SURVEY: How long before Thailand returns to normal?

[DaveSamutP]

Several years. But as others have said, some things are changed for good with this generation. 

 

This is a defining moment, not entirely unlike a world war. 

 

Also nobody seems to want to address the possibility that more of these viruses could be deliberately forthcoming. Any future that does not involve planning for such an event, is not realistic. 

[Rimmer]

A troll/flame has been removed

[Pedrogaz]

At some point reality must set in. Most countries have borrowed heavily to get the funds to combat COVID. Interest rates will have to rise as this drags on, causing a recession. I won't be leading to Chan-o-Cha at 2% that's for sure.

[Antonymous]

24 minutes ago, Pedrogaz said:

At some point reality must set in. Most countries have borrowed heavily to get the funds to combat COVID. Interest rates will have to rise as this drags on, causing a recession. I won't be leading to Chan-o-Cha at 2% that's for sure.

Yes, most countries will be looking at means to recoup funds expended on Covid. The probable solution that they will go for is extra taxation. This is easier to do in certain countries than others. Those like Thailand which have a barely functioning tax system will struggle unless...

 

I fully expect the move to central bank cryptocurrencies to speed up. This is already being pushed strongly in Europe. Once cash has been all but eliminated and all transactions are digital and easily monitored, governments will not only close up the black economy and bring in more taxes from those who were evading them, but they will also be able to extract new 'emergency' taxes from wages and savings accounts at the press of a  button.

 

Thailand may be one of the last countries to banish cash and to move to digital (too many vested interests at the top wanting to prevent transparency), but they won't be able to hold out for long.

 

This will be one of the changes we are sure to see and it will have a dramatic effect on our lives and our freedoms.

[James105]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

 

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.
 

It's already happening:

 

"New Zealand children falling ill in high numbers due to Covid ‘immunity debt’"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/new-zealand-children-falling-ill-in-high-numbers-due-to-covid-immunity-debt

[Srikcir]

I voted 2 years based on a "health" normal as it relates to the covid-19 virus.

With regard to a broad national healthcare system normal I'd say 5 years and regard to a democratic normal attendant with broad social equilaty I'd say 15+ years.

[AnotherFarang8]

2 hours ago, Stubby said:

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

Just wanted to add. If you worry, you die sooner. Both psychologically - if you replace life with worry, you forget to live, means you’re dead in your life, and physically too - you worry too much, this opens gates to high blood pressure, lowers immunity to infections, leading to premature death.

 

Back on topic. I anticipate fewer hurdles to travel to Thailand already this winter. Planning a trip.

[ronster]

2-4 years, but then you have to attract the tourists that would have been going to come here and decided on somewhere else closer to home and realised how many amazing places there were only a few hours flight from their home . 

[hugocnx]

I voted several years and that is if we are able to fight off the people who put this 'spell' on us. 

My vote would have been 'never', but that was to far fetched maybe?

[sammieuk1]

According to the Czar its 87 days but that could just turn out to be until the retraction ????

[3NUMBAS]

prolly 5 years and then a not notmal ,normal wil take decades

[DefaultName]

When 70+% of the adult population is vaccinated and the country opens up again, that'll be normal.  Not the normal we had before, but the normal we'll learn to love.

 

So, any anti's reading, get with the program, you are helping to delay things.  You, not the rest of us.

[BritManToo]

18 minutes ago, DefaultName said:

So, any anti's reading, get with the program, you are helping to delay things.  You, not the rest of us.

I'm not delaying anything, I couldn't get vaccinated even if I wanted ....... none available. And likely none available for the next 1-2 years.

Edited August 2, 2021 by BritManToo

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, James105 said:

It's already happening:

 

"New Zealand children falling ill in high numbers due to Covid ‘immunity debt’"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/new-zealand-children-falling-ill-in-high-numbers-due-to-covid-immunity-debt

That's worrying, seeing as NZ's early strike response and closed borders saw the country's residents back to a near-normal life pretty quickly. Quite a few experts warned about this lack of immune stimulation early on in the pandemic. Alas, the global authorities (whoever they are) promptly silenced them. I can understand why that was, but it doesn't make it right.  

[Dogmatix]

Ask the clever gent in charge of the TAT. 

 

He can also tell you many billions will be dropped by dumb foreingers to visit a pedtilence ravaged country and step over bodies in the street. 

[Stubby]

1 minute ago, BritManToo said:

I'm not delaying anything, I couldn't get vaccinated even if I wanted ....... none available.

And likely none available in the next 1-2 years.

You shouldn't need to get vaccinated, BMT. You already had COVID19, right?

A study... published in The Lancet this year... found that those who already had COVID were protected from reinfection as much as the best vaccines.
 

Another study of over 25,000 hospital workers... this one published on Medrxiv... reinforced the Lancet report.

The conclusion of that research states:
 

"Prior infection is equivalent to the most effective vaccines, in terms of its ability to protect against COVID."
 

It makes you think it would be better to save millions of vaccines and time by not inoculating those who have already had... and recovered from... COVID19.  I'm sure there must be reasons why the medical experts in charge still want the recovered to take the jab. It's just that I haven't found that question presented in an interview yet.

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, AnotherFarang8 said:

Just wanted to add. If you worry, you die sooner. Both psychologically - if you replace life with worry, you forget to live, means you’re dead in your life, and physically too - you worry too much, this opens gates to high blood pressure, lowers immunity to infections, leading to premature death.

Good point, well made ????

[racket]

There was never a normal pre-covid. In fact the tourism sector was already hit hard with businesses struggling. The only way I see Thailand "recovering" is a complete new management inside the tourist authority with some new, young minds who understands marketing and better communicate with customers. I just don't see anything back to normal anytime soon. It's not a matter of years, but rather when things start to change with respect to management. 

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, hugocnx said:

I voted several years and that is if we are able to fight off the people who put this 'spell' on us. 

My vote would have been 'never', but that was to far fetched maybe?

Just under 18,000 new infection recorded today 2 August, and a large % of that number will pass it on it, and some (a small number) who come in contact with the 18,000 today won't get it and won't pass it on because they are vaccinated*.

 

*But the number fully vaccinated right now in Thailand is quite small so the number who will pass it on is quite big.

 

Additionally, in a country like Thailand and typical Thai behaviors how do you successfully isolate such large numbers to try to prevent passing the virus to others? No real solid answer.

 

All meaning that number numbers of new infections will likely go up for several weeks and then lower but very slowly.

 

Plus it looks like the total numbers of fully vaccinated Thais will grow very slowly.

 

How does all of that fit into 'open up' in October?

 

 

[superal]

17 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

OK , so I think that we all agree that vaccinations are the only way out , not just for Thailand but globally and when you look at the extent of global vaccination , the current rate is only around 15% of the world's population , so we have a long way to go and it has to be tackled by the major powers or the United Nations . Permanent vaccination stations will have to be set up , in every country , to vaccinate everyone at least twice a year . It is just a question of , will it become mandatory ?  So there will have to be a multinational agreement on the vaccination management ( I have not read or heard of such ) . As has been said many times , no one is safe until all are safe . Looking at other countries that are suffering heavy covid infections and thinking my country is OK is not the answer . We must be concerned for every country and as an example Australia did well for a while with strict border controls but is now in a vaccination mode . You can only lockdown for so long because the normal way of life has to return . 

Finally , the true source of the covid outbreak must be established without blame soas lessons can be learned .

[Golden Triangle]

4 hours ago, Stubby said:

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

You really don't want to be dying from this one though, it's a horrible disease, you slowly drown as your lungs become overwhelmed by the infection, and if you do survive your quality of life, depending how badly you were infected, is normally krap, in my brothers case the Dr's ramped up his medication, he was out like a light & then they just switched off his ventilator, they9 allowed his siblings to talk to him via mobile phone, his sons, his grand children everyone sent their love, including me here in Thailand, the most painful & tearjerking thing I have had to do in my whole life, then they switched everything off & within 10 minutes maybe less he was gone.

 

The Dr that performed the autopsy said to his son later that had he survived he would have been severely handicapped lung wise and would have needed oxygen for the rest of his life and would have been severely debilitated, don't treat this virus lightly.

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Golden Triangle

[Andycoops]

The only normal thing in Thailand is the pandemic of corruption and coups.

[Thingamabob]

Depends what you mean by normal. I expect most establishments will open within 6-8 months, but private debt will be a drag on the economy for several years. 

[Gandtee]

Normal to whom?????

[Peterphuket]

Fill in 2 years but have to say: "the father is the wish of the thought"

[atpeace]

Early next year but too many variables to be confident.

[Neeranam]

I think Songkran 2023 things will be back to normal. 

[DaveSamutP]

There's also the possibility of a big conflict, maybe a global one. It's a good time to save and be at the ready to snatch some assets. That's what the rich will be doing 

[androokery]

6 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I believe you are mistaken,  Thailand is broadly divided into two tribal/feudal groups.

Central Thai speakers that support whatever the Bangkok generals tell them (45%).

Lao Thai speakers that support whatever the Thaksin family tell them (65%).

 

There is no democracy in Thailand, and likely never will be.

Because all free elections will be won by the Lao speaking majority, and the generals based in Bangkok will never allow the Lao majority (whom  they look down on and despise as inferior) to be in control.

 

The public will never be swayed, they will always support their tribal leaders. This conflict is more or a tribal Hutu/Tutsie Rwandan style conflict, than anything comparable to the west.

 

 

 

45+65=110

[Scott]

Conspiracy posts and replies removed.