News Forum - Thai tourism industry demands Covid restrictions to be lifted, PM urges caution

[Thaiger]

The Thai Prayut Chan-o-cha is calling on all 77 provincial governments to do everything they can to reduce the spread of the latest Covid surge in Thailand. There has been more than 18,000 new infections over the past 2 days. Today, Thailand logged 18,953 official new cases with numerous additional un-official cases which have been registered from ATK tests. So there’s an extra 8,814 “probable cases”. There were 30 Covid-related deaths also registered in the past 24 hours. 183 of today’s infections were from overseas. The PM says governors will… “need to speed up campaigns deterring the spread of Covid-19 by […]

The story Thai tourism industry demands Covid restrictions to be lifted, PM urges caution as seen on Thaiger News.

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[remo940]

As usual the Thais  have gotten their nerve up to complain after the horse left the barn. 

[palooka]

18 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

Today, Thailand logged 18,953 official new cases with numerous additional un-official cases which have been registered from ATK tests. So there’s an extra 8,814.

Finally they admit the reality of Covid in Thailand. 

27,767 today, plus all the others that don't even get ATK tests.

Suddenly after 2 years of Covid they now count the registered ATK tests? 

Must have fixed that broken calculator.

 

[Sandbar]

We have not seen any further new variants of note other than Omnicom. It seems that this pandemic is stabilising. Yes there are still people becoming infected, but thier symptoms are not intrusive to thier daily lives, and infection times are in days not weeks or months.

Booster shots, good hygiene, masks and self monitoring is all we can now. Time to open up! 

 

 

 

 

 

[Malc-Thai]

1 hour ago, palooka said:

Finally they admit the reality of Covid in Thailand. 

27,767 today, plus all the others that don't even get ATK tests.

Suddenly after 2 years of Covid they now count the registered ATK tests? 

Must have fixed that broken calculator.

I'd be surprised if ATK's are not double the official pcr recorded tests!.. here in phuket and Bangkok seems to be the norm of self ATK testing and if positive then just stay at home for 10 days or until a test becomes clear.. they also don't inform any government officials of this so many ATK's of official ATK's not even get recorded!  

[Johnnyb2]

2 hours ago, palooka said:

Finally they admit the reality of Covid in Thailand. 

27,767 today, plus all the others that don't even get ATK tests.

Suddenly after 2 years of Covid they now count the registered ATK tests? 

Must have fixed that broken calculator.

Then you've got all the people who are not allowed to get a proper test despite wanting one . Unless they want to pay for it themselves of course. Atk testing is BS. 

[Jason]

In countries where Omicron has already spread, like my own, the focus has shifted from daily case numbers to hospitalisations and deaths. Main thing is for that not to get out of hand. Aside from that, it's doing all the usual precautionary things and getting a booster vaccine, that is the best defence. 

[fpschubert]

Sigh. Philippines has loosened up and now we're just averaging less than 2.5k cases per day.. We're almost back to normal after the Omicron wave last January - February that did not overwhelm our healthcare system. I hope that Thailand will learn from Philippines and loosen the restrictions. 

[fpschubert]

Here is the 7-day average of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines. The rationale of opening up the country aside from economic recovery is that Omicron didn't overwhelm the healthcare system, coupled with high vaccination rate in Manila, natural immunity and minimum public health standards like mask wearing. The WHO agreed with the reopening and now, Manila is almost back to normal. I am hoping that Thailand will eass the restrictions soon, considering the experience that the Philippines had with Omicron. 

[BBY]

The ONLY way all restrictions will be removed quickly, is if all resist visiting until it happens. As long as specific hotels, insurance companies, hospitals and test laboratories are being fed. There will be resistance for any attempt to opening up, hoop free.

[Guest1]

7 minutes ago, BBY said:

The ONLY way all restrictions will be removed quickly, is if all resist visiting until it happens

Soooo, .... , never then?

[BBY]

37 minutes ago, Guest1 said:

Soooo, .... , never then?

Probably !!! Depend how well people can resist the temptation to feed those organisations I mentioned….

 

[annoynimous]

hate looking at the Agoda deals, on one hand it says a certain price per night, once you go to the summary page, the price balloons up because they add the cost of PCR tests to whichever figure they want.

[Guest1]

20 minutes ago, annoynimous said:

hate looking at the Agoda deals, on one hand it says a certain price per night, once you go to the summary page, the price balloons up because they add the cost of PCR tests to whichever figure they want.

Then just search for SHA+ Hotels, there it is in the room description. Or just look further for hotels, where it IS in the description!

Your price includes:

Medical services and hygiene measures: 1 RT-PCR test, Hand sanitizer, Room sanitizing, Protective masks , Medical staff on call, Medical report/certificate 

 

Quarantine Package

For your comfort and safety, all quarantine packages include the following in-house services and property facilities

Quarantine Package 

Airport pick-up 

Free WiFi 

1 RT-PCR test

 2 RT-PCR tests 

Drinking water 

Coffee & tea

 

[LoongFred]

2 hours ago, BBY said:

The ONLY way all restrictions will be removed quickly, is if all resist visiting until it happens. As long as specific hotels, insurance companies, hospitals and test laboratories are being fed. There will be resistance for any attempt to opening up, hoop free.

With 19k infections in 24 hours there is no way they will lower or stop the restrictions. Time to tighten up and control the situation.

[Fundok]

5 hours ago, BBY said:

The ONLY way all restrictions will be removed quickly, is if all resist visiting until it happens. As long as specific hotels, insurance companies, hospitals and test laboratories are being fed. There will be resistance for any attempt to opening up, hoop free.

Number of visitors is low - much lower than the overly optimistic projections of TAT at least.

[Stonker]

10 hours ago, Sandbar said:

We have not seen any further new variants of note other than Omnicom. It seems that this pandemic is stabilising.

Really?

None of the experts seem to share your optimism:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-01-18/expect-more-worrisome-variants-after-omicron-scientists-warn

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/covid-19-what-is-the-future-of-variants-after-omicron/

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/experts-more-variants-after-omicron-likely-/6405393.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/25/the-next-covid-variant-will-be-more-contagious-than-omicron-who-says.html

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-variants-after-omicron-2022

They could all be wrong, of course.

 

[ChrisLa91]

3 hours ago, LoongFred said:

With 19k infections in 24 hours there is no way they will lower or stop the restrictions. Time to tighten up and control the situation.

Well, they are at the point, where the won’t tighten any measures.

They stand with their backs to the wall.

Maybe they won’t ease restrictions, but no tightening. That’s relatively obvious, as the spread can’t be stopped, no matter what kind of restrictions they would put in place.

All they will do now is to deal with the current situation. That’s it.

[Fundok]

2 hours ago, LoongFred said:

With 19k infections in 24 hours there is no way they will lower or stop the restrictions. Time to tighten up and control the situation.

19K infections is not a big number. Germany (population 82m, about 12m more than TH) has reported 170K new infections today and still they will open up the country March 20 completely with relaxations already kicking in. Switzerland has lifted almost everything (population 8m)  albeit the infection rate was around 20'000/day, so about the same as in TH, only the Thailand has about 10x the population of Switzerland. The infection rate as indicator is not relevant with Omikron anymore; the hospitalisation rate is. And this seems to be under control in Thailand.

Given that Omikron is so highly contagious there is no way you can control the spread of the virus unless you are willing to be as radical as China. Continue the vaccination campaign with full force, and relax otherwise.

[Stonker]

5 hours ago, fpschubert said:

Here is the 7-day average of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines. The rationale of opening up the country aside from economic recovery is that Omicron didn't overwhelm the healthcare system, coupled with high vaccination rate in Manila, natural immunity and minimum public health standards like mask wearing. The WHO agreed with the reopening and now, Manila is almost back to normal. I am hoping that Thailand will eass the restrictions soon, considering the experience that the Philippines had with Omicron. 

Great - now how about comparing Covid deaths rather than Covid cases?

Thailand's averaging around 20 per day, while the Philippines is averaging 80.  Adjusting for the different population, that's three times as many.

5 hours ago, fpschubert said:

The WHO agreed with the reopening

Completely untrue - the WHO have neither "agreed" nor disagreed - it's not their decision to make.

[Grant]

We have been reading the Hotel guides for accomodation in travel and they all seem to not give refunds after the 15th March for accommodation booked?

Is this a code around the world that everyone will be open on the 15th March?

Seems strange they all state no refunds after 15th March?

let’s see if this becomes the reality?

Does the Hotel Industry run the world markets on Tourism?

[Tim_Melb]

6 hours ago, fpschubert said:

Sigh. Philippines has loosened up and now we're just averaging less than 2.5k cases per day.. We're almost back to normal after the Omicron wave last January - February that did not overwhelm our healthcare system. I hope that Thailand will learn from Philippines and loosen the restrictions. 

The numbers in the Philippines are a joke they have been fake from day one. The politicians have put in place systems to ensure their numbers are as low as possible to save face. For instance my gf was working in a physiotherapy clinic in Quezon city. The staff started to all show symptoms, she and another staff member went down to the Barangay health to get tested and both came back positive so the Barangay health sent officers to the clinic all 14 staff members plus family members were put into isolation for 14 days a total of 23 people all were symptomatic but only the initial 2 tests were performed and at the end of 14 days they were all released with a certificate stating that they had covid but were now symptom free. Six of them still had symptoms on release including my gf who has gone on to develope long covid and is still suffering almost a year later. Now if only 2 positive test results were reported out of clearly 23 known cases how accurate do you think the numbers are? And if you think every other Barangay is not doing the same thing you are let's say not very clever. 

(For people not familiar with the Philippines a Barangay is a local government area within a city zone) 

[Tim_Melb]

6 hours ago, fpschubert said:

Here is the 7-day average of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines. The rationale of opening up the country aside from economic recovery is that Omicron didn't overwhelm the healthcare system, coupled with high vaccination rate in Manila, natural immunity and minimum public health standards like mask wearing. The WHO agreed with the reopening and now, Manila is almost back to normal. I am hoping that Thailand will eass the restrictions soon, considering the experience that the Philippines had with Omicron. 

The numbers in the Philippines are all fake see my previous post 

[JamesR]

8 minutes ago, Tim_Melb said:

The numbers in the Philippines are all fake see my previous post 

I am assuming the number of casesin Thailand are understated.

I do not know of a single Thai who has taken a test at home, I know many here (UK) personally who have taken many tests at home including my sofa. 

[Tim_Melb]

11 hours ago, Sandbar said:

We have not seen any further new variants of note other than Omnicom. It seems that this pandemic is stabilising.

Complete rubbish. The experts all agree there will be more variants of concern and although the traditional evolution of these disease events is for them to become more contagious and less serious over time, we are still in the early days of the evolution of this virus and there is no reason why a seriously deadly variant can not arise at any moment. For instance all variants so far have largely only caused serious effects in the cardiovascular system (lungs and heart), but we know that this virus can attack tissues in most of our major organs and the brain. Now if for instance a new variant arises that does significant damage to the kidneys which causes renal failure over a period of say a month and is also highly contagious and good at getting around the vaccines like Omicron is, then we could be look at millions dead world wide before we even realise what is happening. This is not science fiction it is entirely possible. It's not a likely outcome but to suggest this pandemic is stabilising or coming to an end is entirely niave and premature. This is a new disease and it's evolving fast especially in places where there are high numbers of unvaccinated people like Africa and South America and I suspect in central Asia in places like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan etc.