So much misinformation and fear mongering have been going on since the beginning of the pandemic that people, as evidenced in this thread, still after three years and the pandemic effectively being over, hotly debates the pros and cons of vaccines and mask wearing.

 

I'm from a generation before conspiracy theories, where vaccines unquestionably were considered a good thing. Some vaccines are more effective than others, some require boosters, some don't; nothing new here.

 

I, personally, am very happy that it was possible to develop COVID-19 vaccines as quickly as it was (anyone remember that in the beginning it was said that it might take five to 10 years to do it?). I've had four shots until now and I intend to keep having one together with my yearly influenza shot; that will probably continue for the rest of my life, since SARS-CoV-2 most likely is here to stay.

 

Regarding masks, I hate wearing one and I only do it when I must. If it's compulsory I don a mask, if it's not, I don't. It's no big deal as far as I'm concerned, and what others do or don't, well, up to them, I don't care.

32 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

My earlier comments were simply in response to the news thread here on the topic of Siriraj hospital turning away COVID cases -- though it was later clarified that that was the smaller private part of Siriraj and not the larger public wing of the hospital.

 

But regardless, the MoPH has often played games with statistics when it comes to hospital bed utilization for COVID...

 

From the above report, is it clear that the utilization percentage they're citing is of COVID hospitalizations vs. all available hospital beds, OR, COVID hospitalizations vs all COVID-suitable hospital beds? It's not clear to me which ratio they're using.

 

At least in the past, the public health system here didn't put contagious COVID cases in general wards along with routine patients, but instead, put them in special rooms with special equipment and often negative pressure to avoid spreading the virus, a room type of which the available numbers are much smaller. Whether they're still doing that now, I haven't seen any reports lately.

 

It was always stated it was SiPH and not the public side, the problem arose due to people not reading the article properly and thus causing undue alarm.

Perhaps it had something to do with the actual headline of the posted news report:

 

Siriraj says all beds for critical Covid patients full

 

https://thainewsroom.com/2023/05/27/siriraj-says-all-beds-for-critical-covid-patients-full/

 

And nowhere in the article does the article itself make any mention of the report involving the private vs public parts of the hospital. Those terms aren't ever used in the article.

 

Perhaps if the original article had been more clear and less misleading, then you wouldn't have had to post the following that you did regarding Siriraj subsequently having to issue a clarification:

 

"From a source we cannot quote on here, Siriraj issued a clarification that the situation in the public side was normal and controllable, they have not added any COVID beds as they did at the peak."

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 20233 yr by TallGuyJohninBKK

41 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Perhaps it had something to do with the actual headline of the posted news report:

 

Siriraj says all beds for critical Covid patients full

 

https://thainewsroom.com/2023/05/27/siriraj-says-all-beds-for-critical-covid-patients-full/

 

And nowhere in the article does the article itself make any mention of the report involving the private vs public parts of the hospital. Those terms aren't ever used in the article.

 

Perhaps if the original article had been more clear and less misleading, then you wouldn't have had to post the following that you did regarding Siriraj subsequently having to issue a clarification:

 

"From a source we cannot quote on here, Siriraj issued a clarification that the situation in the public side was normal and controllable, they have not added any COVID beds as they did at the peak."

 

 

 

 

So you only read the headline and not the article?

 

The first 3 lines "Siriraj Piyamaharajkarun Hospital" That is the private side, cant be much clearer than that.

 

The clarification was needed because many jumped the gun and did not read the article thoroughly enough because of misinformation such as something along the lines that Thailand's largest public hospital was being overun.

2 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

Do we know the age, BMI and any health conditions of these people? If not, the above is not relevant and one would have to very biased to draw the conclusion that unvaccinated = hospitalization.

 

Another very dubious notion is the "not completely vaccinated" one. What is the proportion of those who have had zero jabs, one jab, two jabs…?

 

As always, logic, objectivity and reason are discarded to push vaccines at all costs… it's just ridiculous.

You appear not to understand that people get the virus from others who may be asymptomatic.

Topic is:

 

Public advised to protect themselves as COVID-19 cases surge

 

Its not about making unsubstantiated statements directed at other members.

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

You appear not to understand that people get the virus from others who may be asymptomatic.

What I am consistently observing is the absence of actual broken down data to support the ongoing claim that vaccination prevents hospitalization. Claims such as "the hospitalized are mainly unvaccinated or not completely vaccinated" seem to be textbook sophisms aiming to influence the reader into correlating vaccination with absence of hospitalization.

 

For example, if a "complete vaccination" status is stipulated to be 4 shots, someone with 3 shots is deemed "not completely vaccinated". So if you have 20 hospitalized people, of which 2 have had zero shots and 10 have had three shots, mathematically the claim "the hospitalized are mainly unvaccinated or not completely vaccinated" is correct although it is a fallacy. You would need 11 people with zero shots for this claim to be dialectically valid, and I sincerely doubt that is the case, otherwise they would for sure tell us.

Edited May 29, 20233 yr by rattlesnake

bp and thai authorities are now seeing covid as a part of everyday life and that we should just live with it. 

 

deaths in the last week dropped drastically. most deaths in the last week are to those with underlying conditions or the elderly. vaccinated or not the deaths are dropping rapidly. in a country of 70 million to have only 42 deaths from 10s of thousands if not more cases....pretty dang low if you ask me. 

 

they are also reporting that the current strain is not any more transmissible nor severe. in fact they are also saying it should be treated the same as any other respiratory disease. 

 

also that there is absolutely no shortage of available beds at hospitals as occupancy is only 22 percent. 

 

seems like it's pretty clear now. 

 

 

28 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Masks reduce the probability that you may pass on the virus to others.

 

Most people have had the vaccines anyway and that conversation has largely moved on. Vaccines themselves do little to reduce transmission of the virus and so aren't my concern. The overriding concern now is prevention of transmission of the virus. Masks do that fairly well. The problem is not so much mask wearing per se but the delerium against masks that's rife on this board. If people were all willing to wear masks when the govvy recommends it (and most are) then there wouldn't be anything to talk about.

"Vaccines themselves do little to reduce transmission of the virus and so aren't my concern."

Indeed they don't. They are my concern though, considering the BS, insults and pressure myself and family had to go through for stating the obvious since the beginning.

We have made progress since early 2022:

Looking forward to more "conspiracy theories" becoming truths going forward.

Unsubstantiated post and responses removed.

2 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

What I am consistently observing is the absence of actual broken down data to support the ongoing claim that vaccination prevents hospitalization. Claims such as "the hospitalized are mainly unvaccinated or not completely vaccinated" seem to be textbook sophisms aiming to influence the reader into correlating vaccination with absence of hospitalization.

 

For example, if a "complete vaccination" status is stipulated to be 4 shots, someone with 3 shots is deemed "not completely vaccinated". So if you have 20 hospitalized people, of which 2 have had zero shots and 10 have had three shots, mathematically the claim "the hospitalized are mainly unvaccinated or not completely vaccinated" is correct although it is a fallacy. You would need 11 people with zero shots for this claim to be dialectically valid, and I sincerely doubt that is the case, otherwise they would for sure tell us.

As usual, your post above is full of all kinds of claims and speculation, and not a single documented supporting fact or credible supporting source to be found anywhere.

 

18 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

As usual, your post above is full of all kinds of claims and speculation, and not a single documented supporting fact or credible supporting source to be found anywhere.

 

Yes, as shocking as it may be to you, some people are able to formulate independent thought without systematically referring to a third party authority diktat.

Thai PBS had a pretty good recap of current things Thailand COVID related on Saturday:

 

"a warning yesterday from Dr. Nitipat Jiarakul, chief of the Division of the Respiratory Diseases and Tuberculosis at the Faculty of Medicine at Siriraj Hospital, that COVID-19 is staging a comeback, with as many as 20,000-40,000 people being infected each day, about 20 times more than the rate of infection in April.

 

According to Dr. Nitipat, admissions to hospitals have increased to about 400 a day, from about 20 in April and, of these, 5% are suffering lung infections and half of them have died.

 

The death toll also surged 20 fold, to about 66 a week now instead of just 4 in April."

 

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/siriraj-hospitals-icu-and-ipd-fully-occupied-with-covid-19-patients/

 

Note re the above report -- the estimate of 20,000 to 40,000 new COVID cases per day is that of estimated infections, which the Thai government no longer officially tracks or publicly reports.

 

The current data the Thai government reports as COVID cases are in fact only new COVID hospitalizations on a weekly basis, which obviously are much smaller real numbers than the estimated numbers of infections.

 

9 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Thai PBS had a pretty good recap of current things Thailand COVID related on Saturday:

 

"a warning yesterday from Dr. Nitipat Jiarakul, chief of the Division of the Respiratory Diseases and Tuberculosis at the Faculty of Medicine at Siriraj Hospital, that COVID-19 is staging a comeback, with as many as 20,000-40,000 people being infected each day, about 20 times more than the rate of infection in April.

 

According to Dr. Nitipat, admissions to hospitals have increased to about 400 a day, from about 20 in April and, of these, 5% are suffering lung infections and half of them have died.

 

The death toll also surged 20 fold, to about 66 a week now instead of just 4 in April."

 

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/siriraj-hospitals-icu-and-ipd-fully-occupied-with-covid-19-patients/

 

Note re the above report -- the estimate of 20,000 to 40,000 new COVID cases per day is that of estimated infections, which the Thai government no longer officially tracks or publicly reports.

 

The current data the Thai government reports as COVID cases are in fact only new COVID hospitalizations on a weekly basis, which obviously are much smaller real numbers than the estimated numbers of infections.

 

China now seeing a new surge also.

 

China faces a new Covid wave that could peak at 65 million cases a week

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-covid-second-wave-xbb-variant-omicron-rcna86171

Just received a call from the stepdaughter, who we took back to her fathers house when school started 2 weeks ago.  She has been sent back home this morning as well as the few classmates who arrived for their class today.  Apparently over half of her class, 9 year olds, are out with Covid, and many others in other classes are as well.  They were told by the Teacher and the Wat director that the classes would be done on-line though the end of the week, and the class would resume after the Holiday on next Monday.  Seems that the folks who went home to vote, brought back a strain with them.  GF just received a Line message from the teacher saying they would be doing a deep clean at the school in the rooms.  It is what it is, and unfortunately we expected something to occur as viruses do circulate around the school after a restart.  As I used to say, children are germ magnets, yes I know I used the term interchangeably when it really isn't..

Edited May 30, 20233 yr by ThailandRyan

The Thai Ministry of Public Health is finally out with their updated COVID data reporting for last week, May 21-27:

 

New COVID hospitalizations and serious cases rise again to new yearly highs, while new deaths decline