NONTHABURI, Dec 20 (TNA) – Seven hajj pilgrims tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 after returning from Saudi Arabia and they have been admitted to a treatment system.

 

Preeda Chueaphudee, advisor to the country's Muslim spiritual leader Chularatchamontri, said the Omicron cases were among the 31 Thai pilgrims who had left for Saudi Arabia on Dec 1 for a 15-day-long pilgrimage. They then had a fever and possibly contracted the disease during the activity that gathered hundreds of thousands of pilgrims worldwide, he said.

 

They returned at Suvarnabhumi airport on Dec 15 and 14 of them tested positive for COVID-19. All the infected people had received three shots of COVID-19 vaccines. Besides, there were six high-risk people who were in close contact with the infected pilgrims, Mr. Preeda said.

 

Full story: https://tna.mcot.net/english-news-846049

 

-- © Copyright TNA 2021-12-21

 

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Sheesh, middle of a pandemic and hundreds of thousands of muslims gather together. You'd have thought the religious leaders would just have said Allah (insert your God here) says its ok not to come in a a pandemic  and potentially infect your entire country on returning and kill thousands of your fellows.

should be a lesson for NY countdown in Thailand

2 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Sheesh, middle of a pandemic and hundreds of thousands of muslims gather together. You'd have thought the religious leaders would just have said Allah (insert your God here) says its ok not to come in a a pandemic  and potentially infect your entire country on returning and kill thousands of your fellows.

More lieky they would say Haji pilgrims dying with a Covid infection are martyrs.

You can't fix religious stupid.

3 hours ago, webfact said:

They returned at Suvarnabhumi airport on Dec 15 and 14 of them tested positive for COVID-19. All the infected people had received three shots of COVID-19 vaccines. 

Proof, if proof were needed that vaccination will not prevent one from contracting Covid 19. Stay home, stay safe is still my policy.

omicron is here there is no stopping it, it spreads like the common cold, a recent study in HK suggests that just like the common cold it  primarily infects the upper broncial tubes and is less virulent deep in the lungs - so far this is a good sign

1 hour ago, Moonlover said:

Proof, if proof were needed that vaccination will not prevent one from contracting Covid 19. Stay home, stay safe is still my policy.

Do you know what flavor of vaccine they had? 
 

1 hour ago, JustAnotherHun said:

You can't fix religious stupid.

Amen

4 hours ago, webfact said:

They returned at Suvarnabhumi airport on Dec 15 and 14 of them tested positive for COVID-19. All the infected people had received three shots of COVID-19 vaccines. Besides, there were six high-risk people who were in close contact with the infected pilgrims, Mr. Preeda said.

I wonder if they now think it was worth the visit?

4 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Sheesh, middle of a pandemic and hundreds of thousands of muslims gather together. You'd have thought the religious leaders would just have said Allah (insert your God here) says its ok not to come in a a pandemic  and potentially infect your entire country on returning and kill thousands of your fellows.

Plenty of church groups demand exception from Covid restrictions

They are not "hajjis pilgrims".  The hajj this year was back in July.  What they have almost certainly done is Umrah (also known as "Lesser Pilgrimage").  The religious bits in Mecca only take a few hours, unlike the hajj which involves six days of wearing a sheet, not bathing and not wearing scent.  (The stench, apparently, is overwhelming after a couple of days.)

1 hour ago, Danderman123 said:

2 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Proof, if proof were needed that vaccination will not prevent one from contracting Covid 19. Stay home, stay safe is still my policy.

 

1 hour ago, Danderman123 said:

Do you know what flavor of vaccine they had? 
 

Now how on earth would I know that?

It gets me when the religious people get an exemption from this COVID vaccination, but they all have small pox vax

marks on their arms, along with all the Typhoid, TB, Polio and other vaccinations they received when they

were children.  What a world.

2 hours ago, Oxx said:

The religious bits in Mecca only take a few hours, unlike the hajj which involves six days of wearing a sheet, not bathing and not wearing scent.  (The stench, apparently, is overwhelming after a couple of days.)

Nonsense. Muslims take cleanliness very seriously during religious rituals.

 

'Both men and women may shower with unscented soap. Yes, for women and men, you may comb your hair, as the Prophet's wives used to do when they were in Ihram'.

 

https://performhajj.com/common_mistakes_in_hajj.php

4 hours ago, smedly said:

omicron is here there is no stopping it, it spreads like the common cold, a recent study in HK suggests that just like the common cold it  primarily infects the upper broncial tubes and is less virulent deep in the lungs - so far this is a good sign

The news recently was that it proliferates in the upper respiratory tract, i.e. throat, and the viral load is 70 times that of Delta, so no wonder that it spreads so rapidly. This apparently leads to the rapid incubation and infection of others. However, it does progress to the lungs. We will have to wait a bit more to see how cases develop in the global North, but in any case Omicron is a big problem since it infects so many people including those who were vaccinated, even with mRNA vaccines.

 

 

4 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

Do you know what flavor of vaccine they had? 
 

Chop suey with crispy noodles maybe.

1 hour ago, Stargeezr said:

It gets me when the religious people get an exemption from this COVID vaccination, but they all have small pox vax

marks on their arms, along with all the Typhoid, TB, Polio and other vaccinations they received when they

were children.  What a world.

Keep that quiet or we'll end up with some expert saying we all need two booster shots for each one you mentioned.

7 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Proof, if proof were needed that vaccination will not prevent one from contracting Covid 19. Stay home, stay safe is still my policy.

Vaccination never did prevent Covid infection-just reduced symptomatic response

1 hour ago, placnx said:

The news recently was that it proliferates in the upper respiratory tract, i.e. throat, and the viral load is 70 times that of Delta, so no wonder that it spreads so rapidly. This apparently leads to the rapid incubation and infection of others. However, it does progress to the lungs. We will have to wait a bit more to see how cases develop in the global North, but in any case Omicron is a big problem since it infects so many people including those who were vaccinated, even with mRNA vaccines.

 

 

Apparently the reason why Omicron is so successfull is that it doesn't waste time infecting lungs just restricting itself to upper respiratory tract where it maintains it's viral load for transfer to the next victim thus reducing symptomatic response. It learnt this when it spent several months inside a immune supressed individual (Aids) without being able to transfer. Clever little bxggxr isn't it!

12 minutes ago, chilly07 said:

Vaccination never did prevent Covid infection-just reduced symptomatic response

Of course that is not true. 

 

Vaccination prevents infection by up to 90%.

 

I don't understand how you hope to convince anyone of your anti-vax sentiments if you post misinformation. 

7 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Proof, if proof were needed that vaccination will not prevent one from contracting Covid 19. Stay home, stay safe is still my policy.

Indoor spaces are more infectious than outdoor spaces.

2 hours ago, placnx said:

However, it does progress to the lungs.

I think we read the same report but what you left out was that in the lower resperatory it is 10 times less prolific, it seems to have developed into a spreader but not so much a killer - that was the general takeaway from the study ..................it's a bad cold

 

lets hope it turns out that way

Saudi hygiene requirements for Haj and Umrah, including Covid precautions.

 

https://www.saudiembassy.net/hajj-and-umrah-health-requirements

42 minutes ago, chilly07 said:

Vaccination never did prevent Covid infection-just reduced symptomatic response

This is were people get confused with terms 

 

 

Covid 19 is the actual disease that the SARS CV 2 virus causes, vaccines prevent the disease - they allow the body to defeat it before it has a chance to replicate and make you sick from covid 19 

An off topic/ fair use violation has been removed

22 hours ago, chilly07 said:

Apparently the reason why Omicron is so successfull is that it doesn't waste time infecting lungs just restricting itself to upper respiratory tract where it maintains it's viral load for transfer to the next victim thus reducing symptomatic response. It learnt this when it spent several months inside a immune supressed individual (Aids) without being able to transfer. Clever little bxggxr isn't it!

The supposed origin in an untreated AIDS victim is only conjectural. It's plausible, anyway. It will be interesting to see research on progression in the lungs. Perhaps those already boosted will see the infection neutralized before lungs are affected in contrast to obese unvaccinated individuals who experience prolonged cases with serious complications in lungs and other organs.

23 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

Of course that is not true. 

 

Vaccination prevents infection by up to 90%.

 

I don't understand how you hope to convince anyone of your anti-vax sentiments if you post misinformation. 

Until Omicron came along mRNA vaccination could prevent infection to a high degree. Now boosters will help, but the hope is that serious illness will be largely avoided. It depends very much on the health of the individual. 

1 minute ago, placnx said:

Until Omicron came along mRNA vaccination could prevent infection to a high degree. Now boosters will help, but the hope is that serious illness will be largely avoided. It depends very much on the health of the individual. 

https://www.cnet.com/health/moderna-booster-update-today-how-effective-is-it-against-omicron-heres-the-latest/
 

Moderna looks pretty effective against Omicron infection.

25 of the 31 returnees have been found to be infected with the virus now.

 

Just read somewhere, that the Omicron infection risk on a plane is at least twice that of Delta... (And who knows what it is at an airport?)

22 hours ago, simple1 said:

Saudi hygiene requirements for Haj and Umrah, including Covid precautions.

 

https://www.saudiembassy.net/hajj-and-umrah-health-requirements

I looked at the link. It is dated 1434 AH, which corresponds to 2013 (we are now at 1443 AH). So it should be no surprise that only MERS is mentioned. This was insignificant in comparison to SARS2. Someone should notify the Saudi Foreign Ministry so update their health notice!