Israeli tourist who fled quarantine in Bangkok infected with Omicron variant

[mancub]

19 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

COVID has made checking out a bit of a nightmare.

The day Thailand closed it's borders I was in Siem Reap.

5pm I got a message from Air Asia, 'your return flight has been cancelled Thai border closes at midnight'.

So I stuff everything in my bag (I've prepaid for a week).

Leave the hotel, key at desk, and get a tuktuk to the airport.

Talk the airport desk into using my cancelled ticket on the last flight out.

Hotel got to keep my $5 towel deposit, no checkout.

(Didn't know if I was getting a flight or staying)

 

As if I gave a poop about 'checking out'.

 

PS

Hotel was full of people thinking they were going to Thailand the next week.

Quite popular with young Israeli guys and girls who just finished their national service.

"Don't worry, they'll never close the borders, you're panicking for nothing"

Wonder what happened to all of them, I landed at BKK with 15 minutes to spare.

Bet you've still got the towel !????

[BritManToo]

2 minutes ago, mancub said:

Bet you've still got the towel !????

Left it on the bed, gave my bag of weed to the Israeli guys sitting at the smoking table.

If I'd known I could get a flight out, I'd have given them my room key as well to use for the rest of the week.

Nice bunch of people, they rolled all my joints for me while I was there.

[Caldera]

If it's actually true that he escaped quarantine (and I have my doubts due to sloppy reporting), he should be punished very severely, as that would be incredibly selfish and reckless.

[jacko45k]

2 minutes ago, Caldera said:

If it's actually true that he escaped quarantine (and I have my doubts due to sloppy reporting), he should be punished very severely, as that would be incredibly selfish and reckless.

Could be as simple as he felt it was done with, no positive result so must be clear... nobody stopped him leaving (did he have a suitcase with him in Samui?) I have no idea if the quarantine place is keeping an eye on people. 

[Genmai]

3 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Fortunately the vast majority of Thai’s are polite enough and welcoming enough to make their own decisions and judgements, however, there are a minority influenced by such comments which are a dog-whistle to the media who play their part in perpetuating the ‘foreigner = bad’ myth to score hits on their news / web pages. 

 

If the ones with negative sentiments are a minority then where was the outrage over Anutin's earlier comments about dirty farangs? Recall that he later did "apologize" - to the media for losing his temper, rather than to the foreign community. He followed that by doubling down with a later remark that Thai people should be wary of the dirty foreigner amongst them.

 

Where were the "majority of Thais who are polite enough and welcoming enough to make their own decisions and judgements" then? Similarly where were they 

when the admin of Spotlight Phuket page was making video after video after video using every profanity under the sun about how much he hates foreigners, or when he encouraged Thai people to take slingshots and pelt foreigners with rocks? That page has been deleted but I still have screencaps of the many hundreds of comments - all in support and many with selfies of ready slingshots. Or when a bunch of Hua Hin thugs beat an elderly foreign couple to the ground and kicked them in the head all while a busy market of "polite and welcoming Thais" looked on? Where are they now in the Israeli case to even suggest that the blame in this fustercluck could potentially lie closer to home?

 

Could it be that those narratives don't get challenged simply because they lie close to Thai people's sentiments? Seems like either the "vast majority of polite and welcoming Thais" are either not polite and welcoming enough to voice their beliefs - or more likely they were never the "vast majority" to begin with. A stray dog getting shot receives more sympathies by Thai netizens. 

 

It's easy to point the finger at politicians/news/web pages for perpetuating xenophobic narratives. It's much harder step to extend that blame to regular people around you who don't lift a finger to question them.

[Danderman123]

Either the Israeli checked out, or he didn't. Leaving a quarantine hotel without checking out is going to cause a stir, no matter what. 

[ifmu]

he left quarantine hotel that is the issue  period ....  the rest is irrelevant   

 

 

but hopefully he is not sick  .... their have been numerous test  that were flawed  

[Jingthing]

Maybe he can sell the movie rights for another one of those holidays in Thailand hell genre extravaganzas? Netflix will make anything.

[SCOTT FITZGERSLD]

8 hours ago, stigar said:

I read that this israely guy will get deported and blacklisted

THIS israeli guy is very stupid indeed, propably the result of arrogance and ignorance of how seriously thai authoroties are taking rules in general and covid rules particularly.HE DO DESERVE A PUNISHMENT !!

 

but what we all wonder is how come his 5 PCR tests came with 3 to 2 different results...might be

a third hand interfering here, to show the thai public how the government is protecting them from the "AI FARANG".

[ukrules]

This is all about shifting the blame away from the people in charge and onto the tourists

 

You're going to read a lot more about foreigners testing positive with Omicron in the next few days because it's already started to be reported.

[monty1412]

On 12/23/2021 at 1:49 PM, Jerno said:

Positive in a small amount.  What the h does that mean?  How about somebody fumbled the test and that's why he was negative in Samui.  Or simply this is the anomaly where testing simply fails the correct result.

exactly.. what next.. good news sir your wife is a little bit pregnant... your either positive or negative no degrees ... from what I understand the test were not quantitive any way 

[pacovl46]

8 hours ago, Trip Hop said:

Not quite.  The CT value is basically the amount that the PCR test amplifies the sample.  So a person with a high viral load and infectious will show positive with say a CT value of 20 or above as it requires less amplification to be detected?  Someone with a lower viral load who is no longer infectious, won't show positive until the CT value or amplification is increased to say 30 or above?  Most PCR tests in Europe use a CT threshold of 35, however Thailand uses 40?  This is the issue, if a high enough CT threshold is used, minute amounts of the virus RNA left in the body from say an infection 2-3 months ago, will still generate a positive result?  There is a big difference between someone having traces of the virus in their body and them being infectious and capable of transmitting the virus to others?  Contrary to your beliefs, LFTs work better with higher viral loads with equivalent CT values of below 30 and whereby a CT value of <27/28, is widely considered to be the infectious range?  There are questions regarding the accuracy of some but there are actually ones out there that are independently verified to be 100% accurate at a CT<27?

I don’t know exactly how it works, but the quick tests are way less accurate and they need a higher viral load than the PCR tests to show a positive result. So, it’s possible that a quick test will give you a false negative because your viral load is too low, if the same person were to do a PCR test the result would be positive and that’s what happened with the Israeli guy. 
 

My PCR test came back positive and the CT value was just over 30. My doc then told me that that this was a very low CT count and that I was almost not contagious anymore the day I took the test. That’s all I can tell you. 

Edited December 24, 2021 by pacovl46

[PremiumLane]

All I want to know is why the RTP hasn't called upon the Asean Now Forum Super Sleuths to crack this case wide open? 

[pizzachang]

On 12/24/2021 at 7:30 AM, Tom H said:

How many people in the world died on Omicron so far?

Continual testing for disease, that is # 1 non- lethal to most humans and #2 not presenting symptoms, has a name. Hypochondria 

[Danderman123]

10 hours ago, pizzachang said:

Continual testing for disease, that is # 1 non- lethal to most humans and #2 not presenting symptoms, has a name. Hypochondria 

Most testing now is for Delta, which has killed millions. Common sense.

[Daithi85]

On 12/24/2021 at 4:07 PM, Genmai said:

 

If the ones with negative sentiments are a minority then where was the outrage over Anutin's earlier comments about dirty farangs? Recall that he later did "apologize" - to the media for losing his temper, rather than to the foreign community. He followed that by doubling down with a later remark that Thai people should be wary of the dirty foreigner amongst them.

 

Where were the "majority of Thais who are polite enough and welcoming enough to make their own decisions and judgements" then? Similarly where were they 

when the admin of Spotlight Phuket page was making video after video after video using every profanity under the sun about how much he hates foreigners, or when he encouraged Thai people to take slingshots and pelt foreigners with rocks? That page has been deleted but I still have screencaps of the many hundreds of comments - all in support and many with selfies of ready slingshots. Or when a bunch of Hua Hin thugs beat an elderly foreign couple to the ground and kicked them in the head all while a busy market of "polite and welcoming Thais" looked on? Where are they now in the Israeli case to even suggest that the blame in this fustercluck could potentially lie closer to home?

 

Could it be that those narratives don't get challenged simply because they lie close to Thai people's sentiments? Seems like either the "vast majority of polite and welcoming Thais" are either not polite and welcoming enough to voice their beliefs - or more likely they were never the "vast majority" to begin with. A stray dog getting shot receives more sympathies by Thai netizens. 

 

It's easy to point the finger at politicians/news/web pages for perpetuating xenophobic narratives. It's much harder step to extend that blame to regular people around you who don't lift a finger to question them.

Absaloute nonsense. 

[Avacado52]

On 12/23/2021 at 6:56 PM, d2b2 said:

He is the poster child for entitlement and disregard

Covid survival rate 99.85%

Omicron survival rate 100%

[SCOTT FITZGERSLD]

recent news say his PCR tests came NEGATIVE...wonder how many people had to get and pay for an expensive state hospital quarantine because of false PCR tests ...

[Tom H]

18 hours ago, Avacado52 said:

Covid survival rate 99.85%

Omicron survival rate 100%

Tell that the 5,600,000 dead people.

[ozimoron]

18 hours ago, Avacado52 said:

Covid survival rate 99.85%

Omicron survival rate 100%

wrong. People are dying from omicron, stop lying.

[d2b2]

20 hours ago, Avacado52 said:

Covid survival rate 99.85%

Omicron survival rate 100%

So you are suggesting all regulation and laws should be disregarded because you have some unsubstantiated claims of Omicrons survival rate? 
appears he is not the only poster child for entitlement and disregard.

[RubbaJohnny]

Couldn't find a single wandering Jew for days, hundreds of "missing' Africans thousands of possibly infected Burmese, looks like the sort of border control and enforcement that could only find a perp if it ran them over and dragged the down the main drag in a Ferrari....oh wait a mo.

These are same clowns who want the same photos and map of my house in triplicate year after year, cannot get a 90 day online working after years oh and solicit bribes openly, while handing out copies of our personal data as scrap paper.