Koh Samui: Three foreign tourists arrive with Omicron - Thai media says locals are not panicking

[webfact]

Picture: Naew Na

 

Naew Na reported that three foreign tourists had arrived on the holiday island of Koh Samui in southern Thailand with the Omicron variant.

 

There were a British couple and a Belgian male. 

 

Close contacts on the plane or planes were all checked, Thais as well as foreigners. 

 

No other cases were found including Thai contacts on the ground after tests.

 

District chief Theerapong Chauychu immediately put plans in place to open a local field hospital.

 

Local official Pongthep Phumalee said everything was under control and all protocols and regulations were in place.

 

Naew Na - well know for taking the comments of officialdom at face value notes ASEAN NOW - surprisingly sought out several locals for their opinion.

 

There was no panic, quite the opposite.

 

Rachanee Jongsuwanpong, a local bookseller, said she was calm. The foreigners were vaxxed and there are perfectly good screening protocols for both foreign and Thai domestic tourists.

 

She expressed total confidence in the local health authority and noted her own mask wearing and rule following attitude.

 

Market fruit seller Janthira Thepraksa echoed this saying the authorities and locals are used to every thing by now having open up the island long since.

 

She pointed out the salient fact that the local economy needed tourists. 

 

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[fredscats]

They will

[RmcaIssan]

British couple ...with current status in UK, madness to travel and now locked down !!

[ikke1959]

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

[GeorgeCross]

from the picture: 8 single men and one family! 

 

is that typical demographic for samui now?

 

 

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, ikke1959 said:

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

Samui has an international Airport, there are daily international transit flights from Bangkok to Samui, and furthermore Singapore at the moment...????

Edited December 21, 2021 by khunPer

[Gulfsailor]

1 hour ago, ikke1959 said:

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

All cases found upon arrival from abroad:

1) Female, English, 34, PG5125 from Singapore via Bangkok sealed route.
2) Male, Belgian, 55, PG5171 from UAE via Singapore and Bangkok sealed route. 
3) Male , English, 56, PG962 from England via Singapore (wife also found positive but as of yesterday not sequenced yet for Omicron). 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Gulfsailor

[Tropicalevo]

2 hours ago, fredscats said:

They will

Why?

[Tropicalevo]

2 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

from the picture: 8 single men and one family! 

 

is that typical demographic for samui now?

 

 

I cannot speak for the whole of Samui, but in my little business this week I have checked in :-

Family of 8 from Dubai

Family of 5 from the UK

A couple from the UK (One with Covid)

A couple from the USA

2 male and one female from the UK

Family of 7 from Thailand

5 males from Denmark

Family of 3 from Singapore (plus maid)

Some smaller groups of domestic tourists and a couple of family groups of Chinese.

 

So the answer where I work is No.

[fredscats]

16 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

Why?

What has gone in the past

[sambum]

4 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

 

3 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

from the picture: 8 single men and one family! 

 

is that typical demographic for samui now?

 

 

When I first arrived here some years ago it was - obviously still is!  Quality tourists!

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

There was no panic, quite the opposite.

Yet... but there will be when numbers to the island start to drop.

[Tropicalevo]

1 hour ago, sambum said:

 

When I first arrived here some years ago it was - obviously still is!  Quality tourists!

I cannot speak for the whole of Samui, but in my little business this week I have checked in :-

Family of 8 from Dubai

Family of 5 from the UK

A couple from the UK (One with Covid)

A couple from the USA

2 male and one female from the UK

Family of 7 from Thailand

5 males from Denmark

Family of 3 from Singapore (plus maid)

Some smaller groups of domestic tourists and a couple of family groups of Chinese.

Today -a couple from Dubai, family of 8 mainland Chinese and  family of 5 from the USA.

 

Yes - quality tourists.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Tropicalevo

[crazykopite]

5 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

Samui airport is part international as it flys to Singapore HongKong and China that’s it as far as I know the Brits would have come by way of Bangkok at Phuket as would the Belgium from looking at the amount of cases in the U.K. as well as other countries the Thai government need to get on top of this strain as it’s reported it spreads like wildfire 

[crazykopite]

11 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

I cannot speak for the whole of Samui, but in my little business this week I have checked in :-

Family of 8 from Dubai

Family of 5 from the UK

A couple from the UK (One with Covid)

A couple from the USA

2 male and one female from the UK

Family of 7 from Thailand

5 males from Denmark

Family of 3 from Singapore (plus maid)

Some smaller groups of domestic tourists and a couple of family groups of Chinese.

Today -a couple from Dubai, family of 8 mainland Chinese and  family of 5 from the USA.

 

Yes - quality tourists.

I thought the Chinese were not allowed to leave China until 2022 and my neighbour who is Chinese confirmed that with me as at this time of year all his houses would be booked with Chinese visitors he has zero Chinese staying at the moment 

[orchidfan]

10 minutes ago, crazykopite said:

I thought the Chinese were not allowed to leave China until 2022 and my neighbour who is Chinese confirmed that with me as at this time of year all his houses would be booked with Chinese visitors he has zero Chinese staying at the moment 

People from Hong Kong are Chinese as are those from Singapore and Taiwan. 

But not "Mainland" Chinese.

Many Chinese (mainland etc) have migrated to Canada, USA, Australia etc

[Mickmouse1]

6 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

Usually there are few international flights . I  am unsure about now.

[Mrfox]

How on earth on they allowed to travel and allowed on the plane??? 

[The Hammer2021]

1 hour ago, orchidfan said:

People from Hong Kong are Chinese as are those from Singapore and Taiwan. 

But not "Mainland" Chinese.

Many Chinese (mainland etc) have migrated to Canada, USA, Australia etc

Singapore are NOT Chinese!

[TheScience]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

and noted her own mask wearing and rule following attitude.

Jesus wept

 

 

A bird went in search of a cage.

[billd766]

8 hours ago, RmcaIssan said:

British couple ...with current status in UK, madness to travel and now locked down !!

It has probably been booked for a while and they obviously passed all the checks before barding the aircraft or they would not have been able to board. The report does not mention the country of their departure so you have no idea which country they were staying in. 

 

You just made an assumption based on nothing other than they were British. They could have come from the UK, EU, any of the Arab Gulf states depending on the airline (name not given).

 

And if they did come from the UK, so what? AFAIK there is no ban on travelling from the UK to Thailand. The couple may not even have known that they had Omicron.

[0815]

Yesterday i read that the PCR tests before flight and after arrival were negative and that the tests can't detect Omicron.
So how could they detect it ?
Did they ask the virus ? Hey! Are you in these guys ?

[billd766]

1 hour ago, Mrfox said:

How on earth on they allowed to travel and allowed on the plane??? 

AFAIK there are no travel bans and if they had passed ALL the checks AND the airport tests then why would they not be allowed to board the aircraft and travel?

[billd766]

1 hour ago, The Hammer2021 said:

Singapore are NOT Chinese!

Really?

 

Where did you get that idea from?

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore

 

From the link.

 

quote "Singapore is a multiracial and multicultural Asian society and its people are broadly organised under the CMIO (Chinese–Malay–Indian–Other) system of categorisation since 1965. Ethnic Chinese at 75.9% form the largest group, followed by ethnic Malays (15.0%) and ethnic Indians (7.5%), collectively making up virtually the entirety of its citizen population (98.4%).[3] The remaining 1.6% consists of those classified as "Other" or are Eurasians."

Edited December 21, 2021 by billd766
Bold and underlined by me.

[MrJ2U]

10 hours ago, webfact said:

Close contacts on the plane or planes were all checked, Thais as well as foreigners. 

 

Most likely everyone on that plane has gotten the virus and busily spreading it.

[SiSePuede419]

Ahhh.  Koh Samui.  Was there in 2001.  Wall to wall with new hotels going up continuously.

 

Think I paid about $2-3 for a nice room near the beach.

 

Is it more expensive now? ????

[kiwikeith]

14 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

where did they come from?? How long were they already in Thailand?? I am not sure Koh Samui has an international airport. Not all needed information again in the article. 

All the information you need is that they would have transferred from Suvarnabhumi, Omicron sheds much more virus into the air and it's likely to be spreading everywhere. So far it's only causing mild symptoms, some people don't know they have it and it's displaced Delta in SA. 

Looking likely that it will displace Delta soon in the UK, USA, and other countries soon Australia also. Its now in NZ, so watch the Data coming out daily, looking good in SA now, hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. 

[Kwaibill]

On 12/21/2021 at 5:34 PM, The Hammer2021 said:

Singapore are NOT Chinese!

Many are, in fact, ethnic Chinese.

[rickudon]

On 12/22/2021 at 1:37 AM, kiwikeith said:

Looking likely that it will displace Delta soon in the UK, USA, and other countries soon Australia also. Its now in NZ, so watch the Data coming out daily, looking good in SA now, hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. 

Actually Omicron is already the dominant strain in the UK and USA already. We should remember that one month ago no-one had heard of this variant. Yes, it spreads like wildfire - 106,000 covid-19 cases in UK yesterday. Until last week i only personally knew 2 or 3 people who had got Covid-19, but last week told my brother and his wife got it end of November, and yesterday my son and 2 of his friends in Ghana tested positive (it is ripping through the capital Accra now, may not show up in statistics because testing isn't free).

 

I expect cases in Thailand to rise rapidly in January.

[Meat Pie 47]

On 12/21/2021 at 6:34 PM, The Hammer2021 said:

Singapore are NOT Chinese!

Ethnic groups (2020)[1]	75.9% Chinese 15.0% Malay 7.5% Indian 1.6% Others