Omicron casts shadow over Thailand’s economic revival

[webfact]

A man walks through the arrival gates at Suvarnabhumi International Airport as Thailand welcomes the first group of vaccinated tourists without quarantine in Bangkok on November 1, 2021. (Photo by Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP)

 

By Thai PBS World’s Business Desk

 

The recent discovery of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has made global stock markets highly volatile — sharply down in late November and rebounding in early December. 

 

Thai stocks have followed the global trend. “The Thai stock market’s rebound on December 7 points to an easing of investor concerns about Omicron, as the latest report suggests the new variant is unlikely to be severe,” says SCB Securities Co.

 

An American national who arrived in the country on November 30 became the first Omicron case in Thailand. The Public Health Ministry on Thursday (December 9) confirmed two more Omicron cases and one suspected infection. These cases have revived worries among many people about their impact on the economy.

 

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Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/omicron-casts-shadow-over-thailands-economic-revival/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2021-12-10

 

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[hotchilli]

Thailand has more to worry about than Omicron.

Tourism was already on the slide before the perfect excuse of Covid came along, it's now going to be a very long time before that reaches any significant numbers again.

The Thai economy was already reliant on overseas investments and infrastructure improvements.

Now with China in the mire with Evergrande going belly-up it's going to find a shaky 2022 for Thailand

China is even holding back it's own people to keep money in the country..

They won't be coming to Thailand next year either.

 

 

[ukrules]

The interesting thing about Omicron is its genetic ancestry. It doesn't seem to have much of one.

 

You would think that this new variant would have evolved from one of the versions of covid circulating in the place where it first occurred, but no - that's not the case.

 

It mutated directly from the summer 2020 strain of COVID and has none of the other changes which have been circulating for more than a year between summer 2020 and autumn 2021 - now that's unusual and the scientists are taking note.

 

Here's some light reading on the subject : https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/01/1055803031/the-mystery-of-where-omicron-came-from-and-why-it-matters

 

From the link :

 

Quote

But Bedford says that when you look at the family tree for this omicron variant, there's something surprising: "With omicron, your closest sequences are back from mid-2020 — so over a year ago. That is very rare to see."
 

In other words, while scientists can tell that this variant evolved from a strain that was circulating in mid-2020, in the intervening months there has been no trace of all the intermediate versions that scientists would have expected to find as it morphed into its current form.

Note he says it's rare to see, not unprecedented, I won't go into this in any detail as 'there be dragons' is clearly signposted along that path....

 

Research on this subject will not stop until they find out why the above happened, even if it takes years and years - just like it did the last time something like this happened, and it has happened before but not with COVID