No closure of class or school in Thailand if COVID-19 infection is detected

[dinsdale]

15 minutes ago, TravelerEastWest said:

I do think/hope that over time vaccines/ and covid treatment will be more effective and COVID will be under reasonable control.

 

Sorry to hear that you feel that masks and temperature checks are pointless; every doctor that I have asked about this doesn't agree with your view. Masks especially are very useful.

 

The West does not always do what is correct. A friend of mine in California recently got COVID and after five days his ATK results were still positive yet current rules in California allowed him to go outside...

Masks are also useful in stopping the transmission of many viruses etc but completely useless when people pull them down to sneeze as I have seen here so many times. What about when your eating. Can't do that with a mask on. People talk whist they're eating, maybe cough and that's enough as this is airborne/aerosol transmission. So what's the point. Get up to go to the toilet and you have to put your mask up. Come back, sit down take your mask down and have a good old cough and if your infectious bingo you have just spread the virus. Again temp checks are nxt to useless as fever is not a common symptom of Omicron. Maybe the doctors you have asked should look at the ZOE institute's list of the most common symptoms. No.1 for Omicron B2 is a runny nose as it stands. This of course is interesting as we all get a runny nose now and again. Omicron? It would be really nice to have some sort of cheap and reliable test for antibodies just to see if you've had this without knowing it. 

[TravelerEastWest]

1 hour ago, dinsdale said:

Masks are also useful in stopping the transmission of many viruses etc but completely useless when people pull them down to sneeze as I have seen here so many times. What about when your eating. Can't do that with a mask on. People talk whist they're eating, maybe cough and that's enough as this is airborne/aerosol transmission. So what's the point. Get up to go to the toilet and you have to put your mask up. Come back, sit down take your mask down and have a good old cough and if your infectious bingo you have just spread the virus. Again temp checks are nxt to useless as fever is not a common symptom of Omicron. Maybe the doctors you have asked should look at the ZOE institute's list of the most common symptoms. No.1 for Omicron B2 is a runny nose as it stands. This of course is interesting as we all get a runny nose now and again. Omicron? It would be really nice to have some sort of cheap and reliable test for antibodies just to see if you've had this without knowing it. 

Good point about eating outside and masks - I do not eat in restaurants since covid and have no intention of doing so in the near future. Eating at home is much healthier at least for me it is.

 

Good news if Delta does not exist anymore or new similar varieties can't evolve but I am not so sure about that so for now temperature checks seem useful although not as useful as before.

[LukKrueng]

10 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

a 180 degree chnge of the previous rules... So now suddenly we know that there were 2 years of teaching were throw away for nothing

As in most countries around the world.

For some reason so many people on this forum think Thailand is the only country that ever had COVID restrictions. News flash - it is not.

True, some countries started easing restrictions before Thailand, and Thailand still has some way to go, but they are on the right track. 

[paulikens]

16 hours ago, dinsdale said:

Yep and many schools were open. As for the threat to kids yes they don't tend to get severe disease but they could take it home to their families. 

@dinsdale and they could have done that with flu, so thailand and the rest of the world didnt mind passing that to the elderly.  it's like there was never any viruses before covid. strange. 

[LukKrueng]

5 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Gotta keep those numbers falling....

Thailands road to success... and handling of the Covid infection.

no testing, ignore numbers and tell the world we beat it.

Can you give a list of any other infectious diseases that anywhere in the world asymptomatic people or people with mild symptoms were regularly tested for enmass as for COVID over the last 2 years? Can you recall any situation in the past were people were considered as dendagrously infectious and as a threat to society until proving else by regular weekly medical tests?

I can understand the histery in the first couple of months, but it was proven long time ago that all hard measures taken by most governments around the world that nothing really helped. Sweden, a country that put no restrictions at all is in a much better situation than most other countries.

 

As for the vaccines - the biggest scam in the world. I talked to a teacher in a local school the other day. Nearly ALL teacher got infected after 3-4 jabs. Many of the students at that school got infected after 2 jabs. In 1 class 3 out of 16 students for infected, 1 of which was not vaccinated and had the same mild symptoms of the others.

Many of my vaccinated friends got infected. My son, unvaccinated was positive with no symptoms at the same time that many of his vaccinated classmates got infected AND symptomatic...

As for masks - there is not even 1 valid medical research that confirms they help against respitoral viruses. The only 2 real researchers (with randomly selected participants and a control group, not computer simulations) that were conducted and published recently (1 in Denmark and 1 in Bangladesh if I remember correctly) came to a conclusion that masks do NOT help. The Bangladesh research claimed something like 5% prevention rate in people over 50 years old and in certain conditions.

[paulikens]

6 hours ago, TravelerEastWest said:

. Eating at home is much healthier at least for me it is.

@TravelerEastWest  depends what you're eating!

[paulikens]

believe it when i see it.  no doubt a lot of schools will have the usual knee jerk reaction

[TravelerEastWest]

1 hour ago, paulikens said:

@TravelerEastWest  depends what you're eating!

Certainly.

 

I have a garden and an orchard so lots of organic fruits and beans and vegetables as the base of my diet.

 

So my food is fresh with plenty of nutrients and clean.

[TravelerEastWest]

1 hour ago, paulikens said:

@dinsdale and they could have done that with flu, so thailand and the rest of the world didnt mind passing that to the elderly.  it's like there was never any viruses before covid. strange. 

The flu is very different - for example vaccines for most of the strains have been available for a long time.

[TravelerEastWest]

On 5/17/2022 at 3:24 AM, LukKrueng said:

Can you give a list of any other infectious diseases that anywhere in the world asymptomatic people or people with mild symptoms were regularly tested for enmass as for COVID over the last 2 years? Can you recall any situation in the past were people were considered as dendagrously infectious and as a threat to society until proving else by regular weekly medical tests?

I can understand the histery in the first couple of months, but it was proven long time ago that all hard measures taken by most governments around the world that nothing really helped. Sweden, a country that put no restrictions at all is in a much better situation than most other countries.

 

As for the vaccines - the biggest scam in the world. I talked to a teacher in a local school the other day. Nearly ALL teacher got infected after 3-4 jabs. Many of the students at that school got infected after 2 jabs. In 1 class 3 out of 16 students for infected, 1 of which was not vaccinated and had the same mild symptoms of the others.

Many of my vaccinated friends got infected. My son, unvaccinated was positive with no symptoms at the same time that many of his vaccinated classmates got infected AND symptomatic...

As for masks - there is not even 1 valid medical research that confirms they help against respitoral viruses. The only 2 real researchers (with randomly selected participants and a control group, not computer simulations) that were conducted and published recently (1 in Denmark and 1 in Bangladesh if I remember correctly) came to a conclusion that masks do NOT help. The Bangladesh research claimed something like 5% prevention rate in people over 50 years old and in certain conditions.

You are taking some information out of context.

 

Masks are not perfect (nor are vaccines) but properly sued are very helpful in slowing teh spread of covid lots of good information out there in support of tis here is just one example from the Mayo clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449

 

I notice that you have no links in support of masks not being useful...

 

Vaccines are what is saving us from many many more deaths and hospitalizations... plenty of information to support this. From what I read vaccines clearly help to prevent covid infections but even more important they help keep you out of the hospital and not dying - sounds good to me.

 

Again no one thing will protect you from COVID you need to get the vaccine and wear masks use alcohol and wash your hands and so on...

 

I wonder what the habits were of the teachers and students in your local school that you cite as an example? Also maybe even more important did teh get Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the less useful, Chinese vaccines?

 

Sweden: https://sweden.se/life/society/sweden-and-corona-in-brief

 

They have a high vaccination rating Sweden: Are you saying that the Swedish government didn't know what theywq ere doing and wasted their money ?

 

"Swedish Covid-19 vaccinations started in December 2020. At the end of March 2022, 87 per cent of the population aged 12 or older had been vaccinated with at least two doses. Of the population aged 18 or older, 62 per cent had been vaccinated with three doses."

 

Actually Sweden had restrictions but relied on a public information campaign to persuade citizens 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Scott

[dinsdale]

1 hour ago, paulikens said:

@dinsdale and they could have done that with flu, so thailand and the rest of the world didnt mind passing that to the elderly.  it's like there was never any viruses before covid. strange. 

I do think that Sars-Cov-2 is a bit of a different beast in all it's variants. I'm not sure what you point is.

[hotchilli]

11 hours ago, LukKrueng said:

Can you give a list of any other infectious diseases that anywhere in the world asymptomatic people or people with mild symptoms were regularly tested for enmass as for COVID over the last 2 years? Can you recall any situation in the past were people were considered as dendagrously infectious and as a threat to society until proving else by regular weekly medical tests?

My point was:

Thailand states that the number of infections are falling.
That is an outright lie !!

Tests and recorded numbers are falling... not infections.

[jacko45k]

19 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Gotta keep those numbers falling....

Thailands road to success... and handling of the Covid infection.

no testing, ignore numbers and tell the world we beat it.

I am more cynical......

I believe Thailand somehow did quite well handling Covid.....  the yardstick being low deaths. It is the major first world economies with high total deaths, that want us to forget the disaster they made of Covid in the early days. I hope they come back and explain why so many had to die for their ineptitude!

[peter zwart]

Some things are coming slow......but they come

[paulikens]

On 5/17/2022 at 7:26 AM, dinsdale said:

I do think that Sars-Cov-2 is a bit of a different beast in all it's variants. I'm not sure what you point is.

@dinsdale i was commenting on the post that said young kids could catch covid and take it back to their families and thats why schools have been closed, so my point was that kids could have got the flu pre-covid and passed it on to their elderly relatives, its nothing to do with a different beast, flu kills the elderly and frail and in actual fact even the medical experts and scientists have admitted that kids are more likely to get the flu than covid.     flu has 1000s of variants.                    and if you're gonna now tell me that that vaccines have been around for the flu for ages that's irrelevant as most of the elderly here wont have it, so they are and will still be at risk from the flu.    

[Scott]

On 5/17/2022 at 3:24 AM, LukKrueng said:

Can you give a list of any other infectious diseases that anywhere in the world asymptomatic people or people with mild symptoms were regularly tested for enmass as for COVID over the last 2 years? Can you recall any situation in the past were people were considered as dendagrously infectious and as a threat to society until proving else by regular weekly medical tests?

I can understand the histery in the first couple of months, but it was proven long time ago that all hard measures taken by most governments around the world that nothing really helped. Sweden, a country that put no restrictions at all is in a much better situation than most other countries.

 

As for the vaccines - the biggest scam in the world. I talked to a teacher in a local school the other day. Nearly ALL teacher got infected after 3-4 jabs. Many of the students at that school got infected after 2 jabs. In 1 class 3 out of 16 students for infected, 1 of which was not vaccinated and had the same mild symptoms of the others.

Many of my vaccinated friends got infected. My son, unvaccinated was positive with no symptoms at the same time that many of his vaccinated classmates got infected AND symptomatic...

As for masks - there is not even 1 valid medical research that confirms they help against respitoral viruses. The only 2 real researchers (with randomly selected participants and a control group, not computer simulations) that were conducted and published recently (1 in Denmark and 1 in Bangladesh if I remember correctly) came to a conclusion that masks do NOT help. The Bangladesh research claimed something like 5% prevention rate in people over 50 years old and in certain conditions.

You have posted a number of things which are considered as 'facts' without citation.  Some of your information is simply wrong. 

 

First you asked about other diseases with widespread testing.  For a long time, HIV fell into that category.  You may remember that the US had an outright ban on anyone with a + HIV test.   Even today 48 countries have restrictions:

The 48 countries and territories that still have some form of HIV related travel restriction are: Angola, Aruba, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait and others.

 

https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2019/june/20190627_hiv-related-travel-restrictions

 

All this occurs with a disease that is neither easy to diagnose nor is it particularly easy to test for, especially in huge numbers.  

 

As for the assertion that Sweden fared better without strong mitigation, that is not true.   The death rate in Sweden was 1,790 per million population.  Comparing it to it's neighbors that is an astronomical death rate.  More tellingly, it’s much worse than the rate of its Nordic neighbors Denmark (961), Norway (428) and Finland (538), all of which took a tougher anti-pandemic approach.

 

Sweden also implemented policies that ensured that hospitals stayed manageable by simply allowing people with comorbidities and obesity to die.   In fact, they most likely sped up their deaths.   In densely populated Stockholm, triage rules stated that patients with comorbidities were not to be admitted to intensive care units, on grounds that they were “unlikely to recover.” Swedish health strategy documents and statistics from research studies indicating that ICU admissions were biased against older patients.

 

Many elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies, effectively ending their lives.  Potentially life-saving treatment was withheld without medical examination, and without informing the patient or his/her family or asking permission.”

 

Economically, they fared only slightly better than the rest of Europe, but did more poorly than their Nordic neighbors, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

 

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-31/sweden-covid-policy-was-a-disaster

 

Here is a link to the full study:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01097-5

 

I don't know why you would refer to the vaccines as a scam.  They aren't.   Against the original strain and the early variants, it was highly effective.  By the time Omicron came around, they were less effective, but still provided some protection from actually being infected.  

 

According to data from 25 state and local health departments, adults who were unvaccinated against COVID-19 as the omicron variant emerged in December had nearly three times higher risk of infection than adults fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and five times higher risk than adults who had received a booster.

 

It's also well documented that vaccinated and boosted people who are infected have a very low risk of serious illness or hospitalization. 

https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2022-01-21-cdc-unvaccinated-adults-3-5-times-more-likely-get-omicron-infection#:~:text=According to data from 25,who had received a booster

 

There are risks with vaccines, just as there are with any medication.  That risk is part of the assessment as to whether or not a vaccine is approved.  Vaccines do not prevent a virus or bacteria from entering the body.  They prevent it from getting a foothold, making us ill, replicating itself and infecting others.  

 

You cited some anecdotal information so I'll respond with something I've posted previously.  In my neighborhood, a gated community with mostly people over 55, we had Omicron rip through the area.  I had 7 families in my immediate neighborhood get infected.  All were married (so 14 people) and no children in the home.  Of those who got sick, just under 1/2 of the spouses did not get infected even though they were in the same household -- that would be about a 50% effectiveness rate for preventing infection.  Of those that got sick, none of them required hospitalization and most didn't even consult a medical provider.  They were fairly sick for about 5 days and then a slow but steady recovery for most.  

 

There was one couple nearby who were not vaccinated and they fared much, much worse. 

 

I am not going to get into a lengthy discussion of masks, but the evidence is overwhelmingly supportive of the fact that they are effective.    Masks are the easiest, cheapest way of slowing transmission when combined with social distancing. 

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

 

Here is the conclusion of the Bangladesh study.  It should be pointed out that compliance was far from 100%, but it is a real-world study:

 

The researchers said the results of the study showed, “there is clear evidence that community mask-wearing can reduce COVID-19”.

 

You said the study only showed 5% in the over 50 years old group.  That's not correct:  23% lower among those 50-60, and 35% among people over 60.

 

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/coronavirus/yale-study-of-bangladesh-shows-the-effectiveness-of-masks

 

People are welcome to have their own opinion, but not their own facts.  I know plenty of people who aren't vaccinated and have no plans to be.  That is their choice.  I personally hate wearing a mask.  I know they are effective and protective, but I simply don't like wearing.  If I can avoid it, I do so.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Scott]

8 hours ago, paulikens said:

@dinsdale i was commenting on the post that said young kids could catch covid and take it back to their families and thats why schools have been closed, so my point was that kids could have got the flu pre-covid and passed it on to their elderly relatives, its nothing to do with a different beast, flu kills the elderly and frail and in actual fact even the medical experts and scientists have admitted that kids are more likely to get the flu than covid.     flu has 1000s of variants.                    and if you're gonna now tell me that that vaccines have been around for the flu for ages that's irrelevant as most of the elderly here wont have it, so they are and will still be at risk from the flu.    

Early on in the pandemic, a lot of countries closed schools.  I think this was done out of an abundance of caution and outright fear.  Nobody knew exactly how it affected young people.   As the pandemic progressed, it started to become clearer that young people fared reasonably well with the virus.  It now seems clear that schools that did remain or reopen with reasonable mitigating measures, such as social distancing and masks managed to keep infection rates down.  

I don't think the idea of 'bringing it home' was the reason.  I think that was an excuse made after the fact.  A sort of justification.  

 

It's a little tricky to compare influenza to COVID.  They both are viral and transmitted by air but after that the two infections diverge.  There is quite a bit of evidence that Omicron either approaches or exceeds the transmissibility rate of measles.  The flu is much less infectious.  Influenza is also less deadly.  As of now the death rate is estimated to be 10 times higher for Covid than influenza, but it will take time to come up with a clear estimate.  

Influenza is spread primarily by droplets and people maintaining a 6 foot distance from others are reasonable safe.  The droplets tend to drop out of the air.   Covid was believed to also be primarily spread by droplets.  Now, it appears it may have a higher rate of aerosolization which allows it to remain airborne longer and make it more contagious.  

 

We have a lot of experience in treating the flu.   We know medications that work and when.  With Covid, we are catching on, but it's been a steep learning curve.  

 

People are naturally very protective of children, especially their own.  That fear often results in some strange beliefs and behaviors.  

 

A group of parents at one school I know of in Thailand is demanding to see the at-home test results of all the teachers.  The school has always had teachers tested weekly and those that were positive had to quarantine, etc..   Now the parents want photos of the test with the name and the date.   That seems like a bit of an invasion of privacy.

 

[paulikens]

20 hours ago, Scott said:

Early on in the pandemic, a lot of countries closed schools.  I think this was done out of an abundance of caution and outright fear.  Nobody knew exactly how it affected young people.   As the pandemic progressed, it started to become clearer that young people fared reasonably well with the virus.  It now seems clear that schools that did remain or reopen with reasonable mitigating measures, such as social distancing and masks managed to keep infection rates down.  

I don't think the idea of 'bringing it home' was the reason.  I think that was an excuse made after the fact.  A sort of justification.  

 

It's a little tricky to compare influenza to COVID.  They both are viral and transmitted by air but after that the two infections diverge.  There is quite a bit of evidence that Omicron either approaches or exceeds the transmissibility rate of measles.  The flu is much less infectious.  Influenza is also less deadly.  As of now the death rate is estimated to be 10 times higher for Covid than influenza, but it will take time to come up with a clear estimate.  

Influenza is spread primarily by droplets and people maintaining a 6 foot distance from others are reasonable safe.  The droplets tend to drop out of the air.   Covid was believed to also be primarily spread by droplets.  Now, it appears it may have a higher rate of aerosolization which allows it to remain airborne longer and make it more contagious.  

 

We have a lot of experience in treating the flu.   We know medications that work and when.  With Covid, we are catching on, but it's been a steep learning curve.  

 

People are naturally very protective of children, especially their own.  That fear often results in some strange beliefs and behaviors.  

 

A group of parents at one school I know of in Thailand is demanding to see the at-home test results of all the teachers.  The school has always had teachers tested weekly and those that were positive had to quarantine, etc..   Now the parents want photos of the test with the name and the date.   That seems like a bit of an invasion of privacy.

 

@Scott 

People are naturally very protective of children, especially their own.  That fear often results in some strange beliefs and behaviors. while i know parents are very protective of their children which is quite understandable, i think when its thais involved and covid i think they just push their own fears onto their children, which isn't being a responsible parent.

your children should always come first and whats best for them.

not pushing your own irrational fears onto to them.   children should be able to enjoy their lives living free as possible within reason you are only young once.

and if they was so worried about their children they wouldn't let them ride on motorbikes stood up in the footstands with no helmet, that to me is very irresponsible of the parents and outright dangerous.  complete madness.  

Edited May 19, 2022 by paulikens