Thai virologist Dr. Yong predicts daily COVID-19 infections may reach 100,000

[daejung]

Farang don't care about what they think. The only thing that matters is when will all restrictions be lifted

[NanLaew]

On 2/21/2022 at 2:00 AM, raccos21 said:

As a medical expert he is supposed to tell people what to plan if the cases do increase; do the hospitals have enough medical supplies and rooms for those severe cases seeking for treatment? etc., instead of giving a prediction for the surge of the cases.

Maybe this is a real quick way to advise all the administrators of all the hospitals to make sure they "have enough medical supplies and rooms for those severe cases seeking for treatment" instead of just sending them a memo?

[lks7689]

On 2/21/2022 at 1:30 PM, mommysboy said:

That was likely Delta not Omicron.

If it's Delta I probably would have been sent to national infectious diseases department in Singapore after my pcr test. You think only Delta can provoke such symptoms? I assure you, it really depends on individuals. My two other colleagues with us that had that dinner tested positive later both only had sore throat and block nose. 

[Jimbo2014]

On 2/21/2022 at 4:11 PM, Bkk Brian said:

Yet you claimed:

 

"32 deaths from covid today.  It will be another 120 from excess sugar (Diabetes and High blood glucose), 80 from road accidents, about 90 from pollution (at least).  Just sayin"

 

Now you are proving yourself wrong by the WHO statement being an an average of 65 road deaths per day not the 80 as you stated, you've not even acknowledged that, its quite a difference over a year. So according to WHO 2021 Thailand had around 22,941 road deaths.

 

To make a comparison with covid deaths in 2021 that was well over 22,000 so not so much of a difference now is it. That's without the added Excess deaths which will bring it far higher and over the road deaths count.

 

As for this year like I said before averaging and guessing your numbers, better to stick to the official tally, both road deaths and covid deaths are published daily.

Hi Bkk Brian.  65 deaths a day on the road - not counting the life changing injuries and devastated lives and that was a quiet year (being a lockdown year).  22,000 covid deaths is the total - for 2 years (not one year) - hence half the rate as road accidents.   

I realise you are a big proponent of the fears of covid.  Prior to vaccinations and Omicron I would have agreed with you. However on the most recent data I have adjusted my opinion.  The death rate for vaccinated against Omicron is tiny and data from the US and UK have demonstrated that for vaccinated adults, Omicron is simply (generally) not a problem. 

Thailand needs to adopt a sensible policy towards it.  Testing people at the airport when there are likely in excess of 40,000 real cases a day in Thailand is senseless.  Sending people to hospital or closing schools simply because they have covid is a huge drain on valuable resources which would be better used in more meaningful ways to save lives, or to ensure the whole population is vaccinated with quality vaccines (rather than the S one).  The economic and social damage is exceeding the savings.  Pending a more ferocious variant emerging, it seems time to exit the covid fear camp and apply resources where they are really needed to help improve society and save lives.   

[Jimbo2014]

On 2/21/2022 at 2:56 PM, candide said:

Excess deaths may not double the number of Covid deaths, but triple them.. Since the beginning of the pandemic in April,  they have consistently been around three times higher than the official number of Covid deaths. 65,292 excess deaths between April and December 2021. So 37 official Covid deaths should  correspond to around 100 excess deaths.

https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

 

Most excess deaths in the study you refer to occurred in countries with poorer heath systems.  Thailand actually has a reasonable health system.  The estimate here is likely about 2-2.5 times.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.07.22268886v1.full.pdf

Needless to say this is not a small number - but its not a linear number either.  The Alpha and Delta forms caused the highest excess mortality rates and excess mortality has declined since.  The peak coincided with the period of the study (april - Nov 2021) as you can see here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/thailand/

Omicron appears to have an extremely low mortality rate against vaccinated and even non-vaccinated (although about 50 x higher to unvaccinated by the latest CDC numbers).  My argument, based on the data, would be that its time to exit many of the covid restrictions and start living again.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Jimbo2014

[Bkk Brian]

11 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Hi Bkk Brian.  65 deaths a day on the road - not counting the life changing injuries and devastated lives and that was a quiet year (being a lockdown year).  22,000 covid deaths is the total - for 2 years (not one year) - hence half the rate as road accidents.   

 

Actually no  you quoted road deaths for 2021, 1 year. I also quoted covid deaths for 2021 only

[placeholder]

22 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Hi Bkk Brian.  65 deaths a day on the road - not counting the life changing injuries and devastated lives and that was a quiet year (being a lockdown year).  22,000 covid deaths is the total - for 2 years (not one year) - hence half the rate as road accidents.   

I realise you are a big proponent of the fears of covid.  Prior to vaccinations and Omicron I would have agreed with you. However on the most recent data I have adjusted my opinion.  The death rate for vaccinated against Omicron is tiny and data from the US and UK have demonstrated that for vaccinated adults, Omicron is simply (generally) not a problem. 

Thailand needs to adopt a sensible policy towards it.  Testing people at the airport when there are likely in excess of 40,000 real cases a day in Thailand is senseless.  Sending people to hospital or closing schools simply because they have covid is a huge drain on valuable resources which would be better used in more meaningful ways to save lives, or to ensure the whole population is vaccinated with quality vaccines (rather than the S one).  The economic and social damage is exceeding the savings.  Pending a more ferocious variant emerging, it seems time to exit the covid fear camp and apply resources where they are really needed to help improve society and save lives.   

Travel restrictions really don't make sense at this point, especially considering that to board the plane you need to be tested in the first place. So it's already going to be a miniscule percentage of those people who will test positive after arrival. And considering how many locals are infected at any one point in time, a few infected tourists should make no meaningful difference to the course of the disease in Thailand.

[candide]

2 hours ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Most excess deaths in the study you refer to occurred in countries with poorer heath systems.  Thailand actually has a reasonable health system.  The estimate here is likely about 2-2.5 times.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.07.22268886v1.full.pdf

Needless to say this is not a small number - but its not a linear number either.  The Alpha and Delta forms caused the highest excess mortality rates and excess mortality has declined since.  The peak coincided with the period of the study (april - Nov 2021) as you can see here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/thailand/

Omicron appears to have an extremely low mortality rate against vaccinated and even non-vaccinated (although about 50 x higher to unvaccinated by the latest CDC numbers).  My argument, based on the data, would be that its time to exit many of the covid restrictions and start living again.

Thanks for this interesting article.

Actually, it wasn't a study I was referring to, it was a database. It's the same database used in the article. The difference between my approach and their approach is that they use an estimate based on previous years (2015-2019) as a basis for comparison, while I simply compare with the previous year's numbers. 

I feel safe with my approach as I remember what happened one year ago and whether some factors may have impacted death count  For example, I know that 2020 was not significantly impacted by Covid or other issue.

It also allows me to calculate excess deaths every month. For example, in January this year, the official Covid death count was 575, while the number of excess deaths compared to last year was 1,692. So still around three times the official Covid numbers.

As there is a delay between infections and deaths, the full impact of Omicron on excess deaths will be observable only in February and March data.

Edited February 23, 2022 by candide

[Jimbo2014]

50 minutes ago, candide said:

Thanks for this interesting article.

Actually, it wasn't a study I was referring to, it was a database. It's the same database used in the article. The difference between my approach and their approach is that they use an estimate based on previous years (2015-2019) as a basis for comparison, while I simply compare with the previous year's numbers. 

I feel safe with my approach as I remember what happened one year ago and whether some factors may have impacted death count  For example, I know that 2020 was not significantly impacted by Covid or other issue.

It also allows me to calculate excess deaths every month. For example, in January this year, the official Covid death count was 575, while the number of excess deaths compared to last year was 1,692. So still around three times the official Covid numbers.

As there is a delay between infections and deaths, the full impact of Omicron on excess deaths will be observable only in February and March data.

Understand - however another interesting study released by the CDC noted that lockdowns didnt impact mortality significantly.  ie: it will burn regardless.  Omicron is likely to have far fewer deaths, more so because Alpha and Delta were probably widely underreported.  Further, Omicron will leave the population with good long term memory T cells to fight other variants of Covid.  Hopefully not too many have to die but some is inevitable.

[Jimbo2014]

3 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Actually no  you quoted road deaths for 2021, 1 year. I also quoted covid deaths for 2021 only

Fair comment.  However its worth bearing in mind that 2021 was the excessive peak of the pandemic and unlikely to be repeated.  The average over the pandemic is about 13000 per year and again unlikely to ever be repeated.  Current death rates seem miniscule when compared to cases and not large when compared to other preventable forms of mortality.  Tragically deaths may actually approach the road toll but doubtful with the high vaccination rates.  Unlikely to ever see the 300 a day at the peak of 2021 without a new variant.  Thus far the virus has followed a natural course to mutate into a more benign version.   

Edited February 23, 2022 by Jimbo2014

[Bkk Brian]

4 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Fair comment.  However its worth bearing in mind that 2021 was the excessive peak of the pandemic and unlikely to be repeated.  The average over the pandemic is about 13000 per year and again unlikely to ever be repeated.  Current death rates seem miniscule when compared to cases and not large when compared to other preventable forms of mortality.  Tragically deaths may actually approach the road toll but doubtful with the high vaccination rates.  Unlikely to ever see the 300 a day at the peak of 2021 without a new variant.  Thus far the virus has followed a natural course to mutate into a more benign version.   

Sure i understand that and why i mentioned best to stick to offially daily numbers for this year to make comparisons

Edited February 23, 2022 by Bkk Brian