British man's visit to wife in Buriram turns into Covid Christmas Nightmare

[Bkk Brian]

2 minutes ago, jerrymahoney said:

 Dr Pichet Phuedkhuntod is  the director of Public Health in Buriram ... why not ask him and offer him any helpful suggestions you might have.
 

LOL thats one way to deflect a discussion

[Letseng]

1 hour ago, rbkk said:

I was reading yesterday that they think Omicron may have an incubation period of about 3 days compared the 6 days of previous varients.

 

 A research paper published Dec. 16 by Eurosurveillance describes an outbreak involving 80 people at a restaurant in Norway. Nearly every person who had omicron said they were vaccinated and had received a negative antigen-test result within two days before the party. After the event, symptoms appeared in about three days. This suggests the virus had multiplied so quickly that rapid-test results had been rendered obsolete.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/omicron-may-have-3-day-incubation-period-shortest-of-any-variant-6-things-to-know.html

Different opinion from Europe: you may show symptoms before test shows pos.  and incubation up to 6 days. Quarantine entry like test&go isn't a great idea.

[jerrymahoney]

8 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

LOL thats one way to deflect a discussion

I didn't deflect it; I ended it.

[rbkk]

30 minutes ago, Letseng said:

Different opinion from Europe: you may show symptoms before test shows pos.  and incubation up to 6 days. Quarantine entry like test&go isn't a great idea.

Norway is in Europe.

[thai006]

Stop the test and go only that. Omicron come there ????????

Edited December 27, 2021 by thai006

[Big Bert]

And for the new regulations Thai's do not need a PCR test to return to Thailand. That puts everyone on the plane at risk of hospital lock down and events like this happening more often.

 

[mjnaus]

4 hours ago, Dmaxdan said:

This story would not be newsworthy if this had been a Thai person who was infected and had traveled to their village to visit family.

Is not newsworthy now either.... 

[Sydebolle]

Another biased report; it says nowhere, that it was the dirty farang, a.k.a. alien. All it says is that he developed high fever based on possibly a virus infection. 
How about the market and all the others around him? As long as every provincial governor can introduce, enforce or even invent own little rules and regulations, you will never get to terms with anything in this country. 

Upon arrival by air from Bangkok I had to present my vaccination certificate, passport and anything else short of the birth certificate of my greatgrandmother, while Thais were passing without being checked. Upon requiring, the answer was, that not all Thais have been vaccinated and hence could not be checked - there you go! 

[Liverpool Lou]

4 hours ago, stephenterry said:

That's how Covid spreads. It only takes one.

Isn't that how everything spreads?

[Liverpool Lou]

4 hours ago, Geoffggi said:

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Phoo Yai Ban Sirilak Kanram said that the British man had also visited a local market two days before Christmas. 

Could this possibly be the source of the infection ?????

Could the family be the source of the infection?

[Liverpool Lou]

3 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Did those places where there seems none have any  decent size random testing recently?

There is no "random testing" anywhere, including every other country!

Edited December 27, 2021 by Liverpool Lou

[Big Bert]

11 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

Another biased report; it says nowhere, that it was the dirty farang, a.k.a. alien. All it says is that he developed high fever based on possibly a virus infection. 
How about the market and all the others around him? As long as every provincial governor can introduce, enforce or even invent own little rules and regulations, you will never get to terms with anything in this country. 

Upon arrival by air from Bangkok I had to present my vaccination certificate, passport and anything else short of the birth certificate of my greatgrandmother, while Thais were passing without being checked. Upon requiring, the answer was, that not all Thais have been vaccinated and hence could not be checked - there you go! 

Not vaccinated and not not required to have a PCR test before travel while the rest of us mortal must jump through hoops and then get blamed for the speed.

[Bkk Brian]

8 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

There is no "random testing" anywhere!

Yea, just checked on the official dashboard, there were 13 covid positive cases in Buriram yesterday and all of those were through hospital walk in cases

https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/index.php?dashboard=province

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Also now infected are an 80 year old woman at the house. 

 

Among 14 other close contacts from 4 familes who have to isolate for two weeks is a P2 child. 

 

Phoo Yai Ban Sirilak Kanram said that the British man had also visited a local market two days before Christmas.

Well Christmas is the time for giving... 

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, Dmaxdan said:

This story would not be newsworthy if this had been a Thai person who was infected and had traveled to their village to visit family.

It will be in January

[TropicalGuy]

another “person gets sick in pandemic” non-story.

better story would be why 35+ % adult Thais are still not vaxxed.

[sandyf]

4 hours ago, rbkk said:

So confirmation that "All the tests....." don't work. The same as with the 2 tourists in Chiang Mai reported yesterday. 

Irrelevant comment, nothing to do with tests, it is a fact of life that the virus is contagious.

Following his test on arrival he would have been in contact with "others" any one of whom could have been infected.

When it comes to precautions, Brits are not the most observant, the numbers there speak for themselves.

[MasterBaker]

hardly a "nightmare" he's the one who brought virus and with so many infections around, let's publish a story about everyone infected... i don't think this guy deserves some special symphaty, sorry

[TheFishman1]

It sounds to me like he caught the virus here Tik

[GrandPapillon]

Christmas over in Europe has been a nightmare, the stupid mistake was to ask for self-tests before going to family gathering, like it would change anything

 

it turns out that self-tests are unreliable (false positive or worse, false negative)

 

but self-testing everyone in this high wave environment meant that most family gathering were seriously disrupted, with some 30% of guests infected

 

all around me in the last 5 days, it's full of positive covid and people self-isolating, with gathering being cancelled or reduced to a minimum

 

what a complete mess, it's back to March 2020

 

2020-2 is coming nicely ????

 

[Neeranam]

How does a British tourist meet a woman from Buriram? 

[chrisbangkok]

4 hours ago, tomazbodner said:

He could have simply gotten infected on a plane, which could have had infected transit passengers so they'd not know the source. As it would have been very early, the infection would not have picked up on initial test, but only a few days later when the viruses had an opportunity to multiply to the detectable levels.

 

With Omicron being 70x more infectious than Delta (I read this number in the news, but a bit skeptical), it should not take much for someone to get it in any closed space. As US health authorities estimate half the Earth's population would catch Omicron over the next 3 months, getting into a pressurised tube with hundreds of strangers for a day, masks off during eating and drinking, is pretty much a sure bet to catch it.

 

Now all that said - Omicron is staying in the upper respiratory system and does not move down to lungs. The whole reason why COVID became global emergency was because it moved to lungs, and caused deadly pneumonia. Now if Omicron doesn't move to lungs - how is it any different from a common cold, which is just like COVID, just it doesn't move to lungs?

Thank you for this post I feel much more relaxed about Omicron now .. thank goodness this paper allows so many expert reports from it's readership .. 

[ukrules]

1 hour ago, Big Bert said:

And for the new regulations Thai's do not need a PCR test to return to Thailand. That puts everyone on the plane at risk of hospital lock down and events like this happening more often.

Is that still the case?

 

I heard that the airlines do require tests and would like to know if this special exemption from testing is still in place on any airlines, especially Thai.

 

[sawadee1947]

5 hours ago, tomazbodner said:

He could have simply gotten infected on a plane, which could have had infected transit passengers so they'd not know the source. As it would have been very early, the infection would not have picked up on initial test, but only a few days later when the viruses had an opportunity to multiply to the detectable levels.

 

With Omicron being 70x more infectious than Delta (I read this number in the news, but a bit skeptical), it should not take much for someone to get it in any closed space. As US health authorities estimate half the Earth's population would catch Omicron over the next 3 months, getting into a pressurised tube with hundreds of strangers for a day, masks off during eating and drinking, is pretty much a sure bet to catch it.

 

Now all that said - Omicron is staying in the upper respiratory system and does not move down to lungs. The whole reason why COVID became global emergency was because it moved to lungs, and caused deadly pneumonia. Now if Omicron doesn't move to lungs - how is it any different from a common cold, which is just like COVID, just it doesn't move to lungs?

That is only half way thinking.

If people are not able to go to work for a week or so, who is driving buses, trains, flying planes?

Think of nurses, docs, Police, aso.

Now you might Imagine, why omicron is dangerous. 

[sambum]

3 hours ago, rbkk said:

I think there are 5 markets in Buriram? Makes sense to test in the ones he hasn't been to.

It seems that markets are indeed the source of many "clusters". There were a couple of them found on Koh Samui a couple of weeks ag o that were traced to markets. I know everybody has to eat, and not everyone can shop at Macro/Tesco/711 etc, but those places seem to be pretty good at enforcing the rules re masks etc

[Bangkok Barry]

6 hours ago, stephenterry said:

That's how Covid spreads. It only takes one.

Same as flu which, fortunately, Omicron is said to resemble in symptoms and severity. Many will get sick, a tiny number of those will die, like with the flu. This strain appears and is thought to be nowhere near as severe as Delta and other strains before (although we still await the official word on that, and I mean from a responsible source, not Anutin), even though it spreads rapidly (like the flu).

There is deep concern in my native UK because each winter many do get sick with the flu, and some have to be hospitalised, and they are afraid that adding numbers with similar symptoms who also need to be hospitalised due to Omicron will put a huge strain on resources. But they are certainly not anticipating the number of severe cases seen a year ago. Just a large number of cases.

[Kalasin Jo]

6 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Thousands and Thousands of Thai’s returning back to their respective villages over the the current end of year period.... 

 

 

It's unfortunate, but this sort of thing is going to happen. It happened last year at both End of Year (NYE) and over the Songkran period. It will be happening right now... 

 

I hope those potential proximity cases are fine. The reality is others in the village also face exposure risk from the Wife and anyone else who has visited from other areas. Or, like Kalasin the virus was possibly already in the area. 

 

Disappointingly news such as this feeds into the hands of xenophobia..

My wife has just told me that the neighbours all have just tested positive. She must now be tested as she talked with one of them yesterday. First time to my knowledge Covid has been found in the village where we live in Kalasin province. Our family all double vaccinated except for Dad, he has only had one jab as he kept putting off getting the vaccine. I am not in Thailand so not affected.

[sambum]

1 hour ago, MasterBaker said:

hardly a "nightmare" he's the one who brought virus and with so many infections around, let's publish a story about everyone infected... i don't think this guy deserves some special symphaty, sorry

It hasn't been proved that he "brought virus"! As we have already heard from an "expert" it is quite possible that he caught it in Thailand if it is the Omicron strain, and the incubation time is only 3 days. Unless of course, you know otherwise - that it is the Delta variant? So you want to publish a story about everyone that has been infected from a dirty farang eh? (Oh, and by the way, it's "sympathy"!)

[bbbbooboo]

Hmmm…. If it wasn’t for Falangs , then we would have co-vid?

[chiman]

And no monoclonal anti-body treatments avail