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News Forum - Thailand will declare Covid-19 endemic, whether WHO agrees or not


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Regardless of whether the World Health Organisation agrees or not, Thailand plans to declare Covid-19 as an endemic disease by the end of this year according to the Ministry of Public Health. A meeting of the National Communicable Disease Committee was held today where the decision was made. Thailand will create its own academically acceptable criteria for measuring whether Covid-19 is a pandemic or endemic reported the Health Permanent Secretary after the meeting. The decision would be made based on 3 criteria that Thailand is already very near to being met. First, 80% of at-risk people must have received at least […]

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I always thought The Who were a wee bit over-rated, esp. getting involved in this pandemic.

I'm sure they mean well.

"Baba O'Reilly" was good, and Townsend is not bad as it goes, but when does it end? 

Time to retire guys! 

The kids are all right and can take over now. 

 

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But, it’s yet to be determined whether face masks will be required for only patients, or for everyone in public or social situations.”

Indeed, everything about this prospect is yet to be determined. I’m not sure if the end of the year is long enough to calm down these twitchy politicians 

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So if - inter alia - the vaccination rate is key (with which I agree) how come Thailand is so focused on testing tourists rather than ensuring that they are vaccinated twice preferably with a 3rd booster shot? Maybe that's only me, but I can't understand the rationale behind this.

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According to some easy research, influenza/pneumonia deaths were 44,000 in 2018. Total covid deaths are now around 22,000. Does that make the flu a pandemic? 

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What I don't understand is the criteria that the death rate must not exceed 0.1%... how is that even achieveable seeing as that's about a ninth of where it hovers now at around 0.92% - and deaths are currently below 20 per day... So no more than 2 deaths per day? They will never call it endemic if that's a criteria.

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54 minutes ago, Fundok said:

So if - inter alia - the vaccination rate is key (with which I agree) how come Thailand is so focused on testing tourists rather than ensuring that they are vaccinated twice preferably with a 3rd booster shot? Maybe that's only me, but I can't understand the rationale behind this.

Maybe just have faith in the final resolution and not second guess every detail? 

Mistakes have been made - even in the United States and Britain if you can believe it! I know, incredible! - and we're just working out the end of Covid. 

The End! 

It's over! 

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45 minutes ago, Cabra said:

What I don't understand is the criteria that the death rate must not exceed 0.1%... how is that even achieveable seeing as that's about a ninth of where it hovers now at around 0.92% - and deaths are currently below 20 per day... So no more than 2 deaths per day? They will never call it endemic if that's a criteria.

Now consider this... TESTING. Covid has been endemic for a long time. Increase your testing, increases your "cases" and deaths. Decrease your testing and you decrease your "cases" and deaths. It's all about testing.

Edited by Freeduhdumb
Grammar correction additional content.
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57 minutes ago, Vince said:

Maybe just have faith in the final resolution and not second guess every detail? 

Mistakes have been made - even in the United States and Britain if you can believe it! I know, incredible! - and we're just working out the end of Covid. 

The End! 

It's over! 

Sorry, but "faith" is for believers in church. I am more the fact-oriented type of guy and the fact is, that once in Thailand no one cares if you habe been vaccinated and how often.

I wish I could believe that Thailand is actively working their way out of the pandemic, but I do not see much in this regard. Hopefully I am wrong.

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1 hour ago, Cabra said:

What I don't understand is the criteria that the death rate must not exceed 0.1%... how is that even achieveable seeing as that's about a ninth of where it hovers now at around 0.92% - and deaths are currently below 20 per day... So no more than 2 deaths per day? They will never call it endemic if that's a criteria.

Numbers can be manipulated. Especially if they redefine a covid death to be "of covid" instead of "with covid". So for example if someone with COPD dies with covid. The cause is most likely the COPD, so it isn't a covid death.

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1 hour ago, Fundok said:

So if - inter alia - the vaccination rate is key (with which I agree) how come Thailand is so focused on testing tourists rather than ensuring that they are vaccinated twice preferably with a 3rd booster shot? Maybe that's only me, but I can't understand the rationale behind this.

Well, since its now common knowledge the vaccine doesnt prevent you from getting covid, not does it prevent you from spreading covid, what does it matter if people have their shots?  for once the rules do make sense, test to see if people have it and be done.  

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1 minute ago, Fundok said:

Sorry, but "faith" is for believers in church. I am more the fact-oriented type of guy and the fact is, that once in Thailand no one cares if you habe been vaccinated and how often.

Ah, ok. Your faith in your assessment of what you believe to be facts is noted..

 

1 minute ago, Fundok said:

I wish I could believe that Thailand is actively working their way out of the pandemic, but I do not see much in this regard. Hopefully I am wrong.

You may be wholly correct about Thai efforts. Omicron happened on it's own. 

COVID is evolving into a weaker virus, as predicted. 

No Thai efforts needed beyond normal medical care. 

COVID is over. Feel free to criticize everything as it winds down if that's your idea of fun, Khun FUNdok. 

tenor.gif.3563d3aaea35f21e87968d7623449e69.gif

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3 minutes ago, Vince said:

Ah, ok. Your faith in your assessment of what you believe to be facts is noted..

You may be wholly correct about Thai efforts. Omicron happened on it's own. 

COVID is evolving into a weaker virus, as predicted. 

No Thai efforts needed beyond normal medical care. 

COVID is over. Feel free to criticize everything as it winds down if that's your idea of fun, Khun FUNdok. 

tenor.gif.3563d3aaea35f21e87968d7623449e69.gif

Vince, I am afraid that assessment of yours may be a bit premature. It's over when it is over, and as long as for instance in Africa the vaccination rates continue to remain low, there is ample space for new variants to develop. Omikron B2 is fairly new but seems to be better equipped to circumvent the protection provided by vaccines, so I really be hesitant to already open the bottle of bubbly to celebrate.

I take no particular joy in criticising how the Thai government tackles  Covid, just that I came back here after two years for the first time and was a bit, ahem, irritated (to say the least) how Covid is managed here in general and with regards to tourists in particular. Of course the Thai government is free to handle this as they see fit, but that does not mean one cannot have other thoughts about it.

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16 minutes ago, Vince said:

Ah, ok. Your faith in your assessment of what you believe to be facts is noted..

You may be wholly correct about Thai efforts. Omicron happened on it's own. 

COVID is evolving into a weaker virus, as predicted. 

No Thai efforts needed beyond normal medical care. 

COVID is over. Feel free to criticize everything as it winds down if that's your idea of fun, Khun FUNdok. 

tenor.gif.3563d3aaea35f21e87968d7623449e69.gif

I didn't say that I have "faith" that what I believe to be correct must be correct. I am human, like all of us, and hence prone to err. Anyone not accepting this is foolish in my eyes. But "faith" is not a category of science or evidence and hence at least I find it difficult to have "faith" in the wisdom of governments (this refers to all governments in all of the world). Not more, not less. 

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3 minutes ago, Fundok said:

Vince, I am afraid that assessment of yours may be a bit premature.

It's an opinion, agreed. I could be wrong. 

 

3 minutes ago, Fundok said:

 

It's over when it is over, and as long as for instance in Africa the vaccination rates continue to remain low, there is ample space for new variants to develop.

Covid as a pandemic is really about Delta class lethal variants in an unvaccinated population with no prior exposure. 

If omicron comes and injects everyone, that's prior exposure (albeit probably not as optimal as a vaccine). 

New variants cannot undo progress - we have vaccines, knowledge, and even treatments. 

 

3 minutes ago, Fundok said:

 

Omikron B2 is fairly new but seems to be better equipped to circumvent the protection provided by vaccines, so I really be hesitant to already open the bottle of bubbly to celebrate.

Keeping hope alive for more misery?

Sure, maybe a new even more potent virus will arise. Who knows? 

 

3 minutes ago, Fundok said:

I take no particular joy in criticising how the Thai government tackles  Covid, just that I came back here

"Joyless criticism" noted. 

 

3 minutes ago, Fundok said:

 after two years for the first time and was a bit, ahem, irritated (to say the least) how Covid is managed here in general and with regards to tourists in particular. Of course the Thai government is free to handle this as they see fit, but that does not mean one cannot have other thoughts about it.

I welcome your thoughts, and I'm giving you mine. As long as our thoughts are both respectful and on-topic I think we're both doing what this forum was meant for. 

I respectfully disagree with your assessment. 

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3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

The government in Thailand intends to be proactive in working towards these goals

'government' and 'proactive' in the same sentence? That's rather an oxymoron here.

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3 minutes ago, Fundok said:

I didn't say that I have "faith" that what I believe to be correct must be correct. I am human, like all of us, and hence prone to err. Anyone not accepting this is foolish in my eyes. But "faith" is not a category of science or evidence and hence at least I find it difficult to have "faith" in the wisdom of governments (this refers to all governments in all of the world). Not more, not less. 

I find myself highly sceptical of people who claim science and facts when they give their opinions.

Maybe that's just me.  

Please provide your opinions of the science and facts, and the science and facts you are claiming might be nice too :-D 

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2 hours ago, JJJ said:

According to some easy research, influenza/pneumonia deaths were 44,000 in 2018. Total covid deaths are now around 22,000. Does that make the flu a pandemic? 

No it doesn’t. Please don’t forget that this 22,000 occurred with multiple lockdowns, mandatory face masks, many businesses closed. Closed and partially closed borders and mass vaccination. Had the approach with Covid been the same as Flu (everything operating normally), the Covid death toll could well have been over 100,000. 

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3 hours ago, JJJ said:

According to some easy research, influenza/pneumonia deaths were 44,000 in 2018. Total covid deaths are now around 22,000. Does that make the flu a pandemic? 

"Does that make the flu a pandemic"?

Well, as your original stat was for flu AND pneumonia but your question was ONLY about "flu" it just makes it deliberately misleading.

There are on average 30 deaths from flu a year in Thailand -that's thirty, not 44,000.

In 2020 there were 3 (three) due to mask wearing and distancing, with none (zero) in the stats so far for 2021.

So, being generous, you're comparison's out by a factor of between a thousand and over ten thousand.

Ho hummm ... who did that "easy research" for you?

 

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/crimecourtscalamity/2020/11/19/2020s-flu-cases-plunge-in-covid-anxious-thailand/

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2 hours ago, MrNovax said:

Well, since its now common knowledge the vaccine doesnt prevent you from getting covid, not does it prevent you from spreading covid, what does it matter if people have their shots?  for once the rules do make sense, test to see if people have it and be done.  

"What does it matter"?

 Very little if you want the vaccine to give sterile immunity, which it was never designed or intended to do and which very few vaccines do.

Rather a lot if you want protection from serious effects, hospitalisation and death which the vaccines are pretty good at - not perfect, but pretty damned good.

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1 hour ago, Soidog said:

No it doesn’t. Please don’t forget that this 22,000 occurred with multiple lockdowns, mandatory face masks, many businesses closed. Closed and partially closed

 

Many so-called lockdowns merely pushed people into private spaces (see Italy), mandatory face masks were often simple cloth masks of dubious usefulness, and closing down a pad Thai restaurant or a Taqueria is hardly going to stop an a crowded apartment from getting everyone sick. 

 

1 hour ago, Soidog said:

 

 borders and mass vaccination. Had the approach with Covid been the same as Flu (everything operating normally), the Covid death toll could well have been over 100,000. 

Even if true, the most likely impacted population - the elderly, obese, and frail - were close to mortality limits anyway. 

These mass un-targeted measures amounted to extending lifespan a few years for some, at the cost of global poverty for years - for millions. 

Targeted measures would be - and are - still appropriate. 

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1 hour ago, Soidog said:

No it doesn’t. Please don’t forget that this 22,000 occurred with multiple lockdowns, mandatory face masks, many businesses closed. Closed and partially closed borders and mass vaccination. Had the approach with Covid been the same as Flu (everything operating normally), the Covid death toll could well have been over 100,000. 

You've been had with an old @Blue Sphinx trick, @Soidog.

It wasn't 44,000 flu deaths here, @Soidog - it was 30 pre-Covid. ... and since that was down to 3 in 2020, and from the figures available so far zero in 2021, that means that the Covid restrictions reduced them down to a tenth of the "normal" number.

Given that, that suggests the Covid death toll would also have been ten times higher without restrictions - so over 220,000.

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19 minutes ago, Stonker said:

"What does it matter"?

 Very little if you want the vaccine to give sterile immunity, which it was never designed or intended to do and which very few vaccines do.

Rather a lot if you want protection from serious effects, hospitalisation and death which the vaccines are pretty good at - not perfect, but pretty damned good.

we evidently have a difference of opinion on "pretty damn good" so ill set that aside.

the initial conversation was about people entering the country and presumably protecting those already here.  given what is known and agreed upon, having a shot or not having a shot wouldn't make much difference to the control and spread.  testing would be a much better protection for the stated objective.

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