With the virus widespread but with vaccine programs being started in earnest, how long do you think it will be until Thailand is back to normal?   For the purpose of the defining normal, let's use unrestricted travel throughout the country and unrestricted access for most nationalities.  

 

Please feel free to leave a comment.  

Considering that there is o country in the world that has solved covid yet and there really does not look like any solution on the horizon.  Added to that the financial toll that this is having on world markets and economies I think it is safe to say that while Thailand may want to open and may open in some form that we will not get back to a true normal until 2023.  Opening borders is easy, just look at the U.S.  They have their southern border wide open with no screening or control.   It is getting the right people to come that is going to be hard.

Man, it's the New Normal.

 

The Stakeholders said that since the beginning, do you think those sociopath were joking?

Using this parameters...12-18 months. But for "normal" to mean where the hotels, restos, tourist attractions, and the like are back open in the numbers pre-pandemic, so that large numbers of tourists would want to holiday in Thailand, I'd say at least 24-36 months.

Probably in most countries including Thailand there will never be a return to the 'old normal'.

 

Many things will have changed permanently - supply chains, people flows, ways of doing business, education structures, community health processes & standards, concepts of national security ...

6 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

Probably in most countries including Thailand there will never be a return to the 'old normal'.

 

Many things will have changed permanently - supply chains, people flows, ways of doing business, education structures, community health processes & standards, concepts of national security ...

Don't think you will be far off the mark with that comment. 

As per the definition of "normal" by the OP, I'd say mid next year, about a year from now.

A lot depends on what will be  classified as normal, there will be changes, ranging from good to bad based on individual views. 

1 hour ago, kingstonkid said:

Considering that there is o country in the world that has solved covid yet and there really does not look like any solution on the horizon.  Added to that the financial toll that this is having on world markets and economies I think it is safe to say that while Thailand may want to open and may open in some form that we will not get back to a true normal until 2023.  Opening borders is easy, just look at the U.S.  They have their southern border wide open with no screening or control.   It is getting the right people to come that is going to be hard.

Certainly doesn't appear the world [as a collective] will engage in any resemblance to normalcy for at least a solid couple of years. And that's being generous. 

First, covid is not going away. With vaccine and herd immunity it can be mitigated. One year for the order, one year for the aftermath and one year begins the attempt to rebuild. This is just covid that means laws, trust, return to what most consider normal.

 

Especially if we lockdown for two months in next few weeks (in the next year there will be many lockdowns) the economy is doomed. This will take five years to recover imo. Thais already indebted. Economy already teetering since 2015.

 

Factories will have huge issues managing covid, illness and production. Two years or more.

 

We don't know the social implications of the loss of parents and breadwinners. By govts estimates 30k pm with nothing to reign it in. People are doing stupid stuff  yesterday I saw a guy buying carrots in Big C. He risked covid for carrots.

 

Tourism. As long as ASQ and all the paperwork and circus is in place tourism is dead.

 

Thailand will need to produce vaccine passport because why not $$$

 

I don't see the housing market moving or at all healthy. This can go on until the banks call the loans but they can't bc they've given overextended second, third mortgages. Oh well.

 

Politically there is no return to democratic process and what we in the west consider proper due process and jurisprudence. What this dissolution means for the future no one knows but I don't see how it can be a positive.

 

It will be five years or two years after the US sorts itself out. Whichever is less.

When I can go to Club Electric Blue and get a lap dance, that is how I will mark LOS as "Returned to normal."

10 minutes ago, HappyExpat57 said:

When I can go to Club Electric Blue and get a lap dance, that is how I will mark LOS as "Returned to normal."

Think you will need to corral the pecker for awhile if that's what you consider "return to normal" 

"Unknown" should be an option, meaning presently unknowable, primarily because of the virus itself.   But I think it could surprise in either direction.

 

However, things will never go back to what they were before. Surely my wife and nieces will never stop ordering everything on facebook. That's here to stay as long as I can still pay.

1 minute ago, rabas said:

"Unknown" should be an option, meaning presently unknowable, primarily because of the virus itself.   But I think it could surprise in either direction.

 

However, things will never go back to what they were before. Surely my wife and nieces will never stop ordering everything on facebook. That's here to stay as long as I can still pay.

So true Rab. I'm in London have been since pandemic started  and whenever I speak to the girlfriend in Bangkok and asked what she doing that day she says buying some shoes on Facebook. And I said didn't you just sell some last week on Facebook she says yes but these  better colour!

Very poor choice of answers. For me October this year. Let's open up Thailand.

4 hours ago, kynikoi said:

First, covid is not going away.

Of course it is. No influenza or coronavirus type pandemics last forever or we'd be extinct by now. The Spanish flu pandemic fizzled out after a couple of years. Others didn't even last that half that long.

Pandemics come and they go, always have done and always will do. The viruses, however, don't completely disappear, but rather weaken and become endemic. In other words,  respiratory-spread illnesses... like COVID19... eventually join the family of seasonal colds and sniffles.

It won't be long now before Barstool Bob and his mates will add this moment in time to one of those...

"Aye, do you remember when...? conversations.

Stubby

Normal with regards to unrestricted travel, interprovincial and international arrivals... when the Emergency Decree is lifted, I suspect this will be before the end of the year. 

 

BUT, when this all kicked off in March 2020 if anyone asked me when all this would be sorted I would have said before Sept 2020. If anyone had suggested Thailand would be locked down in August 2021 I would not have agreed. 

 

Realistically, we have no idea. Much of ‘it’ depends on vaccine availability and the proportion of Thai population double vaccinated, vaccine efficacy against variants of concern and of course public pressure and the economy struggles and the voices of those in financial need get louder. 

 

 

The other question maybe, when will Thailand get to ’normal’ (i.e. Pre-covid tourism numbers and pre-covid life) - this may take much longer, several years. But ultimately this will be looked back upon in generations as a ‘culture changing even’ not just in Thailand but globally.

 

Just like 9-11 changed the way we no longer step on a plane like its a bus. We will no longer travel as we used to and travelling alone may require a couple of additional ‘hoops’ to jump through such as providing vaccine proof and even PCR tests for the foreseeable future. 

 

 

 

 

 

You have to define normal first. 

 

If you mean as it was three years ago then probably never.

 

Shanghai used to be a hotbed of sin between the wars.. It never regained its former ' glory '

 

And neither will Thailand.  If covid is ever brought under control then Thailands reputation as the fleshpot of Asia will be a thing of the past. There will always be sex for sale just as there is in any major world city but it will cost as much as it does in Hamburg or Amsterdam etc. The days of cheap sex have gone forever and with it a lot of patronage from Western countries.

 

What will take up the slack are wealthy people from places like China and Russia etc , looking to buy a bolt hole in the sun for when their own countries start collapsing. 

 

 

 

 

This is the new "Abnormal"

There is no cure for the common cold & this Covid will also be chased

In the end all Pandemics become Endemic & no vaccine has ever cured one

 

We have had no world wars in 76 years, No major Pandemic in 101 years

This hopefully will not be as bad as those two

1 hour ago, Denim said:

You have to define normal first. 

Op already did. 
And based on that I’d say a year or two. 

Normal to me is when I can buy a ticket, jump on a plane and be in Thailand the next day, with no ASQ, no quarantine. 

 

I imagine at some point it will be a case of showing you're double jabbed and maybe a PCR. I'm okay with that. 

 

I can't see Thailand being at that point for at least a year. I hope I'm wrong though. 

 

My country still isn't even eligible for the Sandbox, so there's a long way to go yet. 

4 hours ago, Stubby said:

The viruses, however, don't completely disappear,

Exactly what I had said.

 

Many, but hardly all weaken. Then the timeline...How long do they take to weaken? Typical flu kills millions annually.

 

How long did it take SARS 1 to disapate? It hadn't and that's what covid is a stronger SARS, SARS 2. That's what they were studying in Wuhan.

 

Smallpox, polio are still issues but I won't go into that.

 

MERS, ebola, diphtheria, mumps, TB. Yup, just disappeared on their own donchaknow.

 

Some may, others may not. It's hardly that simple and a virus has no three year expiration lol.

 

 

You mean completely normal with 39 million tourists a year?  I say more than ten years.  

The reason being is even after vaccines are rolled out and this pandemic is under control, to get airlines back up and running will be a massive problem.  Before all this there was a shortage of pilots.  When we get going again there will be a huge shortage of pilots.

Not to mention hotels, etc.

I suspect to go to Thailand will be much more expensive in the next 2 years.  

4 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

the Emergency Decree is lifted, I suspect this will be before the end of the year. 

It's been going on since forever. It's political as much as anything else.

 

With a maximum of another 25M first vax why would you think this? The emergency decree is more political than for public health.

 

10 hours ago, meechai said:

This is the new "Abnormal"

There is no cure for the common cold & this Covid will also be chased

In the end all Pandemics become Endemic & no vaccine has ever cured one

 

We have had no world wars in 76 years, No major Pandemic in 101 years

This hopefully will not be as bad as those two

Smallpox

Polio (not entirely eradicated because of religion and human ignorance)

Also

Scarlet fever, Typhoid and Cholera are no longer common childhood killers.

There is no normal anymore....where have you been for the last 16 months man!!!

 

The New Normal has begun at the Phuket sandbox... changes and adjustments will be made and things will get back to some semblance of what they were before Covid within the next 6 months if 75% of Thais are vaccinated

17 minutes ago, ArcticFox said:

That ain't normal.  Most people have been entrained over the last 16 months to sit, roll-over, beg, and jump through hoops just like circus dogs, and like you, 70% will say - "I'm okay with that."  Well unless you're French.  They seem to be some of the only people on Earth right now with the sack to stand up to the totalitarian dictates that have replaced functioning democracies.  As well as the demonized Swedes who are one of the only countries with a functioning society.

Normal doesn't return until the gods of government and industry think that Skippy is well-trained enough that he'll accept his muzzle and his kibble treats and obey basic commands.  Then they'll drop the Emergency and replace it with a bastardization of Democracy that will look eerily like every other totalitarian nightmare in history.  Read Hannah Arendt to get an idea of what's being ushered in. Or if you can't handle that level of dry academia, then read commentary by Huxley and Orwell. 
There ain't any going back to normal kids - well - unless pressure cooker lid blows off in France and then all bets are off.
 

Fear makes people docile and compliant - the governments of the world have been feeding their populations a daily diet of fear over the last 16 months so it's not too surprising that this has happened.   I remain bitterly disappointed that my own country (UK) caved in with barely a whimper to the new controls over their lives - most actually applauded it.   I used to be confused about why what happened in 1930s Germany came to pass and the majority did not oppose it.   I am no longer confused about this.   

After "The Singularity". That's when -for better or worse, Artificial Intelligence supersedes humans, and will no longer be "programmable" it will make its own decisions.

Thus, it will likely deny computing power to "harmful" humans, and reset the rules of the humanity game.

Or, it will just kill us off in one fell swoop.

It is unstoppable short of nuclear annihilation globally, and it is in progress, the only question now is, when will it arrive.

1 hour ago, ArcticFox said:

That ain't normal.  Most people have been entrained over the last 16 months to sit, roll-over, beg, and jump through hoops just like circus dogs, and like you, 70% will say - "I'm okay with that."  Well unless you're French.  They seem to be some of the only people on Earth right now with the sack to stand up to the totalitarian dictates that have replaced functioning democracies.  As well as the demonized Swedes who are one of the only countries with a functioning society.

Normal doesn't return until the gods of government and industry think that Skippy is well-trained enough that he'll accept his muzzle and his kibble treats and obey basic commands.  Then they'll drop the Emergency and replace it with a bastardization of Democracy that will look eerily like every other totalitarian nightmare in history.  Read Hannah Arendt to get an idea of what's being ushered in. Or if you can't handle that level of dry academia, then read commentary by Huxley and Orwell. 
There ain't any going back to normal kids - well - unless pressure cooker lid blows off in France and then all bets are off.
 

1) Being double jabbed is normal for millions already. For me, it's a simple case of showing an app on my phone, or printing off the PDF copy to show at check-in. This is the way things will be from now on. Don't like it. Don't travel

 

2) Ditto PCR. Don't like it. Don't travel. Until everyone has the vaccine, it's the responsible thing to do.

 

 

9 hours ago, kynikoi said:

Typical flu kills millions annually. How long did it take SARS 1 to disapate? Smallpox, polio are still issues but I won't go into that. MERS, ebola, diphtheria, mumps, TB. Yup, just disappeared on their own donchaknow.

You're right; flu does kill lots of people annually, as do MANY other diseases. I mean, we all get old (if we're lucky), then we get sick, and then we die. It's the sad cycle of life and the absolute certainty that most people accept. I'm yet to meet anyone who's evaded it.
 

OUR FINITE LIFE
 

Seriously, how many people go to bed fighting fit after a lovely evening with friends and family... then pass away peacefully in their sleep? Very few indeed. It's a beautiful thought, but it's hardly the reality. And at least we can be thankful for 21st-century pain management.

But we don't spend our lives breathing through masks, fearing the inevitable, or worrying about what might happen. What's the point?

You die if you worry. And... you die if your don't... so why worry?
 

VIRUSES ARE ALL AROUND US... DON'T YOU KNOW?
 

We shouldn't hide away from illnesses that are no longer pandemics. That's my point. Heck, it would result in a planet full of low-immunity, highly vulnerable human hermits. COVID and all its scaremongering may have even created some of the above.
 

Scientists now believe there are more viruses on earth than there are stars in the universe. But our immunity does a great job of stopping them from harming us.
 

Seasonal flu... or other triggers of harmful outbreaks... are not pandemics that bring the entire global population to a standstill. Sadly, it's the usual culprits that get hit—for the most part—i.e., the old, already sick, and vulnerable. 
 

HAVE A THOUGHT FOR THE FEARFUL
 

To start a post with, "COVID is not going away…" is not helpful and totally unnecessary. And the rest of your "speculative" post is equally grim. Yes, you could be right about some things and wrong about others, only time will tell. 
 

But to scribble so much negatively might cause undue distress to some folks having a tough time of things... don't you think?
 

Stubby