13 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Oh brother. Will this ever end?

No...if there is one thing Covid-19 has in common with influenza its that its a permanent part of our lives now, forever. There is no end to viruses, bacteria or ill health....except in death.

10 hours ago, mancub said:

The goal of the Sandbox, however, was to show the world that Thailand was safe and ready for international tourism. 

Not Thailand...Phuket.

1 hour ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

Not Thailand...Phuket.

Phuket was intended as the "successful" model for the rest of the country to follow.........

if one surfs the web to see what was actually stated wrt the goal(s) of the Sandbox, its interesting to note that there is a bit of a variance ....

 

According to Governor "Yuthasak Supasorn" in a Toruism letter' (sent May-27, 20201) on the then planned Phuket Sandbox opening "It is aimed at accelerating the revival of the country's toruism industry and paving the way for the re-opening of other tourist destinations within Thailand".
Reference:  https://royalvacationdmc.com/blog/phuket-sandbox-officially-approved/

Then a July-2021 article in Khaosad stated " He (Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha) emphasized that the sandbox was just the first step toward his goal announced in June of having Thailand completely reopened within 120 days.

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2021/07/02/pandemic-tourism-thailand-launches-phuket-sandbox-plan/

1 hour ago, oldcpu said:

if one surfs the web to see what was actually stated wrt the goal(s) of the Sandbox, its interesting to note that there is a bit of a variance ....

 

According to Governor "Yuthasak Supasorn" in a Toruism letter' (sent May-27, 20201) on the then planned Phuket Sandbox opening "It is aimed at accelerating the revival of the country's toruism industry and paving the way for the re-opening of other tourist destinations within Thailand".
Reference:  https://royalvacationdmc.com/blog/phuket-sandbox-officially-approved/

Then a July-2021 article in Khaosad stated " He (Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha) emphasized that the sandbox was just the first step toward his goal announced in June of having Thailand completely reopened within 120 days.

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2021/07/02/pandemic-tourism-thailand-launches-phuket-sandbox-plan/

I believe that the original basic (and non convoluted!) idea for opening Phuket to International tourists came from Phuket. It was then grabbed by TAT and passed on to government who then took over and together they "modified" it.

16 hours ago, oldcpu said:

A recent Thaiger.com news article (dated 30-July-2021) has some very vague information:  https://thethaiger.com/news/phuket/precarious-phuket-open-internationally-closed-domestically

 

I quote from the article:

 

- - -  start of quote - - - -

Phuket’s healthcare and hospital system are still in strong shape with only 36% of resources in use currently. No cases have required ventilators so far. Some of the 148 cases in the past week were Phuket residents infected outside the province and returning home for medical treatment. High-risk infections were moved to local quarantine facilities.

 

Phuket currently has 450 rooms ready for isolation and quarantine, but each tambon in Phuket was asked to make contingency plans in case of a surge to identify rooms that could be converted to provide up to 1,500 quarantine rooms.

- - -  end of quote - - - -

 

With 35 to 50 cases each day, and the trend suggests even more tests per day could be seen, 450 rooms could be filled pretty quick if only one per room.  I wonder how many per room ?   I fear the 'contingency plan' of more rooms could be needed.

Thanks

Thaiger is a good source.

 

Good YouTube channel, hope they don't run afoul of the Junta.

15 hours ago, Ohyesuare said:

Richard Barrow provides a daily update of how many in Phuket are in the hospital and deaths etc.. I think it's at around 200 now with 36% of ICU filled but I could be misremembering and can't be bothered to go look it up. Once hospitals have reached capacity, of course the sandbox will be over, if not long before that.

Thanks.

Remember the photographs of queues of citizens driven to vaccination to open the tourism experiment?