Do you believe in the weekly Covid case statistics anymore?

[webfact]

 

by Michael Bridge

 

If you look across the figures published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), even their figures must rely on stats sent in by each government.

 

Here in Thailand, the average number of cases over the past seven days were 25,187 cases.

 

During the same time, Vietnam has averaged 150,489 new cases.

 

I cannot believe that we are getting the real picture regarding Covid cases?

 

So why is Vietnam so far ahead?

 

Naturally, Thailand is a bigger country at 513,120m2 compared to Vietnam at 331,690m2.

 

However, Vietnam’s population is 97.34 million compared to Thailand’s at 69.8 million.

 

So, you could argue that people in Vietnam are more clustered together., but many people are self-isolating and are not being registered with Covid.

 

Thailand’s figures could be three times as much, but we will never know.

 

What happens if you tested positive for Covid-19 in Vietnam?

The official stance is if you have tested positive for Covid-19 in Vietnam, or present any symptoms such as fever, cough, and breathing difficulty, please contact the Ministry of Health hotline immediately at 1900 3228. The officials will give you instructions on whether to arrange a quarantine unit or hospital for treatment.

 

Join our 3 x a week Vietnam News, Travel and Expat information newsletter and keep up to date. https://aseannow.com/newsletter.php
 
Costs related to Covid-19 medical treatment in public hospitals are covered for Vietnamese nationals only. 

Foreigners must pay themselves or have a health insurance with Covid-19 coverage. 

And in Thailand?

If you test positive for Covid-19 with no to mild symptoms, you can opt for home isolation or community isolation. 

 

If you have tested positive on the ATK test, please contact the National Health Security Office (NHSO) at 1330 or add Line @nhso. There will be officials to assess the symptom level. 

 

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Patients with no to mild symptoms and no other risk factors such as congenital diseases or serious chronic illnesses can undergo home isolation or community isolation, where officials will constantly check on the symptoms and provide medicine.

 

The main reason that people are not willing to register is many people especially Expats would have to pay large hospital bills.

 

And for Thais, another issue is that their employer does not need to pay wages to the employee during the quarantine period, under the principle of “no work no pay.”

 

Test and trace also varies per country so we assume that Vietnam has a higher test and trace program than perhaps other SE Asian countries.

Naturally as governments are desperate to re-open borders for business and tourism reasons, it helps to keep their figures artificially low.

With the cases rising in China, soon most countries will have to face the fact that by fudging the figures, it may help in the short term but could become a major issue in the long term.

 

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[daveAustin]

Do you believe in the weekly Covid case statistics anymore?
 

Never did from day one. Not bashing Thailand, but they were always iffy. Combo of face and woeful lack of testing. How can you get the true x10 figure when you’re only testing 50k?

[Soikhaonoiken]

Thailand has never told the truth on covid figures from the outset of the pandemic....

Just as TAT doesn't tell the truth of how many tourists arrive...

[TooMuchTime]

I guess they are close enough.

 

The weekly cases and death count is pretty useless though.

 

Only care about death rates in different age groups.  If they always presented the data like that, you will likely have vast majority of people not care about covid as only the elderly and/or severely ill people have a high chance of dying.  Everyone else typically gets cold/flu symptoms for a week.  Almost like covid is similar to the common cold.  Can anyone confirm if both of these diseases are in the coronavirus family?

 

Time to end all restrictions like most normal states in the US have.

 

Granny has had enough time to get double injected and double boosted to be considered "fully vaccinated".  We can't use the protect granny excuse anymore.  She has had more than enough time to protect herself.

[ukrules]

The numbers are complete and utter nonsense and should be treated as such.

 

200-500k cases per day, in every country of this size is going to be the norm and that's me being optimistic.

 

Even then it can keep this up for months with population rates of 60 to 80 million.

Edited March 29, 2022 by ukrules

[cyril sneer]

2 hours ago, Soikhaonoiken said:

Thailand has never told the truth on covid figures from the outset of the pandemic....

Just as TAT doesn't tell the truth of how many tourists arrive...

Also everything else 

[scubascuba3]

Cases are at least double here, i know of 6 people who have just had covid, none have reported it

Edited March 29, 2022 by scubascuba3

[Scott]

A troll post has been removed along with one containing false information.  Posting false or misleading information will result in a suspension.  

 

 

[starky]

If so many want the joint to open up with zero restrictions, zero testing, zero anything in regards to covid does it matter what the numbers are?

[mania]

Never did believe in the first place

 

Remember Thailand "claimed" to be Covid free in 2019 & 2020 while the rest of the

world raged on

This supposedly due to their high quality temp checks <sic>

[zaZa9]

I believed them for a couple of weeks for my locale , until I saw that constantly  the daily variance was always 2 or 3 new cases ( up or down ) on a population of approximately  800,000. I  could only conclude  that somebody without a lot of experience in statistics was trying to deliver 'softened' news. The  really sad part was that decisions effecting peoples personal or family economies were being made on the basis of such lies.

And still are !

[TheFishman1]

I don’t believe any of the figures this government gives TIT

[ikke1959]

Even with low numbers of testing the cases in THailand are not real at all.. There are many many more and the local people know that too. I wrote several times already and know out of own experience that all ATK tests are not reported because with mild or non symptons pepe don't want to go in quarantine.... But every day CCSA does us believe that there are between 20-30k positive PCR tests and about the same ATK tests, but in the meantime in my province the hospitals are full and in my soi there are a lot of cases everyday according to the speaker at 17.00 every day. So no fake news in fact the number of cases

[hotchilli]

Anymore.... I never did.

[jacko45k]

I have always believe the numbers were understated and represented only a fraction of the total numbers.... 

Does not mean they are useless ... as they have shown the recent rises in infections...

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, Soikhaonoiken said:

Thailand has never told the truth on covid figures from the outset of the pandemic....

Just as TAT doesn't tell the truth of how many tourists arrive...

Covid was/is hidden just like the  African Swine Fever in pigs...

Thailand doesn't engage in people smuggling either, it doesn't employ illegals, it doesn't traffic endangered animal species.... it only records deaths at the scene of an accident to make the figures looks somewhat acceptable.

Thailand is squeaky clean

[RichardColeman]

1 hour ago, scubascuba3 said:

Cases are at least double here, i know of 6 people who have just had covid, none have reported it

My wife's entire family just got it. Not reported, no hospital, just tested and staying at home

[JimHuaHin]

I have Thai friends who work in the public and private Thai health care systems.  They tell me that from the very early days, cases of medical personnel catching COVID-19 were not being reported.  Now, some people who test positive are not only not being reported, but some are being denied access to medications if they are not hospitalised.

[Dmaxdan]

In my humble opinion, it is time for the media to move on from reporting these wildly inaccurate daily infection figures.

 

The number of related deaths is the only relevant number now.

The death figures should also be broken down into two categories, those who died from COVID-19, and those who died with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jacko45k]

Just now, Dmaxdan said:

In my humble opinion, it is time for the media to move on from reporting these wildly inaccurate daily infection figures.

 

The number of related deaths is the only relevant number now.

The death figures should also be broken down into two categories, those who died from COVID-19, and those who died with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps hospitalizations? Isn't it just a bit too late to evaluate by deaths?

[SantiSuk]

Reported numbers are probably quite useful as indicators of trends and for comparing one province/amphur with another, but not useful as absolute numbers.

 

The number of reports here and elsewhere that 'stay at home/keep quiet' is a common response to self-administered testing is now overwhelming*; they can't all be conspiracy theorists????


*Though I have to report that my own experience amongst family and reports on others here in Isaan is that the usual response is to contact local health workers, not to hide, if ATKs are positive. May be a function of a relatively effective local health network in the village/small town environment ('you can run but you can't hide'). I could understand Bangkok being a different kettle of fish.

 

[Swampy999]

In our village judging by the amount of houses with red string at the entrance the official BS is woefully low, as I suspect it has always been.

[SantiSuk]

15 minutes ago, Dmaxdan said:

In my humble opinion, it is time for the media to move on from reporting these wildly inaccurate daily infection figures.

 

The number of related deaths is the only relevant number now.

The death figures should also be broken down into two categories, those who died from COVID-19, and those who died with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You assume that those who died with Covid and not from Covid are included in the death numbers. I've not seen any authoritative reports on how medics are instructed to determine when to attribute a death to Covid, if indeed there are any such instructions. Anyone?

[Clarkey611]

I have never believed the WHO figures for China, and I have never ever believed the numbers in Thailand , especially with a nut in charge. They are inversely proportional to the TAT calculator.

[kwak250]

Whats this  'Anymore'  about?

 

That would imply we once did.

 

 

[Calvin1976]

Most countries won't/don't/can't give actual figures/statistic on their Covid cases.

Not reporting happened in every countries, not only in Thailand.

The daily/weekly numbers reported from every countries just for reference only.

Don't need to be so serious on that numbers.

Are you so innocent? ????

[CygnusX1]

4 hours ago, TooMuchTime said:

Almost like covid is similar to the common cold.  Can anyone confirm if both of these diseases are in the coronavirus family?

According to Wikipedia, around 15% of common colds are caused by coronaviruses. Doesn’t mean that the coronavirus from Wuhan is as trivial as the common cold though. After all, the virus from China that caused SARS 1 back in 2003 was also a coronavirus, and had a case fatality rate of 3%, according to the WHO. Agree with the rest of your post, that if deaths were published and broken up into age groups, vaccination status and health conditions, there’s be way less public hysteria.

[Cake Monster]

I never have believed the Daily Covid Infection numbers for Thailand , and I never will.

The Country has too much at stake with a GDP for Tourism estimated at somewhere around 20 %., and some would say its even higher at around 25 %, or more, to have Covid rampant in the Country.

The reporting of numbers is so obviously skewed, that it is farcical.

Just Yesterday, my wifes Brother, his GF, Daughter and my wifes sister and BIL all contracted Covid.

My Wife has a few Dorm Apartments that serve some workers in large Industrial Estates to the East of Pattaya, and several of her renters have said they have major issues in the Plants with Covid, and some Factories are even closing.

My Wifes Father lives about 60 Km North of Korat, and he says more than half the people in his Village are positive, and he has been ordered to close his small minimart.

 

[Scouse123]

I believe everything the Thai government, CCSA, TAT and Prayut say as I know they have all our best interests at heart.

 

I also believe they are going to make long stay for foreigners easier in the future, they are going to allow us to buy land, the Thai baht is going to stop being manipulated, Pattaya is going to be a world class family resort and Isaarn is going to become the hub and powerhouse of manufacturing, 

[Joules]

3 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Cases are at least double here, i know of 6 people who have just had covid, none have reported it

Only a fool would!  Not me.  I stay as far as possible from the government.  Visa, driver license, that's it.  Enough.