It’s official: Thai govt approves plans to re-open to foreign tourists

[Peter Denis]

10 hours ago, hioctane said:

If the vaccinated are tested negative before they enter, then the odds of infecting the unvaccinated are even lower when combined with reduced transmission rates.

Besides, they are not allowing the vaccinated to enter quarantine free until the Thai people are vaccinated 70% (Phase 2 Phuket plan).

 

Which reinforces the need for a vaccine passport so that some people can get on with their lives and get the economy going again. Yes, I understand that this may sound unfair to the unvaccinated but shutting down economies does more harm than good. Open things up safely with vaccine passports.

It seems that Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya are of a different opinion re vaccine passports.

FYI > Mr. Kulldorff is a biostatistician and epidemiologist, and professor at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Bhattacharya is a physician and economist, and professor at Stanford Medical School.

Attached a link to the April 6 article they published in the Wall Street Journal > https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-passports-prolong-lockdowns-11617726629

For those that cannot access the full article, I added the PDF version.

 

 

Vaccine Passports Prolong Lockdowns - WSJ _ April 2021.pdf

Edited April 10, 2021 by Peter Denis

[FarFlungFalang]

On 4/8/2021 at 11:15 PM, VBF said:

Your points refer to other issues - the blood clots one has already been analysed and is considered a low enough risk to carry on using AZ 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55302595

Is this a case of being "consigned to some expendable category"?The risk may be low and one people are willing to accept but none the less some are to be consigned to the category of the expendable.

[shdmn]

2 hours ago, Jimbo2014 said:

 

The solution is relatively simple - purchase vaccines and vaccinate everyone.

They are trying to purchase some.  There just aren't enough available yet.

[VBF]

5 hours ago, FarFlungFalang said:

Is this a case of being "consigned to some expendable category"?The risk may be low and one people are willing to accept but none the less some are to be consigned to the category of the expendable.

No idea - the post to which i replied confused me as i said.

[FarFlungFalang]

30 minutes ago, VBF said:

No idea - the post to which i replied confused me as i said.

It's a reference to a comment in another thread, the comment was about people consigning people to an expendable category to which the commenter objected.

 

Here's the quote I refer to by John Drake

 

"On an extended timeline, the survival rate for everyone is zero. Each person has a right to reach for their maximum lifespan without being consigned to some expendable category."

 

It goes to the point of "acceptable" deaths or risks in a situation like the one we are in.Some argue no deaths are acceptable when it comes to protecting the vulnerable yet are quite willing to accept some deaths with regards to the vaccination effort.It's just an anomaly I've picked up on in this saga called "covid".In Thailand they accept a higher road toll than many other countries as well as not accepting deaths for covid without making a monument effort to keep deaths as low as possible.It's an anomaly many have commented on.  

 

[placnx]

8 hours ago, Peter Denis said:

It seems that Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya are of a different opinion re vaccine passports.

FYI > Mr. Kulldorff is a biostatistician and epidemiologist, and professor at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Bhattacharya is a physician and economist, and professor at Stanford Medical School.

Attached a link to the April 6 article they published in the Wall Street Journal > https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-passports-prolong-lockdowns-11617726629

For those that cannot access the full article, I added the PDF version.

 

 

Vaccine Passports Prolong Lockdowns - WSJ _ April 2021.pdf 889.06 kB · 0 downloads

Kulldorff and Bhattacharya are two of three who wrote the infamous Great Barrington Declaration which was denounced in the Lancet:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext

This latter became the John Snow Declaration and was subsequently subscribed by around 3000 scientists. Had the advice of Great Barrington been followed, so many more could have died. Just look at Brazil these days.

[Peter Denis]

2 minutes ago, placnx said:

Kulldorff and Bhattacharya are two of three who wrote the infamous Great Barrington Declaration which was denounced in the Lancet:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext

This latter became the John Snow Declaration and was subsequently subscribed by around 3000 scientists. Had the advice of Great Barrington been followed, so many more could have died. Just look at Brazil these days.

Seems to me that scientists are a bit more reluctant to sign the John Snow Memorandum.  It currently has 6.900 signatures instead of the 3.000 you mention...

Below the status of signatures for the Great Barrington Declaration.

[allen123]

On 3/31/2021 at 3:26 PM, aussiexpat said:

Sounds great. Pity Australia aren't vaccinating anyone under 70 until June, with 12 week wait for 2nd dose. 

 

Think I'll do the 10 days quarantine and get the vax in Thailand

 

[allen123]

1 minute ago, allen123 said:

You can’t leave Australia this year 

 

[placnx]

19 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

Seems to me that scientists are a bit more reluctant to sign the John Snow Memorandum.  It currently has 6.900 signatures instead of the 3.000 you mention...

Below the status of signatures for the Great Barrington Declaration.

You should read the John Snow Memorandum: https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/

In the following quote, "herd immunity approach" is the Great Barrington approach:

"The arrival of a second wave and the realisation of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.

Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed. Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity(3) and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of healthcare systems to provide acute and routine care."

[elliss]

16 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

1 in a million develop blood clots after vaccination. 

 

1000+ in a million die from Covid. 

 

     Would  much appreciate , Scientific Links ...

      Otherwise , go away , asap ..

[shdmn]

7 hours ago, elliss said:

 

     Would  much appreciate , Scientific Links ...

      Otherwise , go away , asap ..

What mountain of evidence and statistics from mulitple countries multiple sources and millions of vaccinations are you having trouble finding?

Edited April 10, 2021 by shdmn

[Danderman123]

7 hours ago, elliss said:

 

     Would  much appreciate , Scientific Links ...

      Otherwise , go away , asap ..

Sure thing:

 

Among more than 20 million people who have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK so far, 79 cases of rare blood clots with low platelets have been reported, as well as 19 deaths, said the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. This equates to around one case per 250 000 people vaccinated—0.0004%—and one death in a million.

 

1 in a million die from post vaccination blood clots, 1864 in a million die from Covid-19. 

 

Have a nice day. 

[connda]

On 3/31/2021 at 11:08 AM, webfact said:

The planned gradual re-opening will see quarantine reduced for fully vaccinated tourists to Chiang Mai, Krabi, Pattaya, Phang Na, Koh Samui and Phuket from as early as next month. 

 

Tourists who intend to visit the aforementioned destinations will still have to undergo quarantine but only for 7 days rather than the 14 days mandatory quarantine needed previously.

 

From 1 July, vaccinated tourists will be able to visit Phuket without the need to quarantine.

I'd say that this isn't going to happen, but... The Thai government just allowed it's citizens living in Covid Red-zones to leave and travel to any province in Thailand that they wanted without restriction.  So using that same logic, I'd expect that if Thailand is in the middle of an epidemic and still bumbling around with vaccinations - yeah, they'll probably let tourist in. 

[connda]

16 hours ago, placnx said:

You should read the John Snow Memorandum: https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/

In the following quote, "herd immunity approach" is the Great Barrington approach:

"The arrival of a second wave and the realisation of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.

Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed. Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity(3) and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of healthcare systems to provide acute and routine care."

You can't make revenue selling vaccines if natural immunity is allowed though person-to-person transmission.  This is the model that has been working since the dawn of the evolution of higher life forms up until 2020 when we're informed by a subset of scientists that natural herd immunity is no longer attainable and can only be reached by mass vaccinations.  Just like that.  Counter opinions are not allowed.
There is a huge profit motive to push that narrative as well as to discredit and censor all other scientists and epidemiologists who hold alternate views such as those scientists and epidemiologists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration.  Scientists such as Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations,  Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases,  and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.  You have esteemed and highly qualified scientists who hold opposing opinions regarding the nature of SARS-Cov-2 and the handling of the outbreak who are literally called disinformation agents by main-stream media as well as by scientists and government officials aligned with or working for pharmaceutical companies.  When scientists working for Big Pharma reject opposing scientific views and modeling based on their funding, there is significant potential for conflict of interest. 

When science stops evaluating itself and brands alternate "expert" opinion as heretical, it stops being science and becomes something akin to religion.
Bottom line: there should be a open dialogue between qualified and expert peers within the scientific community, but that dialogue is no longer allowed and in many cases censored.  That's dangerous for science as a whole.

[polpott]

Just now, connda said:

You can't make revenue selling vaccines if natural immunity is allowed though person-to-person transmission.  This is the model that has been working since the dawn of the evolution of higher life forms up until 2020

Didn't do much for smallpox, TB and polio.

[placnx]

6 hours ago, connda said:

You can't make revenue selling vaccines if natural immunity is allowed though person-to-person transmission.  This is the model that has been working since the dawn of the evolution of higher life forms up until 2020 when we're informed by a subset of scientists that natural herd immunity is no longer attainable and can only be reached by mass vaccinations.  Just like that.  Counter opinions are not allowed.
There is a huge profit motive to push that narrative as well as to discredit and censor all other scientists and epidemiologists who hold alternate views such as those scientists and epidemiologists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration.  Scientists such as Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations,  Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases,  and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.  You have esteemed and highly qualified scientists who hold opposing opinions regarding the nature of SARS-Cov-2 and the handling of the outbreak who are literally called disinformation agents by main-stream media as well as by scientists and government officials aligned with or working for pharmaceutical companies.  When scientists working for Big Pharma reject opposing scientific views and modeling based on their funding, there is significant potential for conflict of interest. 

When science stops evaluating itself and brands alternate "expert" opinion as heretical, it stops being science and becomes something akin to religion.
Bottom line: there should be a open dialogue between qualified and expert peers within the scientific community, but that dialogue is no longer allowed and in many cases censored.  That's dangerous for science as a whole.

You might read this to understand the trend to ideological medicine:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/herd-immunity-bhattacharya-atlas-barrington

 

Achieving herd immunity by infection depends a lot on the virus. In this case, its infectiousness, its ability to silently spread, its velocity of mutation into variants that can reinfect, its mortality, make the case for herd immunity by infection moot. People such as Kulldorff who keep reviving this proposition are in my opinion unethical. It adds to arguments of Republican governors of Texas and Florida who seek to roll back Covid mitigation. We need up to 80% of population including children to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. This will protect others who cannot be vaccinated.

 

As for Thailand, I'm a proponent of getting the US government to increase vaccine production to distribute to low and middle-income countries. This has been proposed in an ambitious program:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/opinion/world-covid-vaccines.html

 

[Peter Denis]

13 minutes ago, placnx said:

You might read this to understand the trend to ideological medicine:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/herd-immunity-bhattacharya-atlas-barrington

Thanks but no thanks for letting me waste my time on one of the most biased articles on covid strategy that I ever read > total trash!

[Norvabc]

On 3/31/2021 at 6:30 AM, internationalism said:

without a full vaccination program, that is a death sentence for tens of thousands. This would shut down public health system in those regions, as well as domestic tourism.

 

There are now many new strains, more dangerous than this from wuhan, to which thai probably were immune.

The first wave caused the strain from Italy, in March.

The second wave in december from myanmar workers came from virus from bangladesh

 

[onebir]

On 4/10/2021 at 1:39 PM, placnx said:

Kulldorff and Bhattacharya are two of three who wrote the infamous Great Barrington Declaration which was denounced in the Lancet

Some points in the WSJ article seem valid nonetheless.

 

With a moment's reflection it should be obvious that vaccine passports are incompatible with the original rationale for lockdowns: 'flattening the curve' to prevent health services being overloaded simply isn't necessary if a substantial chunk of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated and won't be doing that overloading (regardless of whether herd immunity has been achieved). 

 

What's changed?

[Danderman123]

11 hours ago, connda said:

You can't make revenue selling vaccines if natural immunity is allowed though person-to-person transmission.  This is the model that has been working since the dawn of the evolution of higher life forms up until 2020 when we're informed by a subset of scientists that natural herd immunity is no longer attainable and can only be reached by mass vaccinations.  Just like that.  Counter opinions are not allowed.
There is a huge profit motive to push that narrative as well as to discredit and censor all other scientists and epidemiologists who hold alternate views such as those scientists and epidemiologists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration.  Scientists such as Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations,  Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases,  and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.  You have esteemed and highly qualified scientists who hold opposing opinions regarding the nature of SARS-Cov-2 and the handling of the outbreak who are literally called disinformation agents by main-stream media as well as by scientists and government officials aligned with or working for pharmaceutical companies.  When scientists working for Big Pharma reject opposing scientific views and modeling based on their funding, there is significant potential for conflict of interest. 

When science stops evaluating itself and brands alternate "expert" opinion as heretical, it stops being science and becomes something akin to religion.
Bottom line: there should be a open dialogue between qualified and expert peers within the scientific community, but that dialogue is no longer allowed and in many cases censored.  That's dangerous for science as a whole.

The problem with your conspiracy theory is that natural immunity may not have a very long duration. We are already seeing re-infections.
 

Worse, new variants may thwart both natural immunity and current vaccines. So, the virus must be in on the conspiracy, too.
 

And, at the end of the day, you are suggesting we rely on herd immunity, like in Brazil. That didn’t work out so well.

[Danderman123]

1 hour ago, onebir said:

Some points in the WSJ article seem valid nonetheless.

 

With a moment's reflection it should be obvious that vaccine passports are incompatible with the original rationale for lockdowns: 'flattening the curve' to prevent health services being overloaded simply isn't necessary if a substantial chunk of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated and won't be doing that overloading (regardless of whether herd immunity has been achieved). 

 

What's changed?

Vaccine passports would be used for people to travel to places where herd immunity has not been achieved.

[Danderman123]

1 hour ago, Norvabc said:

So tell me, considering the PCR test can not tell you if you are ill with or have the Wuhan flu and no autopsies have as yet  been done to prove the variants or even the original. How do you know they are cases with the China Flu? The PCR test is run at 35 cycles with many false positives crank that up to 40 cycles and you have a pandemic. I would say rather strange Thailand is suddenly hit. Will Taiwan be next no lockdown same as China no lock down no pandemic. This sudden infection rate is manufactured and has to be the greatest IQ test of all time. If you all think Bill Gates and the Government have your interests at heart, then get the Vax ASAP as an mRNA is gene therapy messenger NOT a vaccination and still in test mod.
It gives little protection against the flu as do the masks that have NO protection more to do with OBEY.

 

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

 

The virus has been identified, millions of autopsies have been performed, PCR tests accurately predict imminent illness, hospitalization or death. Positivity rates from OCR testing can predict the future spread of the virus (a positivity rate of over 5 percent means either the virus is spreading, or there are too few tests being performed). Probably 99 percent of anyone who died of COVID in a hospital had earlier tested positive for the virus.
 

China had the biggest total lockdown in history and eradicated the virus.

 

The current spike in Thailand is not manufactured.

 

You know, if you want to spout crazy assertions about COVID, you should at least link to some crazy articles to back them up.

 

 

[Moncul]

2 hours ago, Norvabc said:

So tell me, considering the PCR test can not tell you if you are ill with or have the Wuhan flu and no autopsies have as yet  been done to prove the variants or even the original. How do you know they are cases with the China Flu? The PCR test is run at 35 cycles with many false positives crank that up to 40 cycles and you have a pandemic. I would say rather strange Thailand is suddenly hit. Will Taiwan be next no lockdown same as China no lock down no pandemic. This sudden infection rate is manufactured and has to be the greatest IQ test of all time. If you all think Bill Gates and the Government have your interests at heart, then get the Vax ASAP as an mRNA is gene therapy messenger NOT a vaccination and still in test mod.
It gives little protection against the flu as do the masks that have NO protection more to do with OBEY.

 

 

Please provide the contacts of your dealer. He clearly has some top notch product.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Moncul

[onebir]

2 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

The problem with your conspiracy theory is that natural immunity may not have a very long duration. We are already seeing re-infections.
 

Worse, new variants may thwart both natural immunity and current vaccines. So, the virus must be in on the conspiracy, too.
 

And, at the end of the day, you are suggesting we rely on herd immunity, like in Brazil. That didn’t work out so well.

The problem with your comment is you didn't read my post.

 

[bill014]

What they haven't said is that you have to initially book 14 days at your chosen hotel then, after showing and getting your vaccination certificate approved, try and get your money back from the hotel!!

[Peter Denis]

4 hours ago, bill014 said:

What they haven't said is that you have to initially book 14 days at your chosen hotel then, after showing and getting your vaccination certificate approved, try and get your money back from the hotel!!

The (UK) Embassy recommends applicants to book the 10-night quarantine package and, once the 7-night quarantine has been approved, to request for a refund from the hotel. (ASQ hotels have been informed by the central authorities to refund if customers' vaccinations has been approved for a "7-night quarantine".)

The above is an excerpt from a response by the Consular Officer from the London Thai Embassy on an enquiry about this matter.

Attached the full response.

Vaccination requirements for reduced ASQ-booking when returning to Thailand from UK.rtf

[Jimbo2014]

On 4/10/2021 at 10:48 AM, shdmn said:

They are trying to purchase some.  There just aren't enough available yet.

 

This isnt the full story.  India has managed to delivery 100 Million doses to date and it has a fraction of the GDP per capita of Thailand.  It seems the government may have been overly optimistic (to be polite) concerning its capacity to produce its own version of the astrazeneca vaccine and supply all of Asia and failed to lock in sufficient supplies.  Hopefully the situation improves soon as I dont think the UK variant will be as easy a beast to tame.   

[shdmn]

1 hour ago, Jimbo2014 said:

 

This isnt the full story.  India has managed to delivery 100 Million doses to date and it has a fraction of the GDP per capita of Thailand.  It seems the government may have been overly optimistic (to be polite) concerning its capacity to produce its own version of the astrazeneca vaccine and supply all of Asia and failed to lock in sufficient supplies.  Hopefully the situation improves soon as I dont think the UK variant will be as easy a beast to tame.   

The Serum institute in India is the world largest vaccine manufacturer.  They are making at least 2 million AZ doses per day.  I don't think anyone anywhere even comes close to that. 

 

These factories cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and many months to get up and running at high volume.  Thailand, or any other country, cannot just snap their fingers and start making millions of vaccines.

Edited April 12, 2021 by shdmn

[tlcwaterfall]

1 hour ago, Jimbo2014 said:

 

This isnt the full story.  India has managed to delivery 100 Million doses to date and it has a fraction of the GDP per capita of Thailand.  It seems the government may have been overly optimistic (to be polite) concerning its capacity to produce its own version of the astrazeneca vaccine and supply all of Asia and failed to lock in sufficient supplies.  Hopefully the situation improves soon as I dont think the UK variant will be as easy a beast to tame.   

Country comparison India vs Thailand 2021 | countryeconomy.com