Opinion: It is time we end this pandemic

[NoshowJones]

18 hours ago, daveAustin said:

More total transparency and a system that tallies deaths whether people died of covid or not, but don’t let that blight your prejudice. 

UK has many faults, but not a Junta. If Boris had a offshore bank account which filled up the way I believe the soldier posing as an PM here in Thailand has, be would have been jailed long ago.

[NoshowJones]

17 hours ago, ozimoron said:

exactly what are these undreamt of imaginary powers that the governments have? Closing down a few bars? What does that get them? This garbage about world control is beyond stupid.

 

In Australia, the state governments which locked down the hardest were the most popular. The year we had no covid because of border controls was wildly popular. And now that mini me decided we had to bow to the wishes of big corporations and open up without quarantine, the hospitals are going under, deaths are at a record high and the government has got buckley's of being re-elected in May.

 

Most workers world wide support mask mandates and vaccine restrictions.

 

https://www.ipsos.com/en/covid-and-the-workplace-dec-2021

"and the government has got buckley's of being re-elected in May." Have I missed something here? Is there an election in May that the people of Thailand will get the chance to rid the country of this unelected PM and his Junta? Please enlighten me someone.

[NoshowJones]

14 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

That's where the premise of the OP article is wrong, or at least overstated to a significant extent.

 

I live in that area and have for years. The BMA and the national government, well before COVID came along, had been on a campaign to "clean up" the various major street sidewalks, and limiting and pushing the vendors that once used them off into other places.

 

No doubt, the loss of tourists due to COVID has worsened the economic plight of many street vendors and small business people. But when it comes to the sidewalks in BKK, the governments came well in advance of the pandemic.

 

The vendors operating on the sidewalk on the odd Soi no's on lower Sukhumvit had to stop. Street food etc has been very successful and should never have been stopped. But in the case of lower Sukhumvit, these vendors were forcing people off the sidewalk and on to a dangerous busy road. That just could not go on.

Let the vendors all over Thailand earn their livelihoods, but not to the extent off blocking off most parts of the sidewalks.

Common sense with this Junta in charge never existed.

Edited January 29, 2022 by possum1931

[overherebc]

5 hours ago, inThailand said:

Is it time to end these stupid surveys? 

Do a survey on it.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, possum1931 said:

The vendors operating on the sidewalk on the odd Soi no's on lower Sukhumvit had to stop. Street food etc has been very successful and should never have been stopped. But in the case of lower Sukhumvit, these vendors were forcing people off the sidewalk and on to a dangerous busy road. That just could not go on.

Let the vendors all over Thailand earn their livelihoods, but not to the extent off blocking off most parts of the sidewalks.

Common sense with this Junta in charge never existed.

 

Ya, my prior post wasn't meant to oppose or support the BMA's sidewalks campaign. Just to note that the OP article's claim it was all due to COVID wasn't really correct.

 

But that aside, I'd agree with you on a personal level -Thailand's sidewalks (where they even exist) are an abomination in many areas. And, while I miss some of the street vendors I used to patronize, I also like actually being able to walk down the  sidewalks such as they are, instead of being forced to walk in the roads...

 

Worth noting as an addendum -- through the years, the BMA pretty regularly re-did the actual paving tiles they used for the sidewalks on Sukhumvit Road in the lower sois because they became dangerous. Never laid properly in the first place, the seasonal rains eroded the base foundation and left everything cracked and unstable.

 

Then a couple years back, the BMA embarked on a long project to once again re-do the sidewalk pavements along Sukhumvit Road from Nana well eastward. And amazingly, after all the prior botched attempts, this time for some reason they managed to get it right.... The latest paving has survived the rains intact for several seasons and remains probably among the best sidewalks surfaces to be found in Thailand, IMHO.

 

 

[Trvlr55]

17 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

From Johns Hopkins Jan. 27 situation update on COVID:

 

"The WHO COVID-19 Dashboard reports 357 million cumulative cases and 5.61 million deaths worldwide as of January 26. Global weekly incidence increased again last week, up 11.03% over the previous week. This is the 14th consecutive week of increasing weekly incidence, setting another new record with 22.77 million new cases."

 

While there is optimism among some public health experts that the rapid rise and fall of the Omicron surge in some regions could usher in an end to the pandemic, the WHO determined last week that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Other experts warn that as long as the threat of new variants exists, calls for reaching COVID-19 endemicity are misguided.

 

Meanwhile, global weekly mortality increased for the third week, up 8.49% from the previous week with 53,935 total deaths."

 

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/COVID-19-SituationReports.html

 

no idea what your point is really??

no point in pushing numbers since all this began. Thai government has stated that almost all new cases are the new "mild variant" and very soon all will be.

This variant if fully vaccinated, and anyone in Thailand has the option to be fully vaccinated, and is going to be no symptoms, scratchy throat, or something along the lines of a minor cold.

Just continuing to fluff up the "fear factor" doesn't really help anything at this point.

 

It's time to call an end to useless shutdowns. To date a shutdown has never prevented cases from crossing any boarders, and is of very little use, even before the current variant came along. The only thing shutdowns have done is severely crippled economies around the globe, and made a small amount of companies very rich, while bankrupting many others, and putting millions of people in misery, and poverty.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, Trvlr55 said:

Thai government has stated that almost all new cases are the new "mild variant" and very soon all will be.

This variant if fully vaccinated, and anyone in Thailand has the option to be fully vaccinated, and is going to be no symptoms, scratchy throat, or something along the lines of a minor cold.

My points included:

 

--The Omicron so-called "mild" variant isn't necessarily so mild, as can be illustrated by COVID hospitalizations lately in the U.S. reaching record numbers, and almost all of COVID in the U.S. these days is Omicron.

 

and

 

--While it may be true that fully and recently vaccinated folks tend to have more minor Omicron symptoms than the UNvaccinated, it bears remembering that almost one-third of Thailand's population hasn't had the regular TWO doses, and much less the THREE doses that the experts say are needed to be effective against Omicron.

 

So not quite time to close the COVID book just yet.

 

 

 

Last year, Thailand went many months with not much COVID going on early in the year, while the U.S. and Europe were getting killed. And then suddenly COVID exploded in Thailand the latter half of the year, with up to 25,000 cases and +- 300 deaths per day.

 

Now once again the past few months, the U.S. and other regions are getting literally killed with Omicron, but not much going on in Thailand (at least according to the official stats)... Until???

 

 

[Pinot]

On 1/28/2022 at 6:36 PM, CG1 Blue said:

So you basically had a bad head cold. I'm sure that wasn't pleasant, but surely we can stop calling it a pandemic if symptoms are those of a head cold. 

I was fully vaccinated and I'm 72. It could easily have gone much differently.

 

17,000 PEOPLE DIED IN THE US LAST WEEK!!! It should be up to 25k within a couple of weeks!

 

It's a pandemic. Jesus wept...

[ozimoron]

Denmark scraps most pandemic restrictions, no longer considers COVID 'a socially critical disease'

 

the country has a high vaccination rate, officials have said.

 

The Danish government has warned that Denmark could see a rise in infections in the coming weeks and said that a fourth vaccination shot might be necessary.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-02/denmark-scraps-most-covid-restrictions/100797420