Thailand reports 4,887 COVID-19 cases, 32 new deaths

[anchadian]

Jonathan Head

@pakhead

 

The neglect of the entirely predictable Covid situation inside these 2 Thai prisons is a serious failure. Good to see the Dept. of Corrections now correcting itself and taking measures - but this is 6 weeks too late. Prisoners have no hope of socially distancing.

 

kaewmala  

@Thai_Talk

 

Penguin: “Before I was discharged from prison hospital virtually all [prison] officials thought Covid situation in prison is ‘disastrous’. Lacking equipment, personnel & space.... Why did Corrections Dept say it can take care of @mike_rayong, not let him get treatment outside?”

 

https://twitter.com/pakhead/status/1392806766765756418

 

[Golden Triangle]

I seem to remember a few weeks back that  some testing in prisons ( maybe Pattaya prison ) not sure now, anyway some testing was done & the results published here or somewhere, it all seemed okay at the time, now there seems to have been an explosion of cases in Bangkok's two main prisons, the conditions inside are ideal for a mass contagion, don't tell me that they weren't reporting the prisons as a part of the daily update, I simply refuse to believe that, how can they possibly ignore Thailand's prison population of 380,000 people

[elliss]

12 minutes ago, kynikoi said:

I think we're maxxxed out around 2k new infections. Thailand just doesn't have the means to test people in greater numbers.

 

The prison population doesn't count. Poor sods been sitting there sick all month prolly. How can this have gone unnoticed especially with all the concerns of those young political prisoners coming down with covid. Oh yeah.. guess there's a bit of covid there. Really, how much? Well, maybe 80%...????

 

      That said .

          Surely ,  the ruling Junta , cannot be expected ,

         to be  concerned about the prison population ..

           Unless , they are farlangs .

            Nuff said ..

        

[Miami007]

10 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Excerpt from a Thai Ministry of Public Health COVID cases update Thursday.

 

 

Thailand’s Total COVID Case Count Now Exceeds That of China?

 

Statistics Used by the Government Say Yes, Reality Says Likely No

 

Famous American author Mark Twain once made the now well-known observation – “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

 

That’s probably an aphorism worth remembering today with the news, depending which source is used, that Thailand’s official tally of total COVID cases, now at 93,794, has either surpassed or soon will surpass the comparable official cumulative COVID case total from China.

 

If it seems too improbable to be true that Thailand, a smaller country of only 70 million people, would somehow exceed the total COVID case count of China, the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion people where the pandemic began, that’s probably because in all likelihood despite the statistics, it’s simply not true.

 

Even so, several widely quoted gatherers of officially reported COVID statistics tell a different story. The U.S. tracking company Worldometer as of Thursday had China with 90,808 cumulative COVID cases, a total Thailand far surpassed with the 4,887 new cases reported Thursday to reach a total of 93,794.

 

Worldometer happens to be the outside source the Thai government uses for its own publicly issued reports of how the country is faring with COVID cases compared to other world countries. Prior to Thursday’s update, Worldometer had China and Thailand ranked 96th and 98th, respectively, among 200+ countries worldwide for total COVID cases.

 

Meanwhile, the more widely cited Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in the U.S. has its stats for the two countries that suggest Thailand is less than a week away from equaling or surpassing China. That’s because Johns Hopkins has a higher tally of nearly 103,000 total cases for China compared to Worldometer.

 

In real life, the two countries present an odd and usual contrast in COVID experiences. China became the poster country for COVID after getting hit hard at the outset and then apparently recovering. Thailand, on the other hand, was largely regarded as an almost miracle country for largely avoiding COVID, until a major outbreak began last month and is continuing now.

 

As for the comparative statistics, researchers have long maintained that China’s official stats on COVID cases and deaths have likely been massively undercounted, in part due to government suppression and also to the public chaos that hit China and especially Wuhan at the start of the pandemic. Thus any such comparisons are invalid.

 

“Nobody believes China’s numbers,” said one researcher as quoted in the U.S. news outlet Time last year. Varying estimates have suggested that China’s real toll of COVID cases since the beginning could be anywhere from three to ten times higher than the official numbers.

 

Unlike last year in Wuhan China, there’s no indication that crematoriums in Thailand are running around the clock to dispose of dead bodies, nor have there been public spectacles of masses of sick people overrunning Thai hospitals, though available hospital beds in Bangkok lately have been increasingly hard to find.

 

Whereas China’s official COVID case counts exploded in early 2020 and then quickly dropped off and have remained low, Thailand went through most of last year with comparatively few cases and deaths until a so-called third wave outbreak hit at the beginning of last month.

 

Just since April 1, Thailand has officially recorded more than 60,000 of its 90,000-plus COVID cases and 392 of its 486 deaths through Wednesday. While China lately has been reporting about a dozen new cases per day, according to Worldometer, Thailand lately has been averaging about 2,000 cases per day.

 

Even with that, there are some locals who wonder whether Thailand too has been failing to identify and record all of its COVID cases due the lack of a widespread, nationwide testing program and other impediments. Thus, what largely remains to track the COVID pandemic in Thailand are…the statistics, for whatever they're worth.

 

Just look at the deaths. China has 10 times as many as Thailand but same number of cases.

Nearly impossible to believe that mortality in China was 10 times that of Thailand. 

 

Also, excess mortality in Thailand in January and February 2020 was about 10% higher than normal - before the pandemic started.. same in Singapore.

But in Europe or the USA it was below average . Maybe covid has been around longer than we think.. Just not being tested and tracked like now

[cardinalblue]

The lockdown in the prison system doesn’t seem to stem the covid infection rate...

 

also, the prison system doesn’t reflect the general population just as the nursing home population didn’t in the usa....

[elliss]

42 minutes ago, bwpage3 said:

No the numbers haven't flatlined.

 

So many areas around the entire country they have never tested, like Isaan.

 

The government will let you know the numbers they want you to know. That is it.

 

Doing mass testing over the entire country and reporting the truth would Bankrupt this country.

 

 

 

        Valid point . That said .

            Truth , and Thai culture .

            Do not mix well...

[Miami007]

20 minutes ago, elliss said:

       Indeed .

 Things can only get worse ...

   You have been warned .

      Spend now , while your alive  ....555

 

    

Even if you get covid you are most likely surviving with a mild cold or no symptoms. It is not a disease with 100% mortality.

The older or sicker you are, the more dangerous for you.

[Bundooman]

10 hours ago, WineOh said:

Made me sick to my stomach the amount of gloating people did here last year.

 

what's that old saying, 'pride comes before a?......'

Nothing like trying to make oneself appear self-righteous and above all the rest of us mere mortals....

 

Who exactly do you mean by 'gloating people'

I never heard anyone 'gloat.' Never saw anyone 'gloat' in a post on TV.

Most people were just relieved to have avoided the virus.

Others just did not believe there was a virus.

 

Utter nonsense!

[ThailandRyan]

8 minutes ago, Miami007 said:

Even if you get covid you are most likely surviving with a mild cold or no symptoms. It is not a disease with 100% mortality.

The older or sicker you are, the more dangerous for you.

So tell that to the families of those that died worldwide, and those that after having it are still struggling with what is termed long covid.  You still push your agenda daily that Covid is nothing.  What do you not understand about this virus. Why do you believe it is of no consequence and causes few to have problems.  Please expand on your worldly knowledge as maybe we can learn from your scientific studies that have been verified and peer reviewed.  Sure would like to know why India has all of those funeral pyres burning bodies if Covid only gives you mild cold or no symptoms.

[anchadian]

#Thailand's FDA has approved US-made #Moderna #COVID19 #vaccine for emergency use in the country, according to dep govt spokesperson Traisuli Traisoranakul.

 

https://twitter.com/ThaiPBSWorld/status/1392819143632510979

 

[superal]

9 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

We can clearly see now that transparency in reporting the true numbers is highly questionable. How long did it take to accumulate 2,835 cases in prisons? Is it just a coincidence that they revealed these numbers only after the high profiled cases recently? What if those high profile cases hadn't be revealed would we have got these numbers now?

 

This peak naturally would not just vanish in one day and we should now start seeing a progression on this for all the daily tests carried out in those prisons, if not we know again the numbers are just not accurate.

 

More worrying, this was less than handful of prisons, what about all the other prisons throughout Thailand? When exactly are we going to know the numbers there.

 

I'm sure there's going to be a couple of posters here to try and set us straight and defend this, its going to be amusing to see your attempts.

 

This is a sad reality of the true situation in Thailand that we just got to know about, what else don't we know?

 

 

Lets face it , the Thai authorities have not planned ahead for the pandemic to hit Thailand and have behaved accordingly with apathy and now they have no control of the virus spread , public social distancing / provincial travel , vaccine procurement or inoculation programme . In short they have lost control . Other nations have suffered greatly despite having taken strict control of covid infections , so I fear a tragedy is imminent in S.E.Asia along the same lines as India . 

BTW are they including the field hospitals when they quote prisons ? cos there aint much difference .

[Bkk Brian]

5 day left, ICU beds getting stretched and no sign of any let up in the immediate future.

 

Medicine Dept.: There remains only some 100 ICU beds in greater Bangkok, which “may be filled up in 5 days.” Medical personnel are also overstretched. Deployment of medical students is being considered.

 

https://twitter.com/Thai_Talk/status/1392812930693963777

 

[Miami007]

10 hours ago, dinsdale said:

This should raise Thailand to number 94 on the covid worldometre. No more look at us we are great stuff now. Bear in mind the almost 3,000 prisoners make the numbers because they were found out hiding them after Ms Panusaya release. These prisoners are NOT from yesterday's numbers. They were being swept under the carpet.

Worldometer is not showing any figures for Thailand today. Usually, they are reported already by the time the USA wakes up. 

[Bkk Brian]

2 minutes ago, Miami007 said:

Worldometer is not showing any figures for Thailand today. Usually, they are reported already by the time the USA wakes up. 

I noticed that too, its the first time in months they've not updated by this time

[Elkski]

So I'm a week late in my prediction.  I said 5 k cases/day 3 weeks post songkran.   I say testing numbers are still so low the real numbers are unknown.   

14 day forced quarantine means lots of people will avoid testing.  It seems most testing is done in localized hit spots but contact tracing was overwhelmed 3 weeks ago.  

[Blumpie]

4 minutes ago, Elkski said:

So I'm a week late in my prediction.  I said 5 k cases/day 3 weeks post songkran.   I say testing numbers are still so low the real numbers are unknown.   

14 day forced quarantine means lots of people will avoid testing.  It seems most testing is done in localized hit spots but contact tracing was overwhelmed 3 weeks ago.  

And to think, they just threw in all those "animals" in prison all at once.  2000 or so of them?!?!

Something is certainly amiss.  

[hotandsticky]

6 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

We are in Thailand, if they prefer now not to test people who think they have the virus but show no symptoms then so be it, I wonder why they have a policy of hospitalizing all confirmed case then? 

 

Must want to save on beds and positive case counts I guess.

 

Had we been in the west I also agree on the advice but we are not.

 

 

I cannot see any logic, anywhere in the world, in incarcerating asymptomatic people. 

 

These are people have been tested (otherwise nobody knows they have the virus); keeping them in hospital for 15 days is a ludicrous waste of hospital facilities.

[joecoolfrog]

1 hour ago, kynikoi said:

I think we're maxxxed out around 2k new infections. Thailand just doesn't have the means to test people in greater numbers.

 

The prison population doesn't count. Poor sods been sitting there sick all month prolly. How can this have gone unnoticed especially with all the concerns of those young political prisoners coming down with covid. Oh yeah.. guess there's a bit of covid there. Really, how much? Well, maybe 80%...????

Doesn't have the means to mass test or doesn't have the inclination ?

Us mere mortals will never know but either way the reported numbers are not an accurate summary of the real situation.

[wensiensheng]

10 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

Outside of prisons, the numbers have flatlined.

The trouble is, the so called flat lining is cause for serious concern. The country has had some fairly severe restrictions in place for some weeks, but case numbers aren’t falling. You’d expect to see some reduction in cases if restrictions were working.

 

I think it’s fair to say that the government isn’t OVER counting cases, so all the restrictions have done AT BEST is to keep new cases at around the same level. And of course, there is plenty of anacdotal evidence to suggest that cases are under counted, not least the 3k additional cases revealed today.

 

so IF  the case count is indeed flat lining, it’s not good news at all.

[CG1 Blue]

9 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Here we have the Thai government actively discouraging people to go to hospital for a test if they think they've been exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.

 

Certainly keeps the hospital case finding numbers down.

Makes sense really. Hospitals can be breeding grounds for viruses. In the UK the percentage of Covid patients who caught the virus from a hospital visit has been rising steadily. It was around 25% in Dec / Jan: 

 

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-rising-number-of-hospital-admissions-potentially-caught-the-virus-in-hospital-12165918

 

 

[Blumpie]

6 minutes ago, hotandsticky said:

 

 

I cannot see any logic, anywhere in the world, in incarcerating asymptomatic people. 

 

These are people have been tested (otherwise nobody knows they have the virus); keeping them in hospital for 15 days is a ludicrous waste of hospital facilities.

The only explanation is they don't want people to get tested so that their numbers look better than they are.  

I have no clue why they would do this otherwise.  

If I had covid symptoms the last thing I would do is go in for a test unless I was very very very ill.

[hotandsticky]

1 minute ago, wensiensheng said:

The trouble is, the so called flat lining is cause for serious concern. The country has had some fairly severe restrictions in place for some weeks, but case numbers aren’t falling. You’d expect to see some reduction in cases if restrictions were working.

 

I think it’s fair to say that the government isn’t OVER counting cases, so all the restrictions have done AT BEST is to keep new cases at around the same level. And of course, there is plenty of anacdotal evidence to suggest that cases are under counted, not least the 3k additional cases revealed today.

 

so IF  the case count is indeed flat lining, it’s not good news at all.

 

 

I think your comment is too sweeping.

 

I believe that you have to look at this from a regional perspective.

 

Take out Bangkok and most regions are reporting a tapering off of the post-Songkran surge that everyone expected.

[elliss]

28 minutes ago, Miami007 said:

Worldometer is not showing any figures for Thailand today. Usually, they are reported already by the time the USA wakes up. 

 

       That is  to be expected .

         All is well in the kingdom ...

        Visitors expected soon ,  from India ...

 

[hotandsticky]

1 minute ago, Blumpie said:

The only explanation is they don't want people to get tested so that their numbers look better than they are.  

I have no clue why they would do this otherwise.  

If I had covid symptoms the last thing I would do is go in for a test unless I was very very very ill.

 

 

I accept your point, but I think that the authorities have gone beyond make this a 'low number pi55ing competition'.  They can no longer report "no cases in 60 provinces for 30 days".  

 

Unnecessarily including the prison cases in the numbers supports my view.

[Bkk Brian]

1 minute ago, CG1 Blue said:

Makes sense really. Hospitals can be breeding grounds for viruses. In the UK the percentage of Covid patients who caught the virus from a hospital visit has been rising steadily. It was around 25% in Dec / Jan: 

 

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-rising-number-of-hospital-admissions-potentially-caught-the-virus-in-hospital-12165918

 

 

Sure I'm aware of that but we're not in the west and Thailand has always had a policy to do it this way, what can we do, its the law.

 

The issue I have was with the new guidance was its unclear, just a graphic with scant details and against all previous advice given. I would prefer to wait for an official statement.

[Megasin1]

2 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Clarify all you want I'm not engaging in your little playful whims or predictions. Feel free to get back to me with something worthwhile.

 

 

I think that the case of the 22 netball players from 38, only tested because they had to be to take part in an international event is quite a clear indicator that things aren't quite as clear as the Government would like everyone to believe. In India and many other countries you only die of covid if you previously tested positive for covid (figuratively speaking) so unfortunately a death rate is also not a good indication of the issue. In a country not testing widely that only leaves average mortality rate figures as a measure and that won't truly be measurable for a while yet.

[hotandsticky]

3 minutes ago, Megasin1 said:

I think that the case of the 22 netball players from 38, only tested because they had to be to take part in an international event is quite a clear indicator that things aren't quite as clear as the Government would like everyone to believe. In India and many other countries you only die of covid if you previously tested positive for covid (figuratively speaking) so unfortunately a death rate is also not a good indication of the issue. In a country not testing widely that only leaves average mortality rate figures as a measure and that won't truly be measurable for a while yet.

 

 

Well............ that mortality rate will drop simply from a huge reduction in RTA fatalities.

 

 

Covid measures have directly impacted on that reduction - win/win.

 

 

 

[Spock]

1 hour ago, Golden Triangle said:

I seem to remember a few weeks back that  some testing in prisons ( maybe Pattaya prison ) not sure now, anyway some testing was done & the results published here or somewhere, it all seemed okay at the time, now there seems to have been an explosion of cases in Bangkok's two main prisons, the conditions inside are ideal for a mass contagion, don't tell me that they weren't reporting the prisons as a part of the daily update, I simply refuse to believe that, how can they possibly ignore Thailand's prison population of 380,000 people

Actually, I think Thai authorities and population generally could very easily ignore the plight of prisoners. Prisoners are the lowest of the low in Thailand. Only the families of prisoners have any concern for their welfare.

[Bkk Brian]

6 minutes ago, Spock said:

Actually, I think Thai authorities and population generally could very easily ignore the plight of prisoners. Prisoners are the lowest of the low in Thailand. Only the families of prisoners have any concern for their welfare.

As with the migrants who in the samut sakhon outbreak were locked in the factories. We still have no idea of the true case count there. The important thing now however is to test all prisons nationwide on mass and be transparent with the results.

[ThailandRyan]

36 minutes ago, Blumpie said:

The only explanation is they don't want people to get tested so that their numbers look better than they are.  

I have no clue why they would do this otherwise.  

If I had covid symptoms the last thing I would do is go in for a test unless I was very very very ill.

Ergo why they are finding folks dead in their homes.  News again showed another case tonight.  Somethings amiss......