Expats over 60 urged to register for vaccine on Thai govt site

[placeholder]

2 hours ago, Hyna said:

But you just wrote one cannot rely on Moderna in fall.

(4m doses ordered for 2021, that's for 2m persons. According to PBS from  yesterday, 5m want it)

Plus : nobody knows whether a mRNA booster after Sinovac is ok (it probably is,  but there are no studies). You probably should wait 6 months,  so 6 months you are only protected by a substandard vaccine. 

In a city with 1500 daily cases. (Payuth said today,  some restrictions in Bangkok will be lifted, so I don't think cases will go down)

How is coronavac substandard? It provides excellent protection against serious illness and death.

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, kynikoi said:

Site opens every day at 1200. Full and 0 vaccines.

 

So the program is open there's just no vaccines or appointments. Thai logic

Yeah and when we contact our embassies and tell them most of us ACTUALLY have no access to vaccines, they can reply, sure you do, go to intervac, bye bye now. 

[kynikoi]

2 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

SInce the site has been down over the weekend, I think we'll all get that answer on Monday when (or should I say if) the new site opens then, but I'm guessing many who thought they had appointments are going to get an unhappy surprise ????

 

The site is open there's just no dates or vaccines.

[Kaoboi Bebobp]

Oh nooooo. Phyathai Hospital is mentioned in this fresh, short Nation story as delaying its vaccine program till June 20! I'm not sure which program, whether Thai or foreigner, or both. 

 

Inoculation drive stalls as private hospitals run out of vaccine stocks

 

PS. Now I'm not sure which hospital the story is referring to: One in Sanam Pao or Sri Racha. The other three hospitals referenced are in Bangkok.

Edited June 13, 2021 by Kaoboi Bebobp
Details

[Hyna]

4 hours ago, placeholder said:

How is coronavac substandard? It provides excellent protection against serious illness and death.

Yes, i hope so too.

 

The problem is, you really have to believe Beijing.

The only advanced countries using Sinovac are HK (for obvious reasons) and Singapore. The Singapore government doesn't use it,  but they allow private doctors to use it. The Singapore goverment said,  its a vaccine for poor countries who can't afford better.  But if Chinese nationalists  want it we don't object. 

Edited June 13, 2021 by Hyna

[Enzian]

The problem with the Sinovac is exactly the problem with the question of the origin of the virus itself. China has the records and the data to enable the rest of the world to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt the truth about the origin, but those are exactly the things they are refusing to release. Now if they knew something about the Sinovac that would reflect negatively on it, do you think they would tell us?

[VaccineHunter]

3 hours ago, Hyna said:

Yes, i hope so too.

 

The problem is, you really have to believe Beijing.

The only advanced countries using Sinovac are HK (for obvious reasons) and Singapore. The Singapore government doesn't use it,  but they allow private doctors to use it. The Singapore goverment said,  its a vaccine for poor countries who can't afford better.  But if Chinese nationalists  want it we don't object. 

your claims about what the Singapore Government has purportedly said seem pretty far-fetched - care to substantiate them? My understanding was that they wanted to provide an alternative for people who are allergic to mRNA vaccines or unduly worried for other reasons?

[WaveHunter]

If your embassy is not negotiating with the Thai government to secure vaccines on behalf of its' citizens please write to your Embassy and ask them why.

Many French nationals here in Thailand have voiced their discontent with how vaccination registration is going here for foreigners, and their Embassy is now in the process of doing something about it!

 

Considering this recent press release:

 

On June 11, Thailand’s public health minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, told the press that he had met with the French Ambassador to Thailand and that the embassy was discussing the process of importing 10,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for French nationals aged 45+ in Thailand.

 

Anutin said that the department of Disease Control agrees to the basic principle and that the vaccines could arrive by at the end of June.

 

He added that ANY country which is able to take care of its citizens can import vaccines which are registered with Thailand’s FDA to inoculate their nationals.

 

Anutin said an inoculation provision by an embassy can be undertaken at any medical facility and does not need to be on embassy grounds.   

This action by the French Embassy was wholly the result of French nationals voicing their concerns to the Embassy.   So, let's do the same thing!

 

If you are American, you can make direct contact with the American Embassy's Office of Citizen Services at [email protected].  Take a few minutes of your time and do it.  It could make all the difference if enough of us do it!   Remember, "Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease"

 

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by WaveHunter

[Hyna]

10 hours ago, VaccineHunter said:

your claims about what the Singapore Government has purportedly said seem pretty far-fetched - care to substantiate them? My understanding was that they wanted to provide an alternative for people who are allergic to mRNA vaccines or unduly worried for other reasons?

People who are allergic can choose Sinovac and will get it reimbursed by the goverment.  Others can get it and pay out of pocket. 

 

Reasoning (why not included in the government program even WHO approved it): WHO approved it to help poorer countries,  Singapore wants better. 

 

Not far fetched at all, you just have to follow local and Asian 

news. They write a lot about Sinovac and others,  e.g. FDA of the Philippines (because they use many different vaccines)

I don't have the link anymore, sorry,  maybe 5 days ago, maybe SCMP.

 

 

[VaccineHunter]

5 minutes ago, Hyna said:

People who are allergic can choose Sinovac and will get it reimbursed by the goverment.  Others can get it and pay out of pocket. 

 

Reasoning (why not included in the government program even WHO approved it): WHO approved it to help poorer countries,  Singapore wants better. 

 

Not far fetched at all, you just have to follow local and Asian 

news. They write a lot about Sinovac and others,  e.g. FDA of the Philippines (because they use many different vaccines)

I don't have the link anymore, sorry,  maybe 5 days ago, maybe SCMP.

 

 

You quoted the Singapore Government as saying "its for poor countries who can't affod better" - it seems to be that is your personal opinion that you casually apply to the government of Singapore which I think is unethical and will lead to people further avoid Sinovac rather than getting what is available now and pushing Thailand towards hed immunity with whatever vaccine is available with now which in reality is SV and AZ in this country regardless of what we both would prefer.

[Hyna]

1 minute ago, VaccineHunter said:

You quoted the Singapore Government as saying "its for poor countries who can't affod better" - it seems to be that is your personal opinion that you casually apply to the government of Singapore which I think is unethical and will lead to people further avoid Sinovac rather than getting what is available now and pushing Thailand towards hed immunity with whatever vaccine is available with now which in reality is SV and AZ in this country regardless of what we both would prefer.

As I said that's what the Singapore government said, just in a bit more diplomatic language. Like "poor" they probably said "middle and low income countries", blabla.

Sorry,  you have to read the news yourself,  i cannot do it for you. 

[WaveHunter]

42 minutes ago, VaccineHunter said:

You quoted the Singapore Government as saying "its for poor countries who can't affod better" - it seems to be that is your personal opinion that you casually apply to the government of Singapore which I think is unethical and will lead to people further avoid Sinovac rather than getting what is available now and pushing Thailand towards hed immunity with whatever vaccine is available with now which in reality is SV and AZ in this country regardless of what we both would prefer.

Just so you are aware, there is growing consensus that SinoVac may not be as effective as some of the Western vaccines.  I don't know for a fact whether that is true or not BUT consider this: 

 

The Netherlands have officially declared that visitors to their country that have been vaccinated with SinoVac must still undergo quarantine, while those who have been vaccinated with Western vaccines such as Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J, will not be required to do so.  Other EU countries are expected to adopt similar restrictions.

 

My view is to get whatever brand of vaccine that is available to you ASAP through the public rollout, and then get revaccinated from a private hospital once Moderna is available.  That is my preferred strategy.

 

And a final note; there is a good possibility that private hospitals may have Moderna available for foreigners even before the public rollout would allow them to be vaccinated.  Not a certainty, but a distinct possibility.

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by WaveHunter

[VaccineHunter]

On 6/14/2021 at 11:07 AM, WaveHunter said:

Just so you are aware, there is growing consensus that SinoVac may not be as effective as some of the Western vaccines.  I don't know for a fact whether that is true or not BUT consider this: 

 

The Netherlands have officially declared that visitors to their country that have been vaccinated with SinoVac must still undergo quarantine, while those who have been vaccinated with Western vaccines such as Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J, will not be required to do so.  Other EU countries are expected to adopt similar restrictions.

 

My view is to get whatever brand of vaccine that is available to you ASAP through the public rollout, and then get revaccinated from a private hospital once Moderna is available.  That is my preferred strategy.

 

And a final note; there is a good possibility that private hospitals may have Moderna available for foreigners even before the public rollout would allow them to be vaccinated.  Not a certainty, but a distinct possibility.

 

Fully agree that getting whatever vaccine is available asap is the best strategy. Slightly disagree from a scientific perspectic that there is a growing consensus Sinovac is ineffective quite the contrary. We saw low efficacy rates from the get-go  in Brazil at 51% for the phase III trials and now see  slighly better data in Turkey, Indonesia, Chile and Egypt but these are in the 70% plus range a far cry from the 90% efficacy rates of the western mRNA vaccines (but thats not surprising given its an inactivated virus vaccine). And the Netherlands has not made an official declaration that quarantine will be driven by the provenance of the vaccine - rather they differentiate by origin country like the rest of the EU. I concur that they might however decide to require quarantine for non EMA approved vaccines which currently would exclude SinoVac, Sputnik and SinoPharm and the likes, however I would argue that with the current WHO approval SinoVac might be back in play. in terms of EU approval. Also what we should not forget is that all these vaccines protect over 90% from Hospitalisation and severe outcomes which is the main objective of the vaccination exercise in my view. So let's get that shot and be picky some other time!

[whiteflight]

On 6/14/2021 at 9:35 AM, WaveHunter said:

If you are American, you can make direct contact with the American Embassy's Office of Citizen Services at [email protected].  Take a few minutes of your time and do it.  It could make all the difference if enough of us do it!   Remember, "Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease"

 

Agreed.  I did, and of course they sent me what was obviously a canned response telling me how much the Thai government was doing for us....  All lies of course, so I sent them back a polite response refuting each point (thailandintervac.com not working,  not able to register in any local hospitals) and telling them not to insult my intelligence.  
I don't have much faith that they'll do anything, but the least we can do is to make them feel guilty about not doing their jobs.... maybe shame them into action.

[Enzian]

A little after 3pm today Tuesday I logged on to intervac and it went through like something normal and in a couple of minutes it showed the choice of 3 hospitals, first one I clicked no vaccine, then MedPark on Rama 4 Road showed zero Sinovac and 279 (from memory) AZ,

the calendar for June had dates, I took the soonest, 22 June, earliest time 14:00 and immediately had a confirmation page and the box at the bottom saying Download Vaccination Appointment clicked took me to a better page with a Service queue number Axxxxx and a QR code box with my passport number in small print right above it. Somewhere along the way was a disclaimer saying something could change so check before the date, and you bet I will, every day. 

Anyone else have similar experience today or earlier? Thanks.

[WaveHunter]

4 hours ago, whiteflight said:

Agreed.  I did, and of course they sent me what was obviously a canned response telling me how much the Thai government was doing for us....  All lies of course, so I sent them back a polite response refuting each point (thailandintervac.com not working,  not able to register in any local hospitals) and telling them not to insult my intelligence.  
I don't have much faith that they'll do anything, but the least we can do is to make them feel guilty about not doing their jobs.... maybe shame them into action.

Yeah, I'm sorry to say that even though I sent over a half dozen emails to each of the canned form-letter responses I got, I also never did get a personalized response. 

 

I guess we are on our own now.  Not surprised, just disappointed ????

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by WaveHunter

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Looks like the Intervac websites are effectively down today, with new language posted that I'm trying to interpret/understand:

 

"As a full appointment for vaccination, we will be announcing the new round of appointments for vaccination at http://www.thailandintervac.com. We apologize for all inconvenience."

 

https://www.thailandintervac.com/

 

You can't even log-in to the 60+ Intervac website today during the normal post Noon period... And if I'm interpreting the lousy MOPH English above correctly, they seem to be saying, we've run out of appointments and will announce any future openings here in the future.

[anchadian]

19 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Looks like the Intervac websites are effectively down today, with new language posted that I'm trying to interpret/understand:

 

"As a full appointment for vaccination, we will be announcing the new round of appointments for vaccination at http://www.thailandintervac.com. We apologize for all inconvenience."

 

https://www.thailandintervac.com/

 

You can't even log-in to the 60+ Intervac website today during the normal post Noon period... And if I'm interpreting the lousy MOPH English above correctly, they seem to be saying, we've run out of appointments and will announce any future openings here in the future.

Thai government released a statement apologising for the “temporary glitch” on the http://thailandintervac.com vaccination booking website, explaining the error was due to urgent system maintenance. 

 

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/data-leak-on-thailandintervac-com-was-an-error-caused-by-system-maintenance/

 

It's just ongoing John, problem follows another problem.

Edited June 16, 2021 by anchadian

[lopburi3]

21 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Looks like the Intervac websites are effectively down today, with new language posted that I'm trying to interpret/understand:

 

"As a full appointment for vaccination, we will be announcing the new round of appointments for vaccination at http://www.thailandintervac.com. We apologize for all inconvenience."

 

https://www.thailandintervac.com/

 

You can't even log-in to the 60+ Intervac website today during the normal post Noon period... And if I'm interpreting the lousy MOPH English above correctly, they seem to be saying, we've run out of appointments and will announce any future openings here in the future.

That's how I read it (after many tries).  Yesterday got the same at about 1215 but at 1530 (should be closed) it appeared to allow sign on.   Kind of hard to confirm appointment has not changed if you can't sign on.

After seeing reports from Bang Sue Station (the only vac facility open now) would not want to be in those lines.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

51 minutes ago, anchadian said:

Thai government released a statement apologising for the “temporary glitch” on the http://thailandintervac.com vaccination booking website, explaining the error was due to urgent system maintenance. 

 

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/data-leak-on-thailandintervac-com-was-an-error-caused-by-system-maintenance/

 

It's just ongoing John, problem follows another problem.

 

That news article you cite says "The issue has already been resolved" in reference to the data leak from yesterday.. Today is another day...

 

And the updated language on the website certainly would seem to suggest they basically don't have any available appointments to offer -- which is a whole separate banana from the data leak issue from yesterday.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

46 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

 Kind of hard to confirm appointment has not changed if you can't sign on.

 

That was exactly my thought as well -- regarding (at least for the time being) the removal of the ability to log into all pre-existing accounts and check status of already scheduled appointments.

 

Even if they don't have any new appointments to offer, I don't see why they can't/haven't restored the log-in functionality.

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

By the way, anyone who managed to schedule a BKK vaccination appointment on the Intervac website before it ran out of appointments / crashed / closed etc. ought to update here what happens when they actually end up going to the hospital.

 

The earliest available appointments I ever saw on the Intervac system for age 60 and up / chronic condition folks were around May 23-24, and then more toward the end of May...

 

But there was one poster on here, at least, who claimed he was able to get a May 10 appointment right at the outset, though I haven't seen anyone else post anything even remotely close to that via the Intervac site.

 

So if you managed to snag an appointment via the Intervac website and are going to the hospital now or in the coming two weeks, please do let other folks here know what's going on....  Are the appointments being kept?  What documents are being required? What vaccine? Etc etc....

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[WaveHunter]

On 6/16/2021 at 2:04 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

That news article you cite says "The issue has already been resolved" in reference to the data leak from yesterday.. Today is another day...

 

And the updated language on the website certainly would seem to suggest they basically don't have any available appointments to offer -- which is a whole separate banana from the data leak issue from yesterday.

 

IMO, both of the Intervac sites are really just PR tools at this point, not actually registration tools.  Right now, their only purpose is to keep expats from feeling they are being discriminated against in the rollout scheme.

 

I mean, it's no coincidence that these various registration schemes appeared practically overnight when expats were freaking out about what they perceived to be a discriminatory vaccine rollout process, that favored Thai nationals over foreigners.

 

Furthermore, rather than just being straightforward in addressing the the issues, only vague apologies are made about the registrations site problems by the CCSA. 

 

In fact, even though an announcement by the CCSA was made weeks ago about hospitals that would be designated as locations for vaccinations for foreigners, a complete list of those hospitals has still not been announced.

 

I've no doubt that the registration site will become a true site for expat registration and the issuing of appointments for foreigners at some point, but that is not at all what it is now. 

 

RIght now it is purely a PR tool and nothing more.

 

I'd feel a lot better if we were just told truth, instead of this Donkey and Carrot ploy.  All that this current strategy does is waste our time and create ill-will.

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by metisdead
Trolling image removed.

[DefaultName]

"We apologize for all inconvenience"

 

Missing a bus is an inconvenience, the electric being off for an afternoon is an inconvenience. 

 

Getting sick and possibly dying, or suffering long term health problems because of;

a failure to employ a qualified person to write a web form,

or failing to actually buy vaccines, 

Is not an inconvenience, it's criminal negligence.

[mtls2005]

Feels like supplies are so low no one wants to schedule a vaccination, at least until they have the vaccines in their own cooler.

 

Then once they get 500 or 1,000 doses they can then schedule Thais, and maybe save a few for aliens.

 

Three steps below "Lip Service".

 

 

 

 

[lopburi3]

11 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

Feels like supplies are so low no one wants to schedule a vaccination, at least until they have the vaccines in their own cooler.

 

Then once they get 500 or 1,000 doses they can then schedule Thais, and maybe save a few for aliens.

 

Three steps below "Lip Service".

 

 

 

 

Wife was scheduled at Vejthani Hospital on 15th and now re-scheduled on 22nd.  Vaccine for Thai is available only at Bang Sue Station this week it appears - and that place is huge for old folks to navigate it seems.

[Surelynot]

1 minute ago, lopburi3 said:

Wife was scheduled at Vejthani Hospital on 15th and now re-scheduled on 22nd.  Vaccine for Thai is available only at Bang Sue Station this week it appears - and that place is huge for old folks to navigate it seems.

Can see this happening a lot for months to come.

[WaveHunter]

So, are both InterVac sites now just a fond memory like all the other registration schemes have proved to be? 

 

Both homepages seem to have only been static pages this week with no way to interact with them. 

 

I wonder what the next registration scheme will look like? 

 

Perhaps it will be a gaming app since they seem to like playing games with us so much. 

 

Maybe the person with the highest number of unsuccessful registration attempts will win a cookie.

Edited June 17, 2021 by WaveHunter

[lopburi3]

Believe they are awaiting new vaccine allotments.  Even Thai had only one location in Bangkok this week with supply.   So far there have been more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose.

[jacko45k]

15 minutes ago, WaveHunter said:

I wonder what the next registration scheme will look like?

Can't wait to get your name down eh!

From what  read registering at a few of the local hospitals is proving a better idea.

Edited June 17, 2021 by jacko45k