Thailand Risks Becoming the Next Seychelles as Tourists Return

[Joinaman]

12 hours ago, sezze said:

No they aren't , is a alcohol analyzer a bad test since it detects right now if you got alcohol in your blood and not in 1h ? Or also in very rare cases detect fake alcohol due to some people creating aceton in their bloodstream at some moments ? It doesn't make the test bad , it is a test at a certain moment.

About the vaccines , results of it are shown right now in Europe , with heavy rising numbers but nearly no hospital admissions or deaths . HUUUGE change from before , since now the infection number is nothing more then that . Still a significant number is not fully protected and some refused vaccination , so there is still a risk of getting bad again , but so far , the numbers are not leading at all to much more hospital visits , so it is no problem . Vaccines saved many lives in the past , and is doing it right now also .

while in the UK, deaths from flu and Pneumonia are over 10 times the number of Covid deaths 

Pity they cant get the  magic" vaccine for the flu like they seem to do for Covid, we hope 

[Joinaman]

12 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

The vaccines do not stop you from becoming infected, they are designed to lessen the impact and the chance of being seriously infected with the disease and hospitalized, much like the flu vaccine does for those that take it every year.

Yup, but does not stop the spreading of the infection to others

It reduces your chance of getting really sick or dying

But the majority of healthy people ( 97% ? ) will, if catching the virus only suffer mild effects , so unless your one of the unhealthy people, why bother too much about having the vaccine ?

[Joinaman]

12 hours ago, smedly said:

there is only one or two that have failed a test on arrival the rest have failed tests after having been here for many days - I have asked the question many times - if they didn't bring it with them where did they get infected - very likely in Phuket when mixing with the locals - there is no other explanation, the Phuket administration will not want to publish this for obvious reasons - exposing the truth would raise some very serious questions about community infection in Phuket

 

we can however read between the lines with certain actions being implimented recenty - like school closures and recent very strict controls on entry over land with the army involved - in my opinion they have a very serious problem that they are hiding - COVID is rampant in Phuket

its maybe rampant in Phuket, but how many are actually hospitalised with it, how many in ICUs or have died ?

We hear so much about infections but most seem to be carrying on as normal, until tested, who then are carted off either into hospitals or hotels for isolation

But they have been vaccinated, so why do this, if as you say, the local pass on the infection . The vaccinated will, hopefully hardly even notice, while the locals can continue to infect everyone around them

[Joinaman]

12 hours ago, nkg said:

 

Well done. Spend enough time listening to idiots, you get to join their club.

well he is listening to people on this site , one he joined !

[Joinaman]

11 hours ago, no deal said:

yes but there is no vaccin i paye 3500 tb for my thai wife to get a moderna vaccin ,because the chines vaccin is not good, she don't know when she is going to get maybe by the end of the year...and people are going to die!

yup, many people will die

But the vast majority will not be from Covid

[Joinaman]

9 hours ago, Neeranam said:

They catch it on the way here. 

so why the insistence on double vaccines before flying ?

 

[Joinaman]

8 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

I hope so, too. But 'opening up' costs us money, doesn't create jobs, support businesses, or make money in any meaningful way.

 

Time for us to move away from being so tourism-reliant (though only 12% of GDP) and develop alternative revenue streams such as organic exports.

 

We should NOT follow the mistakes of other countries' openings. We're in the midst of a disaster. What's wrong with wait-and-see?

maybe because millions of people are struggling to survive in Thailand

Even to put food on the table

While you, with your gauranteed income, are wanting this to continue , to see so many live ruined, businesses closed food queues ?

[lanng khao]

2 hours ago, rumak said:

Mine says the same !   Go figure.    I guess beauty is in the nose of the beholder .

 

(No,  it' snot ........)    ??

I haven't got a big nose, I've just got a small head. 

[Joinaman]

6 hours ago, abrahamzvi said:

The vaccines are the only remedy we have and anyone stating that the vaccines are "garbage" (your word) is not only risking his/her life, but endangers also other lives!!!!

risking his life, possibly, although the risks are small

Risking other lives ? How?

[VocalNeal]

12 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

It was hell on Wednesday to get it shoved up the nose and into the throat. Waiting our results still.

Snort and gargle with Listerine before the test?

[kimamey]

24 minutes ago, Joinaman said:

Yup, but does not stop the spreading of the infection to others

It reduces your chance of getting really sick or dying

But the majority of healthy people ( 97% ? ) will, if catching the virus only suffer mild effects , so unless your one of the unhealthy people, why bother too much about having the vaccine ?

There is still a lot of research going on with all aspects of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines but there have been early results from some studies. They suggest that Pfizer and AstraZeneca reduce transmission by 40 - 60%. That's the reason for having the vaccine regardless of how healthy you are.

[impulse]

Interesting that they'd compare to Seychelles and Maldives, both of which saw increases after opening up.  Thailand was in the grip of a wave, before the Sandbox opened.  Perhaps the lesson to learn is that it's not opening the borders to vaccinated, tested tourists that causes the problem...  Perhaps, like Thailand, they would have had their waves whether they opened up to legitimate, tested tourists or not.

 

Also interesting that neither the Maldives nor the Seychelles has a porous land border where migrant workers traipse back and forth, pretty much unhindered.  I don't claim to know that answers.  Just that they're more complicated than "open up to tourist money and people start dying".  They were already dying in Thailand.

 

It will also be interesting to see if places like Australia actually keep their numbers down, or just delay the inevitable.  We won't really know for years.

 

[Joinaman]

2 minutes ago, kimamey said:

There is still a lot of research going on with all aspects of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines but there have been early results from some studies. They suggest that Pfizer and AstraZeneca reduce transmission by 40 - 60%. That's the reason for having the vaccine regardless of how healthy you are.

Thanks, so possibly reduce transmissions , but not stop them . And Sinovac ? 

So on a plane of 200 people, that a lot of potential transmissions from so called "safe" people

 

[SmartyMarty]

12 hours ago, rumak said:

you know the Thai's have to shove harder to get to the end of those big Farang noses  !

Has anyone ever told you you look a lot like Steve McQueen?

[kimamey]

40 minutes ago, Joinaman said:

while in the UK, deaths from flu and Pneumonia are over 10 times the number of Covid deaths 

Pity they cant get the  magic" vaccine for the flu like they seem to do for Covid, we hope 

I'm not sure which figures you're using but you need to look at them in context.

 

I don't know the exact numbers but the number of covid deaths is certainly less than the number of deaths from flu that we would expect during the winter months although of course covid deaths might increase by then anyway. The important point is that covid deaths have reduced not only due to vaccination but because of mask wearing, social distancing and the fact there are places we can't go that might cause more infection. Once we stop those precautions the numbers may go up and they certainly would if we didn't vaccinate as much as we are doing. Also flu and resulting deaths were down last year I believe due to the precautions taken to stop the spread of covid. That has made it more likely that flu will be worse than last year due to people not building up immunity from last winter. It's difficult at the moment to compare figures for flu and covid.

[Joinaman]

6 minutes ago, kimamey said:

I'm not sure which figures you're using but you need to look at them in context.

 

I don't know the exact numbers but the number of covid deaths is certainly less than the number of deaths from flu that we would expect during the winter months although of course covid deaths might increase by then anyway. The important point is that covid deaths have reduced not only due to vaccination but because of mask wearing, social distancing and the fact there are places we can't go that might cause more infection. Once we stop those precautions the numbers may go up and they certainly would if we didn't vaccinate as much as we are doing. Also flu and resulting deaths were down last year I believe due to the precautions taken to stop the spread of covid. That has made it more likely that flu will be worse than last year due to people not building up immunity from last winter. It's difficult at the moment to compare figures for flu and covid.

but in the UK its summer time, so not really the time for many flu problems, yet they have surged way beyond Covid

Will be interesting to see what happens in the winter months

Same as in Thailand, many thousands die from the flu and pneumonia each year normally, but greatly reduced due to the restrictions , yet even with the reductions, still more die than from Covid, yet it very rarely gets a mention, or any sort of mass vaccine project, 

[kimamey]

11 minutes ago, Joinaman said:

Thanks, so possibly reduce transmissions , but not stop them . And Sinovac ? 

So on a plane of 200 people, that a lot of potential transmissions from so called "safe" people

 

If you're looking for a complete stop of transmission, infection, hospitalisation or death then you're wasting your time. The goal is to reduce all of those and in the case of transmission the 'R' number. The less it's transmitted the fewer people have it and so the less it's transmitted and so on. This also as far as I know reduces the chances of mutations and therefore the chances of a vaccine resistant one.

 

A plane may not be the worst place to be if sufficient precautions are taken such as mask wearing and distancing. The cleaning on a plane should be pretty good and you have a defined and controlled number of people using the plane plus the ventilation is pretty good.

[Joinaman]

1 minute ago, kimamey said:

If you're looking for a complete stop of transmission, infection, hospitalisation or death then you're wasting your time. The goal is to reduce all of those and in the case of transmission the 'R' number. The less it's transmitted the fewer people have it and so the less it's transmitted and so on. This also as far as I know reduces the chances of mutations and therefore the chances of a vaccine resistant one.

 

A plane may not be the worst place to be if sufficient precautions are taken such as mask wearing and distancing. The cleaning on a plane should be pretty good and you have a defined and controlled number of people using the plane plus the ventilation is pretty good.

you were doing really good till you mentioned the plane

mask wearing when eating food ?

do they do social distancing on the airport bus  taking you to the plane /

social distancing  ? On a plane ?

and it only take one to transmit the virus to many

But i see your point 

It seems the real reason is to prevent overload on hospitals, spread out the number of sick and dying , which is most likely to continue for many years, just like flu 

[kimamey]

1 minute ago, Joinaman said:

but in the UK its summer time, so not really the time for many flu problems, yet they have surged way beyond Covid

Will be interesting to see what happens in the winter months

Same as in Thailand, many thousands die from the flu and pneumonia each year normally, but greatly reduced due to the restrictions , yet even with the reductions, still more die than from Covid, yet it very rarely gets a mention, or any sort of mass vaccine project, 

I don't know where you're figures are coming from (has flu surged?) but flu numbers would be expected to be lower at this time of year but will increase in the winter as will covid most likely.

 

It's restricted on age and vulnerability grounds and not everyone takes up the offer but there's been a yearly flu vaccination programme in the UK for years. I get one now based on age but due to my first wife's increased vulnerability because of multiple sclerosis I was having them about 20 years ago. It's really a case of trying to reduce deaths whatever the number. The problem with covid isn't so much the mortality rate as such but the transmissibility which spreads it to so many people.

 

I've just looked for some figures on infections and found this.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/weekly-national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports-published

 

Flu cases do seem to be increasing but covid still seems worse. 

[bojo]

14 hours ago, sezze said:

If you cut the fun out of Thailand , then there are far better places to go

So true....................There was a thead a few days back about famous quotes........................this should be one of them.......................

[sapson]

13 hours ago, smedly said:

COVID is rampant in Phuket

Yep because with the extremely limited testing for over a year it has got a grip nationwide and even with the roll out of mostly one shot of Sinovac its the Phuket residents who pose more of a risk to the arriving tourists than vice versa.

[kimamey]

26 minutes ago, Joinaman said:

you were doing really good till you mentioned the plane

mask wearing when eating food ?

do they do social distancing on the airport bus  taking you to the plane /

social distancing  ? On a plane ?

and it only take one to transmit the virus to many

But i see your point 

It seems the real reason is to prevent overload on hospitals, spread out the number of sick and dying , which is most likely to continue for many years, just like flu 

I haven't flown for about 10 months now so I don't know the current situation. My last and only flight during the pandemic was at the end of September last year. There wasn't really a problem with distancing on the flight from BKK to Manama, Bahrain since I think there were only about 10 passengers. On the Bahrain to London leg there were more but the only people sat next to one another that I saw were 3 who appeared to be  related. The  air on a plane goes through filters which can avoid a lot of problems and it's changed pretty quickly. The speed of air replacement dropped after smoking was banned it's possibly been increased again. Obviously you have to remove your mask to eat and drink. Never had to use a bus.

 

We're definitely going to have to live with it in some form I would think.

Edited July 16, 2021 by kimamey

[Joinaman]

1 hour ago, kimamey said:

I don't know where you're figures are coming from (has flu surged?) but flu numbers would be expected to be lower at this time of year but will increase in the winter as will covid most likely.

 

It's restricted on age and vulnerability grounds and not everyone takes up the offer but there's been a yearly flu vaccination programme in the UK for years. I get one now based on age but due to my first wife's increased vulnerability because of multiple sclerosis I was having them about 20 years ago. It's really a case of trying to reduce deaths whatever the number. The problem with covid isn't so much the mortality rate as such but the transmissibility which spreads it to so many people.

 

I've just looked for some figures on infections and found this.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/weekly-national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports-published

 

Flu cases do seem to be increasing but covid still seems worse. 

W/Ending June 11 2021

covid deaths  84

flu/pneumonia deaths   1,163 

as reported by many newspapers in Uk,  Evening Standard, Telegraph, Times, Mirror

Yes, would have expected flu deaths/cases to be very low, due to the time of year, and the restrictions 

If this continues during the summer, will not be good come the winter months 

But its a similar case in Thailand, even with restrictions, flu deaths still exceed covid deaths 

[Bkk Brian]

 

13 minutes ago, Joinaman said:

W/Ending June 11 2021

covid deaths  84

flu/pneumonia deaths   1,163 

as reported by many newspapers in Uk,  Evening Standard, Telegraph, Times, Mirror

Yes, would have expected flu deaths/cases to be very low, due to the time of year, and the restrictions 

If this continues during the summer, will not be good come the winter months 

But its a similar case in Thailand, even with restrictions, flu deaths still exceed covid deaths 

Back to flu again, totally off topic but is you're going to make a claim then at least provide a link to it, you say in Thailand even with these restrictions in place that flu deaths are exceeding covid deaths?

 

Link please?

[gk10012001]

17 hours ago, webfact said:

● Influx of travelers could bring a new wave of infections

Why is that?  Every traveler is supposed to be or could be required to be vaccinatedThat certainly is the case with the Phuket Sandbox and a few other Sandboxes that are being proposed.  Every traveler is supposed to test negative three days before traveling.  Are officials now saying that the three day test check is not effective and does nothing?  Aren't the 90 percent of the Thailand population that is not vaccinated the real problem?  It is not as if there is no virus floating around Thailand right now, with or without foreign travelers. A few hundred thousand or even one million more foreign travelers, each supposedly negative upon arrival would be a small number relative to the 40 or 50 million Thais that are running around un vaccinated.

[gk10012001]

2 hours ago, kimamey said:

If you're looking for a complete stop of transmission, infection, hospitalisation or death then you're wasting your time. The goal is to reduce all of those and in the case of transmission the 'R' number. The less it's transmitted the fewer people have it and so the less it's transmitted and so on. This also as far as I know reduces the chances of mutations and therefore the chances of a vaccine resistant one.

 

A plane may not be the worst place to be if sufficient precautions are taken such as mask wearing and distancing. The cleaning on a plane should be pretty good and you have a defined and controlled number of people using the plane plus the ventilation is pretty good.

Planes are known as cesspools of diseases.  So many old or other people with respiratory illnesses ore immune issues are warned not to fly on planes.  My dad with lung issues could not fly.  Yes planes supposedly cleanse the air, and the seats, etc.  But anybody that has been on a plane with any type of cloth seat, just go ahead and whack that seat and watch the dust and particulates and dander fluff out of it.  The air filters are far from great at cleansing viral entities even if proper maintenance and operation is carried out.

[Bkk Brian]

3 minutes ago, gk10012001 said:

Why is that?  Every traveler is supposed to be or could be required to be vaccinatedThat certainly is the case with the Phuket Sandbox and a few other Sandboxes that are being proposed.  Every traveler is supposed to test negative three days before traveling.  Are officials now saying that the three day test check is not effective and does nothing?  Aren't the 90 percent of the Thailand population that is not vaccinated the real problem?  It is not as if there is no virus floating around Thailand right now, with or without foreign travelers. A few hundred thousand or even one million more foreign travelers, each supposedly negative upon arrival would be a small number relative to the 40 or 50 million Thais that are running around un vaccinated.

You're right of course, not only are they vaccinated but they have to undergo a negative test before departure and 3 pcr tests when they get here. Probably the safest people to be around in Phuket.

[rumak]

2 hours ago, lanng khao said:

I haven't got a big nose, I've just got a small head. 

and there you have it :   being nosy and thinking with your small head  are  two major reasons

so many farangs end up posting on these forums.

 

but:   i am sure you are different  ????

[The Hammer2021]

16 hours ago, meechai said:

What you don't get is...A Vaccine is in no way an Immunization

You are still able to be infected after a vaccination & this is something most not just you do not understand

 

You do not understand immunization is term used to describe mass vaccination. Individuals are vaccinated countries are immunized as a result of a vaccination program

[abrahamzvi]

13 hours ago, Joinaman said:

risking his life, possibly, although the risks are small

Risking other lives ? How?

By infecting others with the virus. The risks are small? How about the recent figures, including mortality rates?