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Are you experiencing “Pandemic Fatigue” here in Thailand?


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7 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

You seem to have missed the cultural attitudes Thai people exhibit towards the vulnerable people they know, their parents and grand parents.

 

 

 

 

Yes Chomper I agree with you. It would be nice or have been nice for other countries, and for the entire planet if other nations had embraced and acted as unitedly, and selflessly as the Thai people have. 

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For those of us who soak up 'external' problems like a sponge and let them drain out without too much fuss, yeah life isn't too bad. But we're all different and some soak these problems up and just can't let them go. Global warming, large scale war seems imminent, pandemic along with the possibility of authorities telling us continued vaccination might be required etc. And that's not even considering the current situation of social issues...oh, and even space science has 'a go' every now and then...'Another asteroid passes safely by. kilometre wide asteroid misses Earth at a distance of approx. 3 Earth/Moon radii'. Then in the next breath an astronomer will tell us it isn't a case of 'IF' but 'WHEN' one of these rocks will strike. Oh, right...why wait?

Some people really do worry about these issues and with varying degrees of confinement find themselves trapped. What was a mental issue quickly becomes a physical one with loss of appetite or the complete reverse of that, and so on. I don't think there is a sure cure for this but if anyone a has any indication of such a problem, get help...from close family or friends maybe. Even though not a Buddhist one can still seek advice from Monk's in Thailand who might be able to help through meditation.

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Whats to get " Fatigued " about being here in Thailand throughout the entire Covid Outbreak.

Lockdowns, restrictions and the way you are living your life, have had minimal impact compared to say the UK, Europe, or many other Countries.

OK ! Its mandatory to wear a Mask in public, and you have to body temperature check upon entry to a Mall or Supermarket, but is that really a hardship ?

 

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9 hours ago, Thaiwrath said:

I think most people are experiencing "pandemic boredom" rather than fatigue.

People want to get on with their lives, so let the vulnerable protect themselves, and the rest of us can carry on living.

Plan A: don't get infected.

Plan B: be sure you are vaccinated and boosted.

Plan C : carry on living

 

Note that Plan C may well depend on successful execution of A and B.

Keep your eye on the ball; boredom is not generally fatal.

 

All successful societies since the dawn of time depend on the strong and capable protecting the weak and vulnerable. We are all weak and vulnerable sooner or later.

 

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4 hours ago, Fairynuff said:

Being in Thailand has been a thousand times better than anywhere in Europe or the US. I was back home for 2 months and couldn’t wait to get away from a stupid majority behaving like there’s nothing wrong. It’s no wonder the UK is still getting over 100k cases a day and despite this the idiot in charge is ending restrictions to save his own skin and f*** the population.

It’s called being honest about numbers even if the government would prefer it not known. Our media in the UK are free to run riot on the seated government unlike here. I had COVID in the UK (delta) only found out from home testing. No symptoms but self isolated and reported on NHS app after PCR confirmed. Never got sick.  I wonder if Thais do this unless they are really ill.  Since being back in Thailand I know the answer.   Time to live with it. Probably not going away anytime soon IMO.   And do they add it as a COVID death here if they contract COVID whilst dying from something else? ….

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Its interesting to reflect on the article and how the covid experience sat/sits with me/us over the last few years. My goodness so much time passed!

I had a range of emotions and mental states over the last few years ranging from who cares to I'm going crackers lol ????. Fatigue was one part of this ever-shifting journey.

 

I have loved the quiet and emptiness of the roads and beaches, the clear waters, the abundance of sea life not seen by me here before. The empty waves to ride with no beginner surfers to get in the way has been fun.

I enjoy being busy and seeing and moving about but I also love being still and 'being', so having authorities order me to be in and around the immediate apartment and then the house has been okay for the most part. Its been nice to have such space and time with those I did had time with as we all had much more space to be with each other. 

 

I didn't struggle with pushing away the reality of this infectious disease so was able to accept whatever came down the pipe for the most part partially because I am gladly neither naively indifferent to nor accepting of big-brother control, nor prone to being seduced by conveniently simplistic conspiracy theories.

I worked for a long time around organic medicine so know enough to be able to decipher and see the logic as well as the frustrating ambiguity that accompanies a morphing, shifting, sneaky virus traversing the globe.

 

I even took in stride the scary green vipers that seem to have become much more prolific (especially at night around the wet season when we went out to have a drink and eat). Had a few very close encounters with our green slithering friends and nearly got bit one night outside Bennies in Surin ! 

 

The issues of family were more significant for 'she who must be obeyed', we know the love and connections there. For me it mattered not at all and was more focused on how 'she who lives indoors' was handling this exclusion from her der old mum. 

During the prolonged strict local-area lockdown when I was first here on beginning my retirement and still in a small apartment, when they banned swimming and going to the beach I took that quite hard actually for a week. After a time I refocused my need for exercise and the groundedness water brings, onto my yoga practice which also brings this gift and took solace in the outdoor pool shower to get wet and invigorated.

Later having the house in build and all the nuances of designing, choosing stuff, and watching monitoring the build has taken up a huge part of the last year or so, so less strain and fatigue was evident, despite building carrying inherent stresses.

My darling was away much longer (not flying back and forth for work), stuck in BKK for some time so we had to manage with Line n Facetime chats. Maybe I'm weird this way but I know in my gut I don't own her, or need her to feel okay so her being away wasn't the end of the world either, it simply was what it was. Absence it seems, does make the heart grow fonder too lol ????.

I did have periods, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes days where I was frustrated and felt trapped (the early part of lockdown in the small apartment). I had to work at not choosing depression too, and as an adjunct to that stop spending too much time watching, voyeuristically-like the madness unfolding in the US on Facebook and the cable news services.

I found a lot of time to relearning much of my college horticulture again and apply myself to the fun of growing things here, and co-designing the new landscape with the landscape architect.

 

I don't see it as weird that folks have had a hard time especially those with family far away and no way in sight of seeing them.

After all having the rhythm of ones life disturbed so spontaneously, so violently, and unpredictably is a challenge for anyone. The threat of death added to this equation would unnerve and stress anyone. 

 

As a retiree, without pressing schedules as working people have I'm somewhat relieved of or insulated from to a degree, the need to be frustrated and covid fatigued. I have plenty of options and I consider myself very, very lucky to have been here during 'the situation' unfolding and rolling backwards and forwards across the globe.

I guess too I 'worked the problem' and looked about and within me and my experience as to how to manage life and what I could chose to do.

I turned to video chats with mates in OZ, read papers on psych stuff, and wrote an article for a trade magazine on a subject that came up and I wanted to express. 

When I felt the voice within saying; 'I don't want to accept this, I want it to be another way' I would look directly at the reality that was, not the fantasy I wanted, acknowledge both then accept what actually was and look about to see what it was that I could change/do.

Not be able to travel internationally nor internally in LOS has been annoying as I/we love to travel, but its not the end of the world.

 

 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, goldenbrwn1 said:

It’s called being honest about numbers even if the government would prefer it not known. Our media in the UK are free to run riot on the seated government unlike here. I had COVID in the UK (delta) only found out from home testing. No symptoms but self isolated and reported on NHS app after PCR confirmed. Never got sick.  I wonder if Thais do this unless they are really ill.  Since being back in Thailand I know the answer.   Time to live with it. Probably not going away anytime soon IMO.   And do they add it as a COVID death here if they contract COVID whilst dying from something else? ….

It’s more to do with testing than honesty when it comes to numbers. As for the UK print media, when you have overwhelmingly right wing reporting and until very recently virtually no criticism of the clown and his bunch of amateurs, it’s easy to draw the conclusions that we’re fed lies and misinformation. So the UK may in theory more open, in practice I’m not sure how free the free press is.

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3 hours ago, Gandtee said:

Not fatigue from the pandemic but from the perpetual reporting of covid figures and pictures of people getting vaccinated by masked health workers. This is not news any longer. It's as we used to say 'Going on like a cracked record.' Give it a rest please.

This is exactly what needs to be reported! People with only one dose should get the incentive to get the second, people with two doses need the incentive to get the booster. Of course, people who still don't have any vaccine should get the incentive to get the first dose. This should play as long as the pandemic persists. When it becomes endemic then it's a different story, vaccines may become optional. 

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1 hour ago, Fairynuff said:

It’s more to do with testing than honesty when it comes to numbers. As for the UK print media, when you have overwhelmingly right wing reporting and until very recently virtually no criticism of the clown and his bunch of amateurs, it’s easy to draw the conclusions that we’re fed lies and misinformation. So the UK may in theory more open, in practice I’m not sure how free the free press is.

Seriously? Do you remember the B word from 2016? This government has been under negative scrutiny and sometimes dammed bias MSM reporting for years. Even if Labour were to ever get in power it would soon switch on them. Christ you can’t even criticise the joke that is the BIB here let alone the melt in charge! 
 

But yeh testing responsibility I agree is a major factor. Only recently becoming a thing here in Thailand.

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If I had been in Melbourne, I have no doubt I would have experienced pandemic fatigue. Here, no. I count myself very lucky to have returned to Thailand February 18, 2020, just before the excrement hit the fan.

I have my Thai GF. I can play golf, swim, move around on my scooter or in my car. The supermarket shelves are full. I'm vaccinated, was infected with COVID, over in three days.

Problems can also be opportunities. In the brief lockdown here ( March - June 2020 ) I educated myself on how to make videos. Since then, I've posted 35 of them on YouTube.

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8 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

If I had been in Melbourne, I have no doubt I would have experienced pandemic fatigue. Here, no. I count myself very lucky to have returned to Thailand February 18, 2020, just before the excrement hit the fan.

I have my Thai GF. I can play golf, swim, move around on my scooter or in my car. The supermarket shelves are full. I'm vaccinated, was infected with COVID, over in three days.

Problems can also be opportunities. In the brief lockdown here ( March - June 2020 ) I educated myself on how to make videos. Since then, I've posted 35 of them on YouTube.

link please? ???? PM is ok if you prefer. I'd like to subscribe.

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No, not really, where I am in Isan the only sign of a pandemic are the masks in public places, less so in the village. It's true that I don't frequent bars or restaurants, I drink my beer at home, I lead a quiet life by choice. Possibly in the towns and cities the pandemic perceptions are worse as one had more choices and a larger circle of acquaintances, going out was more of a thing and when that stops emptiness floods in because there was more 'doing' than 'being'. Not just in Thailand, reading Western newspapers it has become apparent to me that most people can't be alone and have to fill their time with activities no matter how meaningless. Being in a farming village is a sane place to be (for me). 

Edited by soalbundy
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5 hours ago, Tropposurfer said:

Yes Chomper I agree with you. It would be nice or have been nice for other countries, and for the entire planet if other nations had embraced and acted as unitedly, and selflessly as the Thai people have. 

I thought your comment was a pisstake but seems not? Prayuth and his democratically appointed senators make the rules, no one else ????

Edited by MarkyM3
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3 hours ago, Fairynuff said:

It’s more to do with testing than honesty when it comes to numbers. As for the UK print media, when you have overwhelmingly right wing reporting and until very recently virtually no criticism of the clown and his bunch of amateurs, it’s easy to draw the conclusions that we’re fed lies and misinformation. So the UK may in theory more open, in practice I’m not sure how free the free press is.

Are you serious? ???? BoJo is on the verge of resignation/leadership challenge due to the media onslaught. I'm in the UK, you clearly are way off base. There's plenty wrong with the country but I don't see evidence of a Computer Crimes act which allows hotels to sue guests posting reviews they dislike or cops shooting rubber bullets at democracy  protestors. Open your eyes man.

Edited by MarkyM3
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I was in Laos last year, where lockdowns and 'control' was very evident.  With a large wad of of paperwork, I was able to leave Laos and enter Turkey (they only checked my passport at immigration, no other checks at all).  I stayed in Turkey for about 5 weeks, with only common-sense rules in force (masks in public, temperature check at shopping malls etc).  Then I moved to live in Mauritius, and again everyone is getting on with life and going about their normal activities with only common-sense rules in force (masks in public, temperature check at shopping malls etc).

 

So there is no pandemic-fatigue here because both in Turkey and here in Mauritius, Omicron is being treated as it is >> a mild virus, in most cases which is similar to a cold or mild flu.

 

Every year, thousands of elderly and those with medical conditions die of flu or related illnesses, but we don't 'stop the world' for the whole population.  We need to get on with our lives, protect the vulnerable, and accept that no-one is immortal.

Edited by simon43
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1 minute ago, simon43 said:

I was in Laos last year, where lockdowns and 'control' was very evident.  With a large of of paperwork, I was able to leave Laos and enter Turkey (they only checked my passport at immigration, no other checks at all).  I stayed in Turkey for about 5 weeks, with only common-sense rules in force (masks in public, temperature check at shopping malls etc).  Then I moved to live in Mauritius, and again everyone is getting on with life and going about their normal activities with only common-sense rules in force (masks in public, temperature check at shopping malls etc).

 

So there is no pandemic-fatigue here because both in Turkey and here in Mauritius, Omicron is being treated as it is >> a mild virus, in most cases which is similar to a cold or mild flu.

 

Every year, thousands of elderly and those with medical conditions die of flu or related illnesses, but we don't 'stop the world' for the whole population.  We need to get on with our lives, protect the vulnerable, and accept that no-one is immortal.

Thought you were moving to Northern Cyprus?! 

 

Agree 100% with everything you say btw ????

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18 minutes ago, MarkyM3 said:

Are you serious? ???? BoJo is on the verge of resignation/leadership challenge due to the media onslaught. I'm in the UK, you clearly are way off base. There's plenty wrong with the country but I don't see evidence of a Computer Crimes act which allows hotels to sue guests posting reviews they dislike or cops shooting rubber bullets at democracy  protestors. Open your eyes man.

Lol asking if I’m serious! For donkeys years the Murdoch press, the Torygraph, Express, have all been pushing their bile. It’s literally the last few months they’ve turned on him. It’s not me who needs to open my eyes. Have you looked at what Patel wants to do with the Crimes bill? Luckily the Lords gave her a beating. The nationality bill…….

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18 minutes ago, Fairynuff said:

Lol asking if I’m serious! For donkeys years the Murdoch press, the Torygraph, Express, have all been pushing their bile. It’s literally the last few months they’ve turned on him. It’s not me who needs to open my eyes. Have you looked at what Patel wants to do with the Crimes bill? Luckily the Lords gave her a beating. The nationality bill…….

I don't care which side of the political spectrum you inhabit. That's not the point. The point is about an open society and a free media.. of which Thailand has precious little of either, whether or not the country is nice to live or retire in.

 

Whether you like what the UK media represent is your issue. There is plenty of it available and no state censorship of it as of now. The BBC or Guardian represent a soft left view. Plenty of other independent media around.

 

You completely missed the point. 

 

And...ti address your political point...with 23k+ people crossing the English Channel in dinghies last year I'm glad the govt are finally waking up. Most Brits are fed up with it. 40k+ in 3 years via that route alone. The UK is one of the softest touches around. But you don't need to worry about it in any case, surely? Living in a country which accepts no refugees...????

Edited by MarkyM3
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8 minutes ago, MarkyM3 said:

The point is about an open society and a free media.. of which Thailand has precious little of either, whether or not the country is nice to live or retire in.

Which Thai media do you read?  Please enlighten us what did you read there lately making you unhappy to live here?

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42 minutes ago, Saanim said:

Which Thai media do you read?  Please enlighten us what did you read there lately making you unhappy to live here?

I live 50/50 UK/Thailand ordinarily and what media I read in either country really has little to do with the points I previously made, if you study the discussion. 

 

They have absolutely nothing to do with me being unhappy at all. I just like to address what I perceive as rose-tinted double standards from certain posters on the forum.

 

I accept Thailand for what it is, as I do the UK, and behave accordingly. Otherwise I wouldn't spend time in either place. Nowhere is perfect. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to point out holes in people's reasoning here or to keep my head in the sand. 

 

FYI, I read the Bkk Post and Nation occasionally. They are very poor newspapers generally. As you well know, political criticism is not well tolerated in the country. I prefer to receive my news from a variety of other sources with servers not based in the country. 

 

And...I clearly mentioned earlier some examples of the double standards pertaining to previous posts..crazy defamation laws (Computer Crimes Act), front loading of the senate etc. 

Edited by MarkyM3
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10 hours ago, thailand49 said:

Yes!  From the daily <deleted> thrown out through the media

"Fatigue also occurs if we do the same things repeatedly for a long time, she added."

 

like hourly media frenzy reporting of "record numbers of (asymptomatic) cases" maybe??

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