Thailand records its first case of South African strain of COVID-19

[webfact]

Thailand records its first case of South African strain of COVID-19

 

 

A Thai gem trader has been found to be infected with the South African strain of COVID-19, the first such case in Thailand, said Dr. Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Disease Control Department, on Sunday.

 

He disclosed that the 41-year old worked in Tanzania for about two months and, on January 29th, he travelled to Ethiopia before flying back to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi international airport and entering state quarantine.

 

On February 3rd, he tested positive for COVID-19 and, because he had travelled to an African country before returning to Thailand, more tests were conducted and it was determined that he was infected with the South African variant of the virus.

 

Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thailand-records-its-first-case-of-south-african-strain-of-covid-19/

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2021-02-15

 

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[Oliver Holzerfilled]

He didn't catch it in Tanzania.  We know this because Tanzania, along with Thailand's neighbors Lao and Cambodia, have no deaths and very few cases of Covid.

 

In the event anyone tries to claim Tanzania or Lao or Cambodia are fudging their covid numbers don't bother.  Just as in previous months when some accused Thailand of unrecorded covid cases, the "if Thailand has more covid cases then why aren't the hospitals full and why aren't there dead bodies in the streets" crowd quickly shouted them down.  Don't temp the same fate from this crowd since there are also no full hospitals or bodies in the streets in Tanzania, Cambodia or Lao, so their covid numbers must be correct.

 

Therefore he caught it in Ethiopia. 

[Albert Zweistein]

1 hour ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

He didn't catch it in Tanzania.  We know this because Tanzania, along with Thailand's neighbors Lao and Cambodia, have no deaths and very few cases of Covid.

 

In the event anyone tries to claim Tanzania or Lao or Cambodia are fudging their covid numbers don't bother.  Just as in previous months when some accused Thailand of unrecorded covid cases, the "if Thailand has more covid cases then why aren't the hospitals full and why aren't there dead bodies in the streets" crowd quickly shouted them down.  Don't temp the same fate from this crowd since there are also no full hospitals or bodies in the streets in Tanzania, Cambodia or Lao, so their covid numbers must be correct.

 

Therefore he caught it in Ethiopia. 

Makes sense Oliver.

[Fex Bluse]

I just love how nobody is able to call the virus the China virus but everyone is so eager to attribute the strains to specific countries. 

 

I'm calling the China Virus. 

[sammieuk1]

The normal BS variant is the dominant strain here imposters are not welcome ????

[Jeffr2]

Congrats to Thailand for catching this case. They're doing a great job here. Sad some like to bash what they are doing. And sad some post misinformation. That doesn't help anything.

[Ian C HH]

3 hours ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

He didn't catch it in Tanzania.  We know this because Tanzania, along with Thailand's neighbors Lao and Cambodia, have no deaths and very few cases of Covid.

 

In the event anyone tries to claim Tanzania or Lao or Cambodia are fudging their covid numbers don't bother.  Just as in previous months when some accused Thailand of unrecorded covid cases, the "if Thailand has more covid cases then why aren't the hospitals full and why aren't there dead bodies in the streets" crowd quickly shouted them down.  Don't temp the same fate from this crowd since there are also no full hospitals or bodies in the streets in Tanzania, Cambodia or Lao, so their covid numbers must be correct.

 

Therefore he caught it in Ethiopia. 

So what IS the answer to the lack of deaths and empty hospitals IYHO? 
A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

[ThailandRyan]

The bigger question currently is, the new clusters in Bangkok and now Pathum Thani, which variant of Covid are they, and what does the genome testing show.

[Phaser]

And this is the strain the AstraZeneca vaccine that Thailand has bet the farm on is not effective against / but the two established vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are.... 

[Aussie999]

3 hours ago, Albert Zweistein said:

Makes sense Oliver.

Hate to disappoint you, but up Khon Kaen, and Maha Sarakham, way, the locals are saying covid is rampant, they are terrified.

[Aussie999]

52 minutes ago, Ian C HH said:

So what IS the answer to the lack of deaths and empty hospitals IYHO? 
A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

Maybe, just maybe, we need to see to stats on pneumonia, it seems to be an epidemic, is some provinces.

[multatuli]

21 minutes ago, Phaser said:

And this is the strain the AstraZeneca vaccine that Thailand has bet the farm on is not effective against / but the two established vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are.... 

Several European countries also don't use it with +65 aged: it was never tested for effectiveness in that age group.

[SwampyThai]

41 minutes ago, Falcon said:

So, in your analogy of calling this virus the China virus, do you also call HIV the American virus? After all, hiv/aids was first found in San Francisco right?

Nope not correct, HIV crossed from chimps to humans in the 1920s in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo

[mtls2005]

1 hour ago, Ian C HH said:

So what IS the answer to the lack of deaths and empty hospitals IYHO? 
A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

 

 

About 400,000 people die anually here in recent years. Only about 150,000 die in hospitals.

 

This has been a thing recently what with the decreasing birth-rate.

 

Have you heard (first-hand) of anyone dying? 

 

That said, the MoPH has ~ 1 million village health volunteers so they surely know what's happening at the local levels.

 

I think the death rate is up ~ 1.5% since 2020. This not attributale to COVID, but rather salt, sugar, cooking oil, tobacco and alcohol. Shocking disparity between male and female life expectancy.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by mtls2005

[SwampyThai]

1 hour ago, Ian C HH said:

So what IS the answer to the lack of deaths and empty hospitals IYHO? 
A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

We live in a small farming village, 3 deaths due to turbucloses in the last 4 weeks ????????The temple has been rather busy recently.

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

He didn't catch it in Tanzania.  We know this because Tanzania, along with Thailand's neighbors Lao and Cambodia, have no deaths and very few cases of Covid.

 

In the event anyone tries to claim Tanzania or Lao or Cambodia are fudging their covid numbers don't bother.  Just as in previous months when some accused Thailand of unrecorded covid cases, the "if Thailand has more covid cases then why aren't the hospitals full and why aren't there dead bodies in the streets" crowd quickly shouted them down.  Don't temp the same fate from this crowd since there are also no full hospitals or bodies in the streets in Tanzania, Cambodia or Lao, so their covid numbers must be correct.

 

Therefore he caught it in Ethiopia. 

Or somewhere in-between?

[swbaggies]

56 minutes ago, Falcon said:

So, in your analogy of calling this virus the China virus, do you also call HIV the American virus? After all, hiv/aids was first found in San Francisco right?

Was it not found in Cameroon first or other countries depending upon which strain your define as the first HIV case?

[tandor]

1 hour ago, Ian C HH said:

So what IS the answer to the lack of deaths and empty hospitals IYHO? 
A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

..it is believed by the many Health professional that the Cause of Death on the Death Certificate was declared, natural causes, upper respiratory disease, lung infection, etc. etc. without naming Covid-19 as the cause of death, because the Medical Practitioner certifying the Cause of Death does not request a full blood profile to determine whether Covid-19 was the actual cause. The result would take weeks as the specimen would need complicated virology analysis involving identification, RNA sequencing, Microbiology, further tissue and organ sampling. So, the bottom line is the Doctor avoids getting too involved by being specific. The doctor generalises in those cases where a person has not been in ICU or on a ventilator. A lot of these patients die many months later due to complications which are not explored in such a situation. The result is, the true numbers of deaths are not true!

[HashBrownHarry]

33 minutes ago, Aussie999 said:

Hate to disappoint you, but up Khon Kaen, and Maha Sarakham, way, the locals are saying covid is rampant, they are terrified.

What is their proof of this claim?

 

A lot of the rural Thai's are scared of their own shadow when it's something they know little of.

 

I'm sure we'd have heard about it, should it be 'rampant'.

[NorthernRyland]

1 hour ago, Ian C HH said:

A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

The media has found isolated instances of full hospitals and reported this in dramatic fashion and now the general population thinks all hospitals are at 100% capacity. Thailands public hospitals are too chaotic to notice such a small increase as 10-20 people, even though that's what most hospitals experienced even in badly affected countries like US and UK.

 

Also, some populations are genetically susceptible to various diseases. It's entirely possible Thais (and other Asians also) are mostly immune to the virus.

[ThailandRyan]

15 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Or somewhere in-between?

Like on the aeroplane 

[MJCM]

1 hour ago, Falcon said:

So, in your analogy of calling this virus the China virus, do you also call HIV the American virus? After all, hiv/aids was first found in San Francisco right?

 

You should read this

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS

 

Quote

 

AIDS is caused by a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which originated in non-human primates in Central and West Africa. While various sub-groups of the virus acquired human infectivity at different times, the global pandemic had its origins in the emergence of one specific strain – HIV-1 subgroup M – in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the 1920s.^[1]

There are two (2) types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent, easily transmitted and is the cause of the vast majority of HIV infections globally.^[2] The pandemic strain of HIV-1 is closely related to a virus found in chimpanzees of the subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes, which live in the forests of the Central African nations of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo (or Congo-Brazzaville), and Central African Republic. HIV-2 is less transmittable and is largely confined to West Africa, along with its closest relative, a virus of the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys atys), an Old World monkey inhabiting southern Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and western Ivory Coast.^[2][3]

 

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

1 hour ago, Falcon said:

So, in your analogy of calling this virus the China virus, do you also call HIV the American virus? After all, hiv/aids was first found in San Francisco right?

HIV crossed from chimps to humans in the 1920s in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[TKDfella]

1 hour ago, Jeffr2 said:

Congrats to Thailand for catching this case. They're doing a great job here. Sad some like to bash what they are doing. And sad some post misinformation. That doesn't help anything.

Maybe so, but I rather think that they have found one person with a variant strain, then there are likely to be more as yet undetected. So Thailand needs to get a vaccination program going asap so that it remains in control.

Edited February 15, 2021 by TKDfella

[sghanchey]

5 hours ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

He didn't catch it in Tanzania.  We know this because Tanzania, along with Thailand's neighbors Lao and Cambodia, have no deaths and very few cases of Covid.

 

In the event anyone tries to claim Tanzania or Lao or Cambodia are fudging their covid numbers don't bother.  Just as in previous months when some accused Thailand of unrecorded covid cases, the "if Thailand has more covid cases then why aren't the hospitals full and why aren't there dead bodies in the streets" crowd quickly shouted them down.  Don't temp the same fate from this crowd since there are also no full hospitals or bodies in the streets in Tanzania, Cambodia or Lao, so their covid numbers must be correct.

 

Therefore he caught it in Ethiopia. 

Tanzania's government has been in denial for months. They claim there are no cases, but when schools have identified cases, the government has forbidden them from closing. Newspapers are forbidden from reporting any news of outbreaks. The PM is a Covid-denier. No one knows the truth, but they certainly have many cases. 

[sghanchey]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55900680

 

For months Tanzania's government has insisted the country was free from Covid-19 - so there are no plans for vaccination. The BBC's Dickens Olewe has spoken to one family mourning the death of a husband and father suspected of having had the disease. The fear is that amid the denial, there are many more unacknowledged victims of this highly contagious virus.

[spiekerjozef]

12 minutes ago, NorthernRyland said:

Also, some populations are genetically susceptible to various diseases. It's entirely possible Thais (and other Asians also) are mostly immune to the virus.

My uncle had Covid in Europe 2 months ago, his wife was not infected at all. She did take care of him day and night. Tests before and afterwards all came back negative. I believe she's immune. So there will be more like her out there. My uncle is back to his old self again.

[chesterubi1]

1 hour ago, Ian C HH said:

So what IS the answer to the lack of deaths and empty hospitals IYHO? 
A sincere question because it’s baffled me for a long time. I don’t believe you can hide deaths and overflowing hospitals  in today’s transparent media without a Google gagging onset?

There may be a few contributing factors that have limited the impact of Covid in Thailand (And other countries)

 

1). Age - Thailands population is a lot younger with Average life expectancy at 72 years and anyone making it that far is relatively healthy

2). Obesity - Unlike a lot of Western countries the older generation are not obese and unhealthy. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the younger generation, who are growing up on fast food.

3). Day rates - A lot of people work day to day and hand to mouth, so rely on their daily wage. If they had to stop working for two weeks and also their close family as well, imagine they would all starve. So most people take some medicine and soldier on.

4).  Cleanliness and habits. - Thais have always been quite clean and have habits that display that, no shaking of hands, no kissing of cheeks or even hugging, wearing of masks when ill (Been going on for years), etc

5). Genes - This last one is a bit ambiguous, but there has been links with Malaria and whether someone who has had Malaria has a reduced impact from Covid. This is still being investigated and not proven as yet.

6). Government - Closing of the borders has helped, despite the leaks, especially when we see how many people are tested positive when in quarantine. Also how they have managed the lockdowns, compared to many Western countries.

 

So quite a few factors, which can be seen to be true in many SE Asian countries and many African countries, which have meant that Covid is present, but has not had a major impact. In fact the most vulnerable in Thailand are probably the many elder expats, who may also be in ill health.

 

But all in all we seem to be in a safer place than many of our own countries at the moment.

[RotBenz8888]

18 minutes ago, NorthernRyland said:

It's entirely possible Thais (and other Asians also) are mostly immune to the virus.

Theyve probably been exposed for similar virus in the past so their immunsystem was already triggered to protect them from covid19. 

Their low infection/death numbers sure as hell can't be explained by their sloppy mask use and nonexistent social distancing. 

[mommysboy]

1 hour ago, Phaser said:

And this is the strain the AstraZeneca vaccine that Thailand has bet the farm on is not effective against / but the two established vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are.... 

The 'two established' - is this in reality or your mind?

 

The AZ set up dwarfs the others.

 

An AZ updated vaccine will be available Autumn of course.  But I agree this is one variant Thailand really doesn't want, or it will have to go with J and J vaccine maybe, which is generally the least effective of all.