5 hours ago, herfiehandbag said:

I'm sure that we will have to pay, but then we pay for all our medical treatment. I accept that, but object to the (possible) blatant profiteering that may creep in.

 

If it is AZ's vaccine (as seems likely) and given that AZ is at least partly a British company, with it's headquarters in the UK, should that come to pass, I may stir things up a bit with them. They are after all supposed to be producing the stuff on a "not for profit basis"!

 

There are quite a lot of British people here, so we may be listened to if enough of us shout loudly and coherently; certainly more likely to produce a reaction than contacting the Embassy - they will be far too busy pressing their "immaculate chinos" to misquote a laudatory press article from a couple of years back!

Thailand never produces ANYTHING on a non for profit basis 

If they had been thinking then 6-8 months ago they would have said cost and debt be damned and discount this new untested all-eggs-in-one-basket production facility since looking at the world anything can happen and probably will and if we need this backup our political future is assured and as a side effect the people will benefit-but they didn't.

12 hours ago, lom said:

The fear that the private sector will buy a better vaccine.

And the lack of brown enveloppes.

There was a new update on this today from the Thai Enquirer, suggesting that either they got their original story wrong, or, that the government got embarrassed and changed their mind...again...  Who knows, but here's the update:

 

https://www.thaienquirer.com/26993/course-changed-government-says-private-sector-has-no-need-to-order-vaccines/

 

[Update-1] Government clarifies, says private businesses should not look to import vaccines

 

"Thailand’s government clarified its position on Thursday regarding the importation of vaccines by private entities by saying that hospitals will still be welcomed to find vaccines while private businesses should wait for the government’s program.

...

With mounting criticism, the government clarified its position on Thursday by saying that the Thai Chamber of Commerce statement applied to only private business looking to vaccinate their staff and not private hospitals looking to purchase vaccines.

 

The government said that it will continue to expedite and allow private hospitals to acquire their own vaccines to supplement the national pool."

 

Either way, the TE still reported just the day before quotes from several private hospital administrators that they were getting nowhere in dealing with the government in their efforts to make private vaccine acquisition deals on their own. So its not sounding very good at this point.

 

22 hours ago, Andy from Kent said:

 

I do hope private hospitals will be allowed to buy the vaccine.

 

I'd be happy to pay  for the chance to avoid getting this scourge.

I am not disagreeing with you, but if so many westerners start paying for the vaccine at a private hospital, the hospital officials are going to end up very rich.