the post so to speak!It's like a rollercoaster.

Edited January 23, 2021 by FarFlungFalang

[ThailandRyan]

34 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

Pipped at the post so to speak!It's like a rollercoaster.

Based on modeling and the R# it should not be going up and down roller coaster wise, it unfortunately has to do with the numbers tested and when they were tested as far as tracking and tracing and who knows who is going to a hospital with symptoms.  Trying to find out where in Bangkok they are doing any type of random testing or such with the new infection at Government House, and the newest DJ.

 

R refers to the “effective reproduction number” and, basically put, it’s a way of measuring an infectious disease’s capacity to spread. The R number signifies the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus to.

Edited January 23, 2021 by ThailandRyan

[welshguy]

The biggest death in Thailand since covid? The death of Tourism.

[rabas]

53 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Based on modeling and the R# it should not be going up and down roller coaster wise, it unfortunately has to do with the numbers tested and when they were tested as far as tracking and tracing and who knows who is going to a hospital with symptoms.  Trying to find out where in Bangkok they are doing any type of random testing or such with the new infection at Government House, and the newest DJ.

 

R refers to the “effective reproduction number” and, basically put, it’s a way of measuring an infectious disease’s capacity to spread. The R number signifies the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus to.

The roller-coaster is due to practical testing,  timing, reporting, and accounting issues and happens in all countries even worse in some, see France.

 

It also happens because people are not exposed or get sick at scheduled times.

 

R0 is a conceptual number useful mostly for broad estimates (modelling) and discussion. It does not describe the actual evolution of real cases or a real pandemic.  Factors that determine R0 also change a lot from location to location, day to day, etc. Even pollution can change it, or a sports event.

[Peter Denis]

Daniel Boorstin once wrote > The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge

I was reminded of that quote when reading the News-article to this thread.

The information provided (198 new cases, 1 death) creates the illusion that 'something' can be deducted from those data.

But unfortunately, the contextual information needed to make sense of those numbers is missing.

- Were these 'positives' the result of random testing or the testing of specific targeted groups (and if so which groups)

- How many of those that tested positive, were asymptomatic or had symptoms that could be covid-related

- Will those that tested positive be 'followed up' to determine whether it was a false positive, the result of earlier unnoticed infection or a pre-symptomatic result (symptoms developing later).  And of those that turn out to develop symptoms later-on, where these symptoms so severe that they necessitated hospitalization.

>> Without insight in those aspects, 198 cases is just a meaningless number triggering speculation.

Likewise the 'daily update' of how many cases were found, doesn't make sense in the absence of information on the context addressed higher.

Same goes for the useless cry for 'more testing', which will only lead to finding 'more positives', if there is no clear testing and follow-up strategy. 

Edited January 23, 2021 by Peter Denis

[Guderian]

180 local cases (18 were found in arrivals from overseas) of which 163 were in Samut Sakhon  and 9 in Bangkok. I haven't seen a breakdown of those 9 cases, but I'd guess, like most other days, that they're people who've had contact with Samut Sakhon. So outside the Samut Sakhon cluster (including its influence in Bangkok) there were just 8 local cases in over 60 million people. Well done, Thailand, sort out Samut Sakhon and you can declare victory once again.

[cyril sneer]

2 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

Based on modeling and the R# it should not be going up and down roller coaster wise, it unfortunately has to do with the numbers tested and when they were tested as far as tracking and tracing and who knows who is going to a hospital with symptoms.  Trying to find out where in Bangkok they are doing any type of random testing or such with the new infection at Government House, and the newest DJ.

 

R refers to the “effective reproduction number” and, basically put, it’s a way of measuring an infectious disease’s capacity to spread. The R number signifies the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus to.

intelligent post, Ryan..

 

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/covid-19-what-is-the-r-number/

 

 

[hotchilli]

16 hours ago, AlfHuy said:

Headline:

 

Massive drop, compared to yesterday.

So testing in certain areas has found the main bunch, however those who are walking around infected and untested are spreading the love, yet to be found.

[ThailandRyan]

14 hours ago, Guderian said:

180 local cases (18 were found in arrivals from overseas) of which 163 were in Samut Sakhon  and 9 in Bangkok. I haven't seen a breakdown of those 9 cases, but I'd guess, like most other days, that they're people who've had contact with Samut Sakhon. So outside the Samut Sakhon cluster (including its influence in Bangkok) there were just 8 local cases in over 60 million people. Well done, Thailand, sort out Samut Sakhon and you can declare victory once again.

So they have it so well under control that new cases are popping up at places like Icon Siam, in Government house with media, and within the television and radio industry, just silently and stealthily staying ahead of all because they are only concentrating the massive testing in one location Samut Sakhon.  Do I have that right?  Or did I miss the entire post you wrote as being filled with sarcasm or wanting to congratulate the Government on doing an excellent job.  Not comparing this to anywhere else in the world just here in Thailand and about this OP.  Again, they are selectively covering cases, not putting much out into the media and trying to keep things quiet.  We just received notification from the system that Icon Siam was closing shops and restaurants for 3 days because 2 employees of a clothing shop had contracted the virus, and were being informed that we may be contacted based upon our proximity in the Mall on the days they suspect the infection occurred.  

Edited January 23, 2021 by ThailandRyan

[Oldie]

I think these Covid numbers don't say much. They only find people that are so sick that they go to a doctor AND the doctor reports them as Covid case. And the others are from some random tests or from the quarantine locations for arrived people. All this has nothing to do with the total Covid cases in Thailand. 

[morrobay]

17 hours ago, rabas said:

Ye

 

R0 is a conceptual number useful mostly for broad estimates (modelling) and discussion. It does not describe the actual evolution of real cases or a real pandemic.  Factors that determine R0 also change a lot from location to location, day to day, etc. Even pollution can change it, or a sports event.

Yes R0 is a very flexible term, but is useful with just the math sans the rabbit hole of epidemic variables: The simplest is the compound interest formula. Final inf. = Initial inf.(R0)^n The n are infection periods. (second ref. by Thailand Ryan. According to latest research (Harvard Medical School) an infected person is most infectious in a four day period following infection. So in 28 days there are about 7 infectious periods. Then with 8 initial infected people and R0 of 1.5 the final #infected: 8(R0)^7=136.    Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number  scroll to definition in specific cases . Then to estimation methods. R0= e^Kt

 

[FarFlungFalang]

2 hours ago, Oldie said:

They only find people that are so sick that they go to a doctor AND the doctor reports them as Covid case.

This doesn't explain their reports of 80% asymptomatic cases.

[ThailandRyan]

15 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

This doesn't explain their reports of 80% asymptomatic cases.

Quote his whole post and don't cherry pick a sentence to suit your agenda.

 

3 hours ago, Oldie said:

I think these Covid numbers don't say much. They only find people that are so sick that they go to a doctor AND the doctor reports them as Covid case. And the others are from some random tests or from the quarantine locations for arrived people. All this has nothing to do with the total Covid cases in Thailand. 

He is obviously talking about the massive random testing in Samut Sakhon, as well as the quarantine.  He is talking about tests not just for those sick, but also asymptomatic cases who can also shed the virus and pass it along.  

[FarFlungFalang]

2 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

Quote his whole post and don't cherry pick a sentence to suit your agenda.

 

He is obviously talking about the massive random testing in Samut Sakhon, as well as the quarantine.  He is talking about tests not just for those sick, but also asymptomatic cases who can also shed the virus and pass it along.  

What agenda is that?

 

3 hours ago, Oldie said:

And the others are from some random tests or from the quarantine locations for arrived people.

He doesn't mention "massive random testing" but rather suggests "some random tests".He makes no mention of asymptomatic cases.

"He is talking about tests not just for those sick," From the following quote suggests otherwise to me.

3 hours ago, Oldie said:

They only find people that are so sick that they go to a doctor AND the doctor reports them as Covid case.

The reason I only quoted this sentence because it it only this sentence to which I disagree. 

[ThailandRyan]

2 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

What agenda is that?

 

He doesn't mention "massive random testing" but rather suggests "some random tests".He makes no mention of asymptomatic cases.

"He is talking about tests not just for those sick," From the following quote suggests otherwise to me.

The reason I only quoted this sentence because it it only this sentence to which I disagree. 

Gotcha, now I understand.  I read it differently then you did and our views on how it is written obviously differ, and that is acceptable.  Thanks for clarifying what you truly meant  It is unfortunately hard to read into things sometimes, and I apologize if I came of as a hard a..

[Mike E]

I'm regularly suprised at the number of people who test positive while in quarantine.  First off, how many people are actually in ASQ?  Secondly, all those people in ASQ were tested negative within 72 hours of leaving the country they were in.  Thirdly, people in ASQ get tested twice, not daily, so even if there are say 1000 people in ASQ at any given time, only maybe 150 get tested on a daily basis.   When you get 12 people testing positive in ASQ on nearly a daily basis, that would be like 10% of everyone in ASQ being positive.  (I may be completely wrong on those numbers as I have no idea how many people are in ASQ).

 

The numbers just don't seem to make sense to me.  People in ASQ should be some of the least effected people I would think. 

[Kiujunn]

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

I'm regularly suprised at the number of people who test positive while in quarantine.  First off, how many people are actually in ASQ?  Secondly, all those people in ASQ were tested negative within 72 hours of leaving the country they were in.  Thirdly, people in ASQ get tested twice, not daily, so even if there are say 1000 people in ASQ at any given time, only maybe 150 get tested on a daily basis.   When you get 12 people testing positive in ASQ on nearly a daily basis, that would be like 10% of everyone in ASQ being positive.  (I may be completely wrong on those numbers as I have no idea how many people are in ASQ).

 

The numbers just don't seem to make sense to me.  People in ASQ should be some of the least effected people I would think. 

Over 120 ASQ hotels in Bangkok alone. Way more than 1000 inmates, obviously. 

Plus, you have to add people in ordinary state quarantine. 

 

Plus, there is a selection bias: Thais who come home to Thailand now,  often come from badly affected places like LA, they fear to get sick and they fear private health costs in eg US. Many Thais come home once they feel sick or had contact with infected persons. 

Similar for the farang who come. Quite are few are covid refugees who want to sit out terrible situations at home in a safe place. Most choose connecting flights, so the infection risk on the flight is not negligible.

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Kiujunn

[FarFlungFalang]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

Gotcha, now I understand.  I read it differently then you did and our views on how it is written obviously differ, and that is acceptable.  Thanks for clarifying what you truly meant  It is unfortunately hard to read into things sometimes, and I apologize if I came of as a hard a..

Haha no worries I was going to say "thems fightin' words".Yes posting is like walking a mine field with a Thai made mine detector!

[rabas]

55 minutes ago, Mike E said:

I'm regularly suprised at the number of people who test positive while in quarantine.  First off, how many people are actually in ASQ?  Secondly, all those people in ASQ were tested negative within 72 hours of leaving the country they were in.  Thirdly, people in ASQ get tested twice, not daily, so even if there are say 1000 people in ASQ at any given time, only maybe 150 get tested on a daily basis.   When you get 12 people testing positive in ASQ on nearly a daily basis, that would be like 10% of everyone in ASQ being positive.  (I may be completely wrong on those numbers as I have no idea how many people are in ASQ).

 

The numbers just don't seem to make sense to me.  People in ASQ should be some of the least effected people I would think. 

The other factor in addition to Kuijunn's post is that PCR testing 72 hours before a flight does not prevent infected people boarding planes because there is a ~3 day window between initial infection and when PCR can detect the virus. These tests are only meant to reduce the number of infected travellers. ASQ does the work of stopping them.

 

[Mike E]

More than 1000 obviously?  Why Obviously?  I don't think the number of ASQ hotels is necessarily a good indicator of how many people are actually IN them.  But maybe.  I haven't seen any numbers that tell how many people are actually traveling to Thailand right now.   If someone has symtoms, (many Thais come home once they feel sick), they are not allowed to fly.  I think the infection risk on flights actually IS fairly negligible.  Everyone is tested before flight, everyone has to wear a mask, flights are generally not very full so quite a bit of social distancing, airlines have instituted pretty strict cleaning and air circulation standards.

 

[polpott]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

Quote his whole post and don't cherry pick a sentence to suit your agenda.

 

He is obviously talking about the massive random testing in Samut Sakhon, as well as the quarantine.  He is talking about tests not just for those sick, but also asymptomatic cases who can also shed the virus and pass it along.  

Chonburi is also undertaking random, targeted testing of migrants, people who come into contact with large numbers of local people on a daily basis and those in areas where there have been spikes. Suggesting that Thailand isn't testing is anti Thai scaremongering. Also doing better than many Western countries at tracking and tracing. I believe the figures just as much, if not more, than a number of Western countries.

[FarFlungFalang]

4 hours ago, Oldie said:

I think these Covid numbers don't say much. They only find people that are so sick that they go to a doctor AND the doctor reports them as Covid case. And the others are from some random tests or from the quarantine locations for arrived people. All this has nothing to do with the total Covid cases in Thailand. 

Just to clarify further (which I probably should have done in my initial reply) I actually agree with the sentiment of your post that the Thai numbers don't reflect the true numbers of infection nor are they even trying to it would appear.They have said from early on in the pandemic they are not interested in mass testing stating that it's not beneficial to reducing numbers which is counter intuitive because if you don't know where the infections are occurring and how widespread they are makes taking preventative measures seeming less effective.So perhaps I should have said the sentence I quoted is "at odds" with reports that 80%,which is also at odds with most other countries reports, so I may have stepped on one of the aforementioned landmines,so I apologise for the confusion (and sadness) I have caused.

[polpott]

1 minute ago, FarFlungFalang said:

Just to clarify further (which I probably should have done in my initial reply) I actually agree with the sentiment of your post that the Thai numbers don't reflect the true numbers of infection nor are they even trying to it would appear.They have said from early on in the pandemic they are not interested in mass testing stating that it's not beneficial to reducing numbers which is counter intuitive because if you don't know where the infections are occurring and how widespread they are makes taking preventative measures seeming less effective.So perhaps I should have said the sentence I quoted is "at odds" with reports that 80%,which is also at odds with most other countries reports, so I may have stepped on one of the aforementioned landmines,so I apologise for the confusion (and sadness) I have caused.

Perhaps you could apologise for the baseless anti Thai scaremongering?

[Kiujunn]

30 minutes ago, Mike E said:

More than 1000 obviously?  Why Obviously?  I don't think the number of ASQ hotels is necessarily a good indicator of how many people are actually IN them.  But maybe.  I haven't seen any numbers that tell how many people are actually traveling to Thailand right now.   If someone has symtoms, (many Thais come home once they feel sick), they are not allowed to fly.  I think the infection risk on flights actually IS fairly negligible.  Everyone is tested before flight, everyone has to wear a mask, flights are generally not very full so quite a bit of social distancing, airlines have instituted pretty strict cleaning and air circulation standards.

 

A lot more than 8 inmates per hotel.

BTW the first 3 months that foreigners were allowed back into Thailand they published a number of 40000. That would be 6500 per every 15-day period. Since then,  numbers have gone up considerably. 

 

If someone has symtoms, and knows that medical treatment in eg LA will mean bankruptcy, he or she will conceal the symptoms with OTC meds and just fly. Of course, who does this is an irresponsible <deleted>.

 

Risk in airplane is disputed, probably not high. 

Pre-flight tests in some countries are routinely faked, eg Indonesia (that's why Taiwan resorted to ban all arrivals from workers from Indonesia).

Some flights are packed, even many flights are half-empty.

Mask-wearing on flights is not enforced and not enforceable, look at the infected NZ EVA-pilot who refused to wear a mask and infected his copilots. They begged him to wear a mask. 

Airlines nowadays have a lot of money to institute "pretty strict cleaning and air circulation standards", they would never save on cleaning...

Risk at crowded ME airports is certainly not low. Read the recent story of the Emirates flight to NZ (or was it OZ?) that infected several people and look where they came from: all over the globe.

Risk in van from Suvannabhumi to ASQ? One regular TVF poster wrote,  that in his van he was transported together with a Thai arrival (who may not have been tested).

 

And don't forget what Rabas wrote.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Kiujunn

[rabas]

37 minutes ago, Mike E said:

More than 1000 obviously?  Why Obviously?  I don't think the number of ASQ hotels is necessarily a good indicator of how many people are actually IN them.  But maybe.  I haven't seen any numbers that tell how many people are actually traveling to Thailand right now.   If someone has symtoms, (many Thais come home once they feel sick), they are not allowed to fly.  I think the infection risk on flights actually IS fairly negligible.  Everyone is tested before flight, everyone has to wear a mask, flights are generally not very full so quite a bit of social distancing, airlines have instituted pretty strict cleaning and air circulation standards.

Thailand has lots of detailed data but it's all in Thai scattered over many organizations. From yesterday's report below, a total number of 81676 travellers have been quarantined until today. 

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/file/situation/situation-no386-230164.pdf

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by rabas

[Peter Denis]

11 minutes ago, polpott said:

... I believe the figures just as much, if not more, than a number of Western countries.

Both the Thai and Western case-number figures when presented in isolation, are meaningless.  Without the necessary background-info (random or targeted testing, how many tested, follow-up of positives, trends in all of these, etc.) they only open the door for wide speculation.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Peter Denis

[polpott]

Just now, Peter Denis said:

Both the Thai and Western case-number figures are meaningless.  Without the necessary background-info (random or targeted testing, how many tested, follow-up of positives, trends in all of these, etc.) they only open the door for wide speculation.

I get that information daily from local news sources in Chonburi/Pattaya.

[Mike E]

If your numbers of how many people are entering are accurate, it makes a little more sense.  I haven't seen any reports of how many so it's hard to tell.  I only could tell based on my flight in which was maybe 20% full.  If that.