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

[PGSan]

3 hours ago, sammieuk1 said:

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

By ‘here’ you mean ‘on TVF’.

[PGSan]

4 minutes ago, Magenta408 said:

they have yet to isolate the virus causing Covid19?

Have they not?  Maybe I am misunderstanding your use of ‘isolate’ for a virus?? 

This virus, including many variants, have been sequenced, have they not? 

[AlQaholic]

9 minutes ago, mommysboy said:

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.

All a vaccine needs to do, is prevent people from dying. If you get a bit sick but not dead, I would go with any vaccine with that as an outcome.

[david555]

The main reason for to keep borders closed for incoming travellers unless deep screening & quarantaine measures ...no exeptions 

The only way to stay safe in Thailand as up to now 

[PGSan]

18 minutes ago, chesterubi1 said:

Average life expectancy at 72

Please can you be more precise on this: the term ‘life expectancy’ usually applies to a cohort of people currently at a certain age.

Maybe a link/reference would help.  Thanks.

[Rimmer]

A troll post has been removed

[PGSan]

5 minutes ago, PGSan said:

Please can you be more precise on this: the term ‘life expectancy’ usually applies to a cohort of people currently at a certain age.

Maybe a link/reference would help.  Thanks.

@Salerno:  Glad you enjoyed the joke!   But some of us did not get it.  Please explain the cause of the mirth! 

[NanLaew]

1 hour 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.

 

Are these the medically trained locals or the lao khao crowd?

 

1 hour ago, Aussie999 said:

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

 

Pneumonia has been endemic in Thailand for decades and this prolonged cold and infrequently damp spell (with seasonal burning) hasn't helped much either. Because of the high prevalence of pneumonia here, I think Thailand's health professionals are capable of differentiating between pneumonia, a severe case of pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and Covid-induced pneumonia.

 

The measurement that needs to be assessed is the ongoing Excess Mortality. Excess mortality (or Excess Deaths) is the difference between deaths from all other causes during the pandemic and deaths that we would expect to see in the absence of the pandemic.

 

In Thailand this data, while being tracked like in every other developed nation, isn't regularly published. This is not saying it is not available since details were available around Q2 last year that indicated Thailand's Excess Death count was 8.5% higher than previously recorded for the same period.

[overherebc]

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

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. 

I go for Wuhuflu.

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, tandor said:

..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!

 

The precise cause of death in some cases may be unknown due to the reasons you state but otherwise the number of deaths is true. There's no way a doctor or medical practitioner can hand over a body and a death certificate to the next of kin and say, "Shhhh... he didn't die, OK?"

[Salerno]

20 minutes ago, PGSan said:

But some of us did not get it.

 

If you don't understand the term  "life expectancy" after being on this earth as long as you have I'm sure your favourite search engine can help you find the answer.

[David T Pike]

6 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. 

No matter! He got it in Africa! Not Asia! Different and more deadly strain. Thank goodness they caught him!

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

1 hour ago, hotchilli said:

Or somewhere in-between?

Like on the aeroplane 

 

As Spock would say, "Logical Captain."

 

Since the only thing that is a constant through all these global waves of coronavirus is people movement with a whole bunch of them still using airplanes, the simple fact that repatriation flights are the only way for most people to get anywhere including Thailand, well...

 

I rest my case M'lud.

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

2 hours 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.

 

Yes indeed it did but since the moniker of America virus is a more accurate label for the Spanish flu, if you really feel the need to nationalize HIV, maybe the California virus is much more catchy?

Edited February 15, 2021 by NanLaew

[PGSan]

2 minutes ago, Salerno said:

If you don't understand the term  "life expectancy"

But I do understand this term as normally used in the literature,  do I not?   But I am unsure what your understanding is: it would be nice to know this.

And we are still waiting to be let in on the joke that caused the hilarity tag.

[NanLaew]

8 minutes ago, David T Pike said:

No matter! He got it in Africa! Not Asia! Different and more deadly strain. Thank goodness they caught him!

 

They caught him while he was infectious and after a flight with others into Thailand so sorry, it's a bit too late to claim Thailand is safe.

[Orton Rd]

2 hours 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.

Great job? how many have been given the vaccine, it's 15 million now in the UK. Thailand was left in the starting gate by their own mismanagement. Saying they are doing a great job when they are clearly not does not help anything.

[alation]

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

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. 

Very very  good point, the China communist dictatorship are very very dangerous as they have enough money to corrupt almost anyone anywhere  to favour them even when fact is so very obvious. I say make up you own mind and don't be afraid to say it.

[NanLaew]

1 minute ago, alation said:

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

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. 

Very very  good point, the China communist dictatorship are very very dangerous as they have enough money to corrupt almost anyone anywhere  to favour them even when fact is so very obvious. I say make up you own mind and don't be afraid to say it.

 

The CCP is very, very dangerous and threat to global peace and stability so yeah, I agree, let's call them names!

[alation]

We must take a stand for freedom of democracy and equally stand against communism, and or socialism pretty well one and the same. 

[DirtyFarang]

It's here.  Inevitable.  And the cheap Sinovac and Astra Zeneca vaccines don't work with this variant.  Still going cheap?  If these countries don't upgrade to the Pfizer and Moderna products, they will just be pissing into the wind.  The problem with vaccines in Thailand is that there is no way for the officials and politicians to rake off huge corrupt payoffs like they can if they spend the same money on road work.

 

In the absence of building momentum for COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NYSE:MRNA), the unclear data would be unlikely to curb demand for vaccines that stem the tide of a worsening pandemic. But the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have the advantage of clear data. Both vaccines from those companies have an efficacy of approximately 95% based on Phase 3 trials involving tens of thousands of volunteers.

The data associated with the SinoVac and AstraZeneca vaccines, by contrast, is more ambiguous:

An AstraZeneca spokesman said today in response: "In this small phase I/II trial, early data has shown limited efficacy against mild disease primarily due to the B.1.351 South African variant.

"However, we have not been able to properly ascertain its effect against severe disease and hospitalisation given that subjects were predominantly young healthy adults."

[Jeffr2]

7 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

Great job? how many have been given the vaccine, it's 15 million now in the UK. Thailand was left in the starting gate by their own mismanagement. Saying they are doing a great job when they are clearly not does not help anything.

How many have died in the UK?  How many have died here? Impossible to say Thailand hasn't done a good job.

[Jeffr2]

27 minutes ago, overherebc said:

I go for Wuhuflu.

 yet we still don't know it's origin. So not a good idea to call it that. Though right now, it does look like it originated in China. They should be held to account.

[DirtyFarang]

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

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. 

I like to call it "the Wuhan Business."

[LALes]

1 hour ago, AlQaholic said:

The Spanish flu actually started in the US:)

The Spanish flu actually started in the trenches of Europe during WW1.  Countries were reluctant to issue the numbers of deaths for fear of demoralizing the already demoralized troops.

When the King Of Spain caught the flu, they gave him the dubious accolade.

[sandyf]

8 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

Great job? how many have been given the vaccine, it's 15 million now in the UK. Thailand was left in the starting gate by their own mismanagement. Saying they are doing a great job when they are clearly not does not help anything.

Last summer infection in the UK was rising so fast desperation set in and they gambled on 7 different horses in the vaccine race, it may come as a surprise to you but Thailand is not in the same financial league. Even the EU were 3 months behind the UK, remind us how well did that go, and how quickly did the UK introduce border control and quarantine hotels.

Of course you are perfectly free to believe that keeping the infection rate low equates to mismanagement.

[rpk1]

2 hours 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?

They cant really hide the death rate. In South Africa the death rate jumped by over 15 percent in the "first wave" after originally dropping for 2 months by over 25% a day during early phases of their lockdown. Their hospitals were not overwhelmed but severely strained.

The govt played down the death rate but they had under reported around 30% of covid patient deaths. Criminal deaths and vehicle related death had dropped nearly 100% during covid. Tanzanian dictatorship has the view no testing no cases. Similar to a South African health minister who guaranteed cure for hiv cases who ate garlic.

[Barry343]

19 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. 

No one stated where he caught it it was only said he traveled from Tanzania to Ethiopia he may have caught on the way he travelled airplane, car, taxi or bus it doesn't really matter. He was returning from the African continent and now diagnosed with the South African strain.

 

[Moonlover]

2 hours 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.

Such is the power of rumour!  Maybe the locals have reading TVF!

 

But in reality, is there any harm in being overcautious?

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Moonlover

[Barry343]

12 hours ago, sandyf said:

You mean open Pandora's Box, remember Agent Orange?

The strain covid19 he has was first detected in South Africa which is a slightest different that the one first detected in China.