Prominent Thai doctor says lockdown measures aren’t working, tighter ones won’t work either, ease them to save the economy and consider an export ban on Covid19 vaccines and greatly boost vaccination program

[sungod]

38 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

Where do they go after school or after work? ......They go home to the little spaces that enforces close proximity.

 

 

And after playing with their mates all day as the schools are closed, they go home to their little spaces that enforces close proximity. Or do you think they are all under house arrest and dont go out?

[daveAustin]

1 hour ago, Nojohndoe said:

And in Australia the  presence of  two  new cases  prompts a shut down in Canberra and immediately MP's  head for the airport to  go home? 555

I just hope someone will eventually  provide a single explanative word for the >>>> being distributed to the world. 

In a bid to keep numbers low, unless Oz and NZ get their people vaccinated enmasse they’ll be locking down for years. 

Edited August 12, 2021 by daveAustin

[sungod]

5 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Very true; it's encouraging that alternatives are being voiced.  Some lockdown fetishists seem to think the lockdown should be forever!  Thailand isn't Australia.

Exactly, lets get on with life and carry on taking precautions.

[watthong]

26 minutes ago, sungod said:

1 hour ago, DrJack54 said:

Another chap looking for popular headline.

Utter fool.

I see it as a medical professional with  a different opinion. Your username has a  prefix as a Dr,  do you have medical credentials, genuinely interested.

Same question should apply to a certain "Dr. Campbell" (from Youtube) often cited as trusted source of Covid related issues by many on this forum. To discuss medical matter using a "Dr." mantle while you have the level of medical knowledge as that of a RN  - is not kosher.

[MrJ2U]

These doctors are the government's mouthpiece.

 

Open up?

People may want to come but nobody is flying here with a raging pandemic, no hospital beds, riots in Bangkok.

 

Get rid of this government and buy some quality vaccines.

 

Not necessarily in that order.

 

Enjoy your day.

 

[Aussieroaming]

12 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Very true; it's encouraging that alternatives are being voiced.  Some lockdown fetishists seem to think the lockdown should be forever!  Thailand isn't Australia.

Australia has always maintained this strong ideology about being an isolated island where pestilense should be held out, way before c19 was a thing. My personal belief is that Australia has acted hysterically and having 39 or so thousand Australians still locked out of the country after 16 or 18 months should be seen as a national disgrace. But if they put it to the vote I think that many Australians would support the governments decisions to maintain the island as being covid free if possible at any cost, even though I personally feel its madness. My takeout from this is that we all have personal and differing limitations to what we think is acceptable and how we think the virus control should be managed. I would rather open up the country (Thailand) for economy and trading and I would be willing to manage my personal space, time outdoors in risk environments myself and hopefully manage it with masks and cleanliness to remain virus free and let others manage their health. And of course I will personally vaccinate whenever I get the chance or opportunity.

[Scott]

Baiting posts have been reported and removed.

 

[djayz]

The man is, unfortunately, wasting his breath. The you-know-whos have b ollocksed this up from the beginning and they ain't going to listen now. They've all had their preferred shots long, long ago. 

Edited August 12, 2021 by djayz

[placeholder]

35 minutes ago, steven100 said:

They have been proven to be inaffective or less affective against the Delta variant as confirmed by the US and others. 

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/search/Sinovac

Malaysia's decision on Sinovac's inactivated virus vaccine comes amid questions elsewhere over the shot's efficacy against new and more ...

First off, I was replying to someone who claimed that it was ineffective against the Delta variant. The continuing problem with some people is that they can't seem to wrap their heads around what "effective" means in regards to vaccines. In the case of covid-19 it's generally used to signify that it's less effective at suppressing symptoms of the disease. Any symptoms, major or minor. But when it comes to protecting against serious symptoms and death, in the past the Sinovac vaccine has shown itself to be a very potent protector. Not quite as good as other vaccines, but still very potent.

It should be pointed out that even before the Delta variant arose, the Sinovac vaccine was being criticized as useless or next to useless even though that was patently false.

Now Sinovac is being criticized on 2 grounds.

One is that it isn't performing well in antibody tests. Antibody tests are not a reliable way to determine effectiveness. But it is the common way it's done because it's very cheap and doesn't require specialized equipment that would be necessary to evaluate T cell response.

The other reason that it's become subject to criticism is reports from the field. But it's the nature of these reports that they're anecdotal.

I think it's a pretty sure bet that Sinovac will continue the previous pattern in that it will be shown to be somewhat less effective against the Delta variant than other vaccines. But claims that it is ineffective are unlikely to be proven true. There are now real world studies now being done of Sinovac's vaccine. Let's wait and see what the results are. Of course, if other vaccine options are immediately available, they should be acquire immediately. But if not, why not go with what you've got or can get?

[BestB]

Here is a thing, do not need to impose any export bans, just need to start vaccinating instead of looking for any excuse not to vaccinate.

 

Look at foreigners, only 1000 who have registered are over 70 year old. 1 month later and they still vaccinating over 70

 

US donated few million doses, hardly ant made it to the hospitals to vaccinate people.

 

Out of that donation, 150 000 are to be used for foreigners, there are 40 000 foreigners who have registered and guess what? only a handful received one.

 

Pattaya for example has 1 place to get vaccinated, why not 5 places?

 

Bangkok Hospital Pattaya said can vaccinate its customers, foreigners ONLY again over 70, which is again nothing but an excuse to drag it out for whatever reason.

 

From memory deal is 3 or 5 million doses of AZ is for Thailand use, so why have not 3 or 5 million been vaccinated in the past month? and this month?

 

In theory, Thailand should have at least 20 million vaccinated people already, AZ and Sinovac and Pfyser combined and yet how many have been vaccinated?

[BestB]

53 minutes ago, Aussieroaming said:

Australia has always maintained this strong ideology about being an isolated island where pestilense should be held out, way before c19 was a thing. My personal belief is that Australia has acted hysterically and having 39 or so thousand Australians still locked out of the country after 16 or 18 months should be seen as a national disgrace. But if they put it to the vote I think that many Australians would support the governments decisions to maintain the island as being covid free if possible at any cost, even though I personally feel its madness. My takeout from this is that we all have personal and differing limitations to what we think is acceptable and how we think the virus control should be managed. I would rather open up the country (Thailand) for economy and trading and I would be willing to manage my personal space, time outdoors in risk environments myself and hopefully manage it with masks and cleanliness to remain virus free and let others manage their health. And of course I will personally vaccinate whenever I get the chance or opportunity.

You should read todays news, Not only they bringing in more army to patrol the streets in NSW, but locking down suburb's with 1 case, yes 1 case of person testing positive and entire suburb is on a tight lockdown.

 

Oz government is insane and makes Thai government look half decent.

 

Not only they locked down the country but brought in army to patrol the streets, locked down the country, so citizens can not return and even if could have to pay for everything.

 

An absolute embarrassment, worse than any 3rd world country.

[ukrules]

3 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The status read: People’s homes have become the place where high infections occurred overall, so some lockdown measures should be relaxed immediately before the Thai economy became even worse. The current measures are only hurting the economy and the people and not stopping the spread of Covid-19.

It sounds like he's advocating a herd immunity approach here.

 

He also thinks there's a choice which is cute.

 

There is no choice, it's going to happen anyway. Just look at what happened in India - that's happening here right now - just on a much smaller scale.

 

The third national serosurvey in India showed that two thirds (67%) of all Indians (800 million) have had COVID already, they're nearly at herd immunity and hardly any of them were vaccinated. The results of this serosurvey were widely reported in the media towards the end of July.

 

[Damrongsak]

30 minutes ago, BestB said:

...

 

In theory, Thailand should have at least 20 million vaccinated people already, AZ and Sinovac and Pfyser combined and yet how many have been vaccinated?

Pretty low vaccination rate - late starter.  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?country=KHM~THA~MYS~LAO~IDN~MMR

 

20 million doses so far:  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-covid-vaccinations?country=THA~KHM~LAO~MMR~MYS~IDN~PHL

 

 

 

 

Fully vaccinated:  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-fully-vaccinated-covid?country=THA~KHM~MMR~MYS~IDN~PHL

 

 

[55Jay]

Soon as he mentioned the economy, I quit reading.

[zzaa09]

Seems to be quite difficult to grasp for most.

The basic reasoning and cause of out-of-control infection/transmission rates is the fact that a greater number of the population aren't observing/practicing mitigation protocol [masking, distancing, gathering in large groups, blah, blah]. 

 

Has little or nothing to do with lockdowns/no lockdowns or restrictive measures/no restrictions. 

[SCOTT FITZGERSLD]

at last someone makes sense.

the right way to go is the mexican way.

mexico NEVER locked down anything, airports allways stayed 100% open.

accept the death toll and save the economy= more lives !!

[tingtong]

Since even fully vaccinated can/do get infected and spread covid...sooner or later everyone will get it, lockdown or not, vaccination or not.

Sure, some old ones will likely be lost, some otherwise critically ill will be lost...

 

I know it isn't popular with the generally older farang crowd, 

But if there is a choice to save ( mostly temporarily) 1% or have 99% go on with their life as regular...

Then picking the 99% makes more sense.

Sorry, but that is the brutal truth.

 

[sezze]

38 minutes ago, tingtong said:

Since even fully vaccinated can/do get infected and spread covid...sooner or later everyone will get it, lockdown or not, vaccination or not.

Sure, some old ones will likely be lost, some otherwise critically ill will be lost...

 

I know it isn't popular with the generally older farang crowd, 

But if there is a choice to save ( mostly temporarily) 1% or have 99% go on with their life as regular...

Then picking the 99% makes more sense.

Sorry, but that is the brutal truth.

 

Yes eventually everybody will get it , but when you are vaccinated , chances are way lower of going to hospital or death . You can't stop this virus anymore , it is far too widespread . And yes vaccinations do not work 100% , especially vs Delta , but it is working to keep people from worst outcomes .

[bkkcanuck8]

4 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Very true; it's encouraging that alternatives are being voiced.  Some lockdown fetishists seem to think the lockdown should be forever!  Thailand isn't Australia.

The issue is not 'lockdowns' it is that they are ONE of MANY things which taken together keep the spread in check and reduce the likelihood of a healthcare collapse (healthcare collapse will treble the mortality rate and that will also have an impact on the economy).   It is fine to say vaccinations are the answer, but Thailand has mismanaged that by not ordering early and in large enough quantities to reach the same level as other countries.  All measures together is what has the impact on the spread.... failing to do one puts more pressure on others to pick up the slack.  These measures are:

• Use of masks when indoors
• Use of masks when in close proximity with others not in your household. 
• Targeted and non-targetted testing which is immediately followed up with tracking/tracing contacts and placing them in some sort of quarantine (may be a household quarantine).  If there is a particular area of high concentration of cases, then you lock down that neighbourhood.  (i.e. more granular lock-downs but that relies on testing/tracking/tracing .. and while Thailand is not bad in tracking and tracing they are not great on the testing side. 
• Full vaccination of everyone that does not outright reject vaccination (this requires actually sourcing the quarantine for that number and Thailand has failed on that account with much of the vaccination likely going to fall into next year. 
• Thailand's economy has been greatly impacted because it's large reliance on tourism and tourism will not recover until the travel industry recovers and it might recover some, but regardless of lockdowns it will be severely impacted for the foreseeable future. 

The more you fail to do well, the more likely it will fall back on bigger and less granular lockdowns to slow the spread enough so the healthcare system does not collapse.  If Thailand had the same rate of vaccination as Canada (which was 4 months slower to get started than the US)... it would be in better shape not to fall back on lock-downs since severe COVID and hospitalization would be significantly reduced - which means the likelihood of healthcare collapse would be greatly reduced.

 

Get the people vaccinated, improve the testing and continue masks indoors... then tell people that lock-downs are no longer needed... but don't expect the economy to recover in the near term since tourism and travel industry will continue to be affected until the Pandemic starts to fade from people's minds.  It won't be the HiSo and professionals in Thailand that will be rejected healthcare if the system starts to fail - it will be the normal masses.

Edited August 12, 2021 by bkkcanuck8

[shdmn]

Lockdowns don't work for delta variant.  It's debatable if face masks do much either.  Time to learn to just live with it instead of these on again off again restrictions going on forever.

[it is what it is]

 

suggest they look at the uk model; reasonably effective lockdown to protect the health service, and widespread testing combined with an effective vaccination programme. this has enabled the uk economy to grow by 4.8% in Q2 - and while still behind were it was in 2020 it's heading in the right direction.

Edited August 12, 2021 by it is what it is

[bkkcanuck8]

14 minutes ago, it is what it is said:

 

suggest they look at the uk model; reasonably effective lockdown to protect the health service combined with an effective vaccination programme. this has enabled the uk economy to grow by 4.8% in Q2 - and while still behind were it was in 2020 it's heading in the right direction.

Yes, Thailand should be more like UK (which has close to the same population)

 

UK 6,179,506 cases;  130,701 deaths

TH 839,771 cases; 6,942 deaths

 

Now Thailand does need more vaccines, but they were late in ordering them and thus have a much lower rate of vaccinated people... but Thailand cannot catch up until they get more vaccines and there is a backlog of orders worldwide.

 

What did the UK do better:

• they had more people vaccinated when the vaccinations became available (partially by orders, and partially by blocking trade/export - which is why no country should now allow free trade in pharmaceuticals with the UK). 
• They have better testing

What Thailand did better:

• better tracking and tracing
• More compliance on PPE slowing spread of the disease in an unvaccinated population

 

Downturn in tourism will impact Thailand more than the UK since the UK has a more diversified economy.

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by bkkcanuck8

[Marvin Hagler]

6 hours ago, Aussieroaming said:

Australia has always maintained this strong ideology about being an isolated island where pestilense should be held out, way before c19 was a thing. My personal belief is that Australia has acted hysterically and having 39 or so thousand Australians still locked out of the country after 16 or 18 months should be seen as a national disgrace. But if they put it to the vote I think that many Australians would support the governments decisions to maintain the island as being covid free if possible at any cost, even though I personally feel its madness. My takeout from this is that we all have personal and differing limitations to what we think is acceptable and how we think the virus control should be managed. I would rather open up the country (Thailand) for economy and trading and I would be willing to manage my personal space, time outdoors in risk environments myself and hopefully manage it with masks and cleanliness to remain virus free and let others manage their health. And of course I will personally vaccinate whenever I get the chance or opportunity.

I can guarantee you those people are not locked out…they could of come back any time before but chose not too…but that doesn’t make good headlines.

 

When we came back there were so many people in our group that cancelled because the flight time wasn’t quite convenient enough for them…the Australian Ambassador made it very clear that the embassy was not a travel agent.

 

Those people that are “locked out” need to wake up to themselves and realise these are completely extraordinary times that require extraordinary measures…many of them seem to think the global pandemic should now to their needs rather than they fly back on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

[ourmanflint]

6 hours ago, sungod said:

Exactly, lets get on with life and carry on taking precautions.

Wouldn't really work, it didn't elsewhere. Cases will rocket, people will die in far greater numbers. 

 

Thailands hedging their bets lockdown version 9.0, made things much worse than they had to be. Thailand made the wrong choice over and over trying to keep the economy going as long as possible, when what was needed was a total lockdown as strict as that in 2020.

By having a light touch approach over a longer period, they inflicted far more damage on the economy than any hard lockdown ever would

[nkg]

8 hours ago, Bluespunk said:

And how will that ease infection rates?

 

 He didn't claim to be trying to "ease infection rates". Don't you agree with him that getting more vaccines is more important than ineffective lockdowns?

 

I like how you criticize what he says without making any alternative suggestion of your own.

[inThailand]

Prominent Thai doctor says lockdown measures aren’t working, tighter ones won’t work either, ease them to save the economy and consider an export ban on Covid19 vaccines and greatly boost vaccination program. 

 

Rarely is common sense spoken here. Will it be followed? 

[bkk6060]

Would not have thought so before , but as time goes on I agree with this guy.

[sezze]

Lockdowns do work IF people follow them . It will not stop the spread , but it will slow it down , due to less contacts between people , that is a basic fact . I cannot imagine anybody questioning that . That is the problem , people are not following it , so they do not work and only bring hurt to the economy , since that is still going on .

So what''s next , open everything again , like some suggest ? With a already overrun hospital system , that doesn't look too bright . All is fun and games unless you are the 1 who do need some medical assistance of some kind and are unable to get it .

Vaccination is the only solution , but it will take a long time before they get to comfortable lvls . Can it be done by export bans on vaccines , idk , since idk how many are exported . As long as the hospitals are full , the only thing they got is lockdowns .

[jazzdog32095]

11 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Makes sense to me!

You must be as crazy as this wacko doctor. Opening back up just means that many more bringing covid home every evening. Total lockdown for 90 days and go warp speed inoculating the 60+ plus those with existing conditions that make them extreme risks. Focus only on that group and when they are 100% immunized we have eliminated over 90% of the problem, 90% of the hospitalizations, 90% of the unnecessary deaths. The other 10% may become infected meanwhile but relatively few in that group, roughly 10% end up in hospitals and even fewer die. The fact that recoveries currently outnumber new cases hopefully indicates the immunizations are making a difference. Opening up is doing the same thing again hoping for a different result. We all know that's the definition of insanity.

[wonder6281]

Just let it rip, weed out the weak. 99.9% will survive.