Thailand suspends ‘Thailand Pass’ and ‘Test & Go’

[sekmet]

People generally like to plan things out, six weeks to six months ahead. If the destination has the reputation of inconsistency, why bother?

 

 

[Neeranam]

19 hours ago, thaiman said:

Thailand is a conformist nation and will copy it's superiors on almost every issue nowadays.  They are a far cry from the rogue nation they used to be. 

When was this? I can't remember. 

[Midwit]

19 hours ago, Cherrytreeview said:

Mass vaccination campaign?

Only 61% double jabbed and only 7% boosted.

Thailand can't even catch up with other countries, let alone have any chance of getting ahead.

Who can book a holiday when you haven't a clue what the rules of entry will be in advance.

 

 

What about the people that had and recovered from covid?  Why should people be getting boosted after just getting the second shot?  How about the people with health issues or advanced age being vaccinated. If you are 20 years old and healthy it seems like their vaccination status should be something like who cares. I’m seeing a lot of these amazing “breakthrough cases” of people double jabbed and boosted. 

[sabai-dee-man]

18 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

Very interesting, looks like those of us that applied in advance like I did for a return in February are grandfathered in for the Test N Go.....keeping my fingers crossed it does not change before I fly out to the States after the new years and then return as I said.

Good luck with that. I suspect they're only thinking about imminent arrivals, just to try and win a little favour.

I hope I'm wrong, but expect to see all arrivals having to quarantine within week or so. Probably anyone after New Year, once Omicron's well and truly established in the populace, which will of course be predominantly blamed on the incoming travellers.

[wensiensheng]

13 hours ago, Blumpie said:

If you did know and this was well thought out by the government of Thailand it would be abnormal.  IT's all the fun of Thailand travel, isn't it?  

It’s not just Thailand. Traveling anywhere internationally is a <deleted> shoot right now. I’m booked to go to Europe next July, in full recognition it’s a total gamble. Omicron will probably have been and gone, but what’s next? Hopefully nothing but nobody knows.

[The Hammer2021]

2 hours ago, kennw said:

International Norm - Australia, on arrival self isolate 72 hrs, PCR test within 24hrs of arrival, second PCR test day 5 or 6. If clear good to go. 

Australia was a nation  locked down as a prison for over a year!!! Thailand was a shining light of competence compared to Australia.

[feasantplukka]

19 hours ago, tso310 said:

So as I read it, my wife who is arriving from LHR on dear old Thai on Jan 12 and has already got her Thailand Pass, will just require a second PCR date after the one she has on arrival. I also assume that when they work things the details she will require an stay at her hotel for extra money. The rumour is 5-7 days.

I think if she already has her Thai pass she enters on the same registration,  if it reads Quarantine exempt then it's just 1 day quarantine, the bit I'm  not understanding is the RT-PCR, she will already be having a 2nd on arrival at the Hotel on the test n go system????

[sirineou]

2 hours ago, paul1804 said:

Morons, complete idiots, we are going to keep getting new strains so live with it, work through it instead of closing the country down every time a new strain comes along. How many fatalities from Omicron, very few if what I am reading is correct.  

I find it funny that you would call people morons and idiots while making a , let's just say not very smart statement. 

First, very difficult to live with it if you have died from it.

Second, , though the omicron variant might have half the hospitalization rate than the Delta variant, it has three times the infection rate, so since you are so much smarter than those "Morons and complete Idiots" you do the math

" the UK is is in the midst of a sharp rise in hospitalizations, about 30 percent higher week over week. "

https://www.vox.com/22839742/omicron-covid-19-winter-surge-vaccine-booster-forecast.

So the Issue is not if Omicron  is going to get here, it will, but if it can be delayed, and as Sheryl pointed out in a previous reply , what they do with the time they buy from this lock down.

Will the squander it,as they have done in the past, or will they double down on the vaccination , boosters and hospital capacity , and be more ready for it when it gets here. 

[UbonEagle]

Porbably been written already (im not reading 9 pages of posts) but a complete waste of time, it will flood in thru the porous land borders particularly Myanmar, so why even bother with this charade...idiots

[Leatherneck]

18 hours ago, koratkarlos said:

Perhaps the real issue here is how dangerous will Omicron be to a population vaccinated with Sinovac/ Sinopharm.  I am not sure that this has been determined.  Nonetheless, it is too late.  There were many migrants from Myanmar entering Mae Sak. Tak this morning.  The politics must also focus on this influx of people also.  We will continue to stay home and not travel until this Omicron wave is better understood.

Today I read an article about a research study just completed a week ago in Hong Kong that showed that people vaccinated twice with Sinovac did not have enough antibodies to protect them from Omicron. The study had a small sample size but the results were quite clear. The researchers stated that it was unclear if a 3rd Sinovac jab would provide enough protection and that further research on that would be needed. I'm guessing that the powers that be in Beijing were not thrilled with the publication of the study and CCP officials/police have already paid the researchers a visit.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Leatherneck
Typo

[JustAnotherHun]

2 hours ago, Hanuman2547 said:

Khun Anutin has a medical degree from where??  Right, no medical degree yet he's the head of the health department.  Who allows these bumbling buffoons into these positions anyway?

Quote

it [Cannabis] is increasingly contaminated with heroin in the illegal street trade

told the world by Karl -Nostradamus- Lauterbach, the new German health minister.

Here you have the proof that a medical degree does not prevent you from brain defects ????

[smedly]

3 hours ago, Yewbzee said:

All you need to do is look at the epidemiology of omicron in South Africa where they are about 10 days ahead. In a country with less than 30% vaccinations it has shown to be significantly milder and the average hospital stay is 2.8 days compared to 7 to 9 days of previous variants.

I somewhat agree with you but there are differences between SA and say the UK, stats show that more people in SA got Covid 19 so have a larger number in the population that have natural immunity, the other significant difference is the average age of the population SA being a lot younger, both those factors could be the reason why the data in SA is not directly comparable with say the UK 

[smedly]

2 hours ago, rocky123 said:

Time to wake up. This aint about controlling a virus,. There is an Agenda. If you aint joined the dots yet you,ve been asleep. Ignorance is bliss, I envy you. 

yes that is why all restrictions were lifted in the UK and Europe several months ago and society got back to a sembalance of normality - but don't let that get in the way of your tin foil hat conspiracies  

[smedly]

2 hours ago, connda said:

That should drop tourist arrivals in 2022 down to 10 million at best.
Why?  Every time a new variant is hyped they'll close down the tourism infrastructure.

In the meantime open up all the roads for domestic travel for New Years just like during Songkran at the beginning of the Delta outbreak.  Then lock the country down a month later.  They could of controlled the Delta outbreak, and they could control the Omicron outbreak.  It's almost as though they don't want to.  They are again taking step to facilitate the spread.  Now figure that out.

Wash, rinse, repeat ad-infinitum. 

they couldn't stop delta and will be unable to stop omicron - lockdowns etc  slow down the spread of the infection over a longer period which in turn relieves stress on health providers and avoids having to treat large numbers of very sick people over a very short time - there was a time when Thailand was on the brink with hospitals at full capacity and having to turn people away and that was with restrictions and lockdowns 

[Tony125]

Do Masks Protect Against the Omicron COVID-19 Variant? Yes, But They May Be Less Effective

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/do-masks-protect-against-the-omicron-covid-19-variant-yes-but-they-may-be-less-effective—heres-why/ar-AARVDiv?li=BBnb7Kz

[JustAnotherHun]

1 minute ago, Tony125 said:

Do Masks Protect Against the Omicron COVID-19 Variant? Yes, But They May Be Less Effective

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/do-masks-protect-against-the-omicron-covid-19-variant-yes-but-they-may-be-less-effective—heres-why/ar-AARVDiv?li=BBnb7Kz

Masks - if worn correctly - protect others (more or less), not you

[Dont confuse me]

It's here the only question is how fast will it spread?

Hopefully nothing will change for any Christmas plans to be cancelled. 

[drenddy]

4 hours ago, kennw said:

International Norm - Australia, on arrival self isolate 72 hrs, PCR test within 24hrs of arrival, second PCR test day 5 or 6. If clear good to go. 

Quite a progress, from completely shutting down the borders for 2 years and locking down big cities like Melbourne because of some cases.

I wonder, if they learned it from the swedes.

Edited December 22, 2021 by drenddy

[drenddy]

OP : What do they expect to achieve in these 2 weeks?

It's clearly this virus cannot be beaten.

 

Where is Doctor Yong?

[Cherrytreeview]

Hopefully will be a short suspension after a quick spike of omicron.

 

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Cherrytreeview
Edit

[drenddy]

2 minutes ago, Cherrytreeview said:

•  

Pre-print from South Africa looking at omicron disease severity:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.21.21268116v1.full.pdf

Early assessment of the clinical severity of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in South Africa

Results

Among hospitalised individuals, after controlling for factors associated with severe disease, the odds of severe disease did not differ between SGTF-infected individuals compared to non-SGTF individuals diagnosed during the same time period (aOR 0.7, 95% CI 0.3-1.4).

Compared to earlier Delta infections, after controlling for factors associated with severe disease, SGTF-infected individuals had a lower odds of severe disease (aOR 0.3, 95% CI 0.2-0.5).

Conclusion

Early analyses suggest a reduced risk of hospitalisation among SGTF-infected individuals when compared to non-SGTF infected individuals in the same time period. Once hospitalised, risk of severe disease was similar for SGTF- and non-SGTF infected individuals, while SGTF-infected individuals had a reduced risk of severe disease when compared to earlier Delta-infected individuals. Some of this reducton is likely a result of high population immunity.

 

So they found that omicron infections had a 80% lower odds of being admitted to hospital compared to non-omicron variants, but did not differ in the risk of severe disease once in hospital.

When compared to delta infections, omicron infections were associated with a 70% lower odds of severe disease.

They make the following point: 

“It is difficult to disentangle the relative contribution of high levels of previous population immunity versus intrinsic lower virulence to the observed lower disease severity. Our finding of no difference in severity in SGTF compared to non-SGTF infected individuals in the same time period, and the lower risk of severity in SGTF compared to earlier Delta infected individuals, suggests that this reduced severity may be in part a result of high levels of population immunity (due to natural infection and/or vaccination)”

So an explanation might be that omicron is able to evade immunity in order to infect a person, but immunity against severe disease is still maintained, therefore producing lots of mild cases. This puts the focus on the nature of a populations immunity to reduce the hospitalisation rate. In the case of SA, high levels of previous infection (up to 70% of the population) might somewhat explain their low peak hospitalisation rate.   

Three doses has been shown to offer 98.8% effectiveness against hospitalisation after 14 days (compared to unvaccinated) vs delta:

 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/monitoring-reports-of-the-effectiveness-of-covid-19-vaccination

So with relatively high levels of previous infection and very high three dose coverage, a population is likely to have a decent level of protection against hospitalisation

 

For those who ask why boosters are needed.

 

 

Let's wait for the next mutation, Omega and they will say it's imperative to get the 4th jab.

[garyk]

Lord this nonsense is never going to end.

[Gulfsailor]

5 minutes ago, drenddy said:

Let's wait for the next mutation, Omega and they will say it's imperative to get the 4th jab.

Well, o-micron is the small Greek o, pronounced as oh, that’s not too bad. Whereas O-mega is the large Greek O, pronounced as OOOH, this is bad!

[simola]

Thank goodness BA cancelled our flights. 

[bullseye66]

21 hours ago, ourmanflint said:

If you already booked test and go, then you stay on that scheme but have to do 2nd PCR test at govt location somewhere 

When....and where?

[Tuvoc]

6 hours ago, shackleton said:

Considering the virus is getting worse in Europe especially the UK

As of yesterday at least, that isn't the case in the UK. New daily cases more than doubled initially, but then have held basically flat for the last 5 days. Will the next movement be up or down - hard to know. Hospital admissions are very low, so when percentage increases are quoted there it is from a low base.

 

Anyway, Thailand suspending new applications is out of an abundance of caution, and allowing existing TP holders in is the honourable thing to do.

 

[fangless]

4 hours ago, starky said:

Homo habilis was 2.8 million years ago using tools...

And they are extinct, which is my point.

Your OP suggests we follow their example!

 

 

PS;  Apes and other creatures can also use "tools"!

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by fangless
PS added

[stewartthailand]

3 hours ago, sirineou said:

I find it funny that you would call people morons and idiots while making a , let's just say not very smart statement. 

First, very difficult to live with it if you have died from it.

Second, , though the omicron variant might have half the hospitalization rate than the Delta variant, it has three times the infection rate, so since you are so much smarter than those "Morons and complete Idiots" you do the math

" the UK is is in the midst of a sharp rise in hospitalizations, about 30 percent higher week over week. "

https://www.vox.com/22839742/omicron-covid-19-winter-surge-vaccine-booster-forecast.

So the Issue is not if Omicron  is going to get here, it will, but if it can be delayed, and as Sheryl pointed out in a previous reply , what they do with the time they buy from this lock down.

Will the squander it,as they have done in the past, or will they double down on the vaccination , boosters and hospital capacity , and be more ready for it when it gets here. 

….and the reason that hospital admissions have gone up is that 90% of them are UNvaccinated. Over 5 million unvaccinated in the U.K. who are putting others at risk. So I agree ‘morons and idiots’ (but not the extremely small number not vaccinated on medical advice)

[starky]

15 hours ago, fangless said:

And they are extinct, which is my point.

Your OP suggests we follow their example!

 

 

PS;  Apes and other creatures can also use "tools"!

 

My point being....I'm fairly callous in that humans weren't designed to be locked up in boxes. Prison is a perfect example of that.

  I wouldn't care how many covid killed myself included if that's what it takes. I'm not precious about my ego nor my existence and as governments have done basically <deleted>! all for 2 years and their will always be new variants and breakthrough cases why delay the inevitable? The strong shall survive the weak will die. The world needs a freshen up. Only IMHO of course. Lol. Others views may vary.

[sirineou]

Just now, stewartthailand said:

….and the reason that hospital admissions have gone up is that 90% of them are UNvaccinated. Over 5 million unvaccinated in the U.K. who are putting others at risk. So I agree ‘morons and idiots’ (but not the extremely small number not vaccinated on medical advice)

Though I totally agree with you that it is the unvaccinated that are driving these variants, in the context of this thread's subject matter, we need to consider that these 5 million unvaccinated were  also unvaccinated during the delta variant. So there is something happening there that is new.