Welcome back home: Phuket’s message to the world, echoes its X-Factor, its people

[Thaiger]

“As the countdown to the Sandbox hits seven days, resort island pays tribute to its real-life tourism attraction.” OPINION by Bill Barnett, c9hotelworks.com Tourism eyes around the world are focused on a resort island in Thailand this week for the reopening of international, vaccinated travel to the Phuket Sandbox. A key emerging storyline from the island’s frenzied runaway to July 1 has been the remarkable cross sector partnerships that has become a true catalyst of change.  Phuket’s private sector has massively rallied in the final days leading up to the Sandbox in support of its greatest asset, its people. The […]

The post Welcome back home: Phuket’s message to the world, echoes its X-Factor, its people appeared first on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

[Pompies]

I feel desperately sorry for all who work or have worked in the tourism business because they are living on false hopes. The virus is resurgent around the world and even countries like Israel where they used the best vaccine and have innoculated the vast majority are now seeing the virus cause large upswings on infection. Herd immunity is an impossible concept because the virus variants keeps moving the goal posts. Not least in Thailand where 2 variants are sweeping into focus and the use of inferior vaccines leaves even the few who are innoculated at risk of reinfection. This experiment is doomed from the start and the sandbox will be shown for what it is, an impossible dream.

[Malc-Thai]

I think you will find Israel has only vaccinated 69% with first dose and just over 50% with the second dose. This will not give heard immunity. And here in phuket they have not reached the 70% even with 1 dose .. I did read (phuket news) they are 46,000 short of people actually registering to take the vaccine from 466,000.. and only around 40% on second jab.. heard immunity only kicks in 1-2 months after a minimum 70% of the people are fully vaccinated and by even only a few cases of covid here daily shows that they have not achieved that 

[Malc-Thai]

This a a pretty well recognised number from data of other infections and also on a computer model.. its like having 4 cups with 1 ball under 25%. shuffle the cups and then the virus has a pretty good chance of finding a cup without a ball. add another ball 50% and same again the virus still has a good chance of finding a cup without a ball.. add another ball 75% now the virus has little chance of keep finding an cup without a ball and eventually dies out .. but you are also right 80-90% would get heard immunity even quicker

[King Cotton]

5 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

This a a pretty well recognised number from data of other infections and also on a computer model.. its like having 4 cups with 1 ball under 25%. shuffle the cups and then the virus has a pretty good chance of finding a cup without a ball. add another ball 50% and same again the virus still has a good chance of finding a cup without a ball.. add another ball 75% now the virus has little chance of keep finding an cup without a ball and eventually dies out .. but you are also right 80-90% would get heard immunity even quicker

Hmm - I quite like the 4-cup analogy . . . nice one, Malc-Thai!

[Stonker]

 

4 hours ago, Thaiger said:

One key working part of Thailand's Sandbox scheme has been to achieve the vaccination a baseline of over 70% of Phuket residents*

Apart from the obvious ($$$) why on earth would anyone lie so blatantly and outrageously?

 

Whatever credibility Bill Barnett may have had he's simply flushed down the toilet with this ridiculous lie.

 

 

[Stonker]

2 hours ago, Tjampman said:

Hey guys, this 70% figure do you know where this is coming from? To me it seems like it is just a random number somebody once said, and now it is the target for everyone.

It came originally from a uni study in Aus a year ago based on a vaccine that was very efficient and the virus as it stood then - no variants.

 

The author has since revised it to allow for the Delta variant, which requires 90 - 95% vaccinated, and less efficient vaccines - even 100% doesn't work with poorer vaccines.

 

A study in Aus by the University of Sydey (the latest I know of to be peer reviewed), first published in March, put the minimum at 90% even with Pfizer but not possible at 90% even with AZ let alone Sinovac or Sinopharm.  The Seychelles has 70% vaccinated but they have one of the highest case levels in the world and 37% of those have been fully vaccinated.

[Stonker]

 

6 hours ago, Thaiger said:

*The Thaiger is unable to verify this claim. The latest reports were that 62% of the island’s registered population had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and just over 30% have received both doses. But this information is now more than 7 days old and the real figures are likely higher.

Sadly that's not remotely correct either.

 

The latest reports were that 62% of the island’s TARGETED registered population had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and just over 30% have received both doses. 

 

That "targeted population" excludes all those under 18 (17% of the Thai population), all the unregistered migrant workers (estimated to be 50,000+, in addition to the 70,000+ registered migrant workers), as well as the transient population of those in the entertainment industry and elsewhere who are not registered residents (still likely to be tens of thousands) and the long term extended tourists (probably a relatively few hundred).

 

Add those together and the "targeted population" is at it's absolute best 75% of the real population.

 

62% of that 75% is 46%. Allow for vaccinations in the last week, and at best no more than 25% of Phuket's real population have been fully vaccinated and no more than 50% have had one dose.

 

Even overlooking that most have had Sinovac, which the manufacturers now say needs three doses to be effective, 25% does NOT give herd immunity. 

 

Elsewhere people here are asking if they can bring their children under 18 to Phuket for a holiday. Under those circumstances, why in the name of all that's holy would they?

[kmc]

 

The Thais should just compare infectivity rates and allow vaccinated individuals to come if their countrys infectivity rate is lower than Thailand.

 

In Thailand, using the 7 day average, the infectivity rate is 0.00005 (3700 infected/ 70 mil people)

In USA, using the 7 day average, the infectivity rate is 0.00003 (11000 infected/ 330 mil people)

 

Lets say 5% of vaccinated individuals can still get and spread covid.  Multiplying 5% by the infectivity rate (0.00003) we get 0.0000015.  In 2017, there were a million tourists from the USA.  Lets say those numbers repeated themselves.  1,000,000*0.0000015 equals 1.5 tourists who will have or spread covid if vaccinated.

 

All these rules to protect against a 1 in a million chance that the person entering Thailand from USA will have and be able to spread covid.

 

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

But all those statistics bandied about on this thread are mute, if The Phuket SANDBOX is not published in the Gazette. The shutdown of Bangkok workers sites was quickly published on Sunday, so you can see how important the Thai PM rates the sandbox.

[Das]

The Land of Smiles... if your wallet's open. The locals around tourist areas know their game.

 

Wander off the beaten track and you'd be lucky to get much more than a blank stare. What I will say is these people are more likely to help you for your nothing (albeit with a straight face), but close to no-one that this campaign is aimed at will ever end up outside their manicured habitats.

[TobyAndrews]

I notice they do not include a picture of a Phucket taxi driver in the welcome back to Phuket.

That is because they could not find one that did not look like a serial killer.

[JamesE]

10 hours ago, Tjampman said:

Hey guys, this 70% figure do you know where this is coming from? To me it seems like it is just a random number somebody once said, and now it is the target for everyone.

Yeah, but it's not random. Herd immunity (based on infection history for a number of viruses) is determined by the deceptively simple equation H = 1 - (1/R0) where H is herd immunity as a decimal fraction typically expressed as a percentage, and R0 (R-naught) is the transmissibility rate. When COVID *first* showed up its R0 was 3 so every person who got infected passed it on to 3 other people. Then came the Italian Variant G614 which was merely "fitter" than the original Wuhan strain, then came the B.1.1.7 "British Variant", now known as Alpha, which was 50% more transmissible, i.e. R0 is now 4.5 so H = 78%. Then came some other variants which were more infectious - they cause worse illness - such as Brazil and South Africa variants. Then came Delta (B.1.167) which is a dual-mutation variant. It is said to be 60% more infectious than Alpha so R0 = 7.2 and H = 86.1%.

 

But 86.1% is an impossible herd immunity number to reach for reasons too far too numerous to go into. So, governments decided to stick with the (possibly) more easily reached number of 70%. (To your 2C comment: They did the same thing. The real number is probably like 0.8C - 1.0C but that ship sailed in the 1980s.)

 

To put this into perspective measles has an H of 95% and the annual flu is like 45%.

[TSS]

BB: way to put a happy face on it

[321BOOM]

 

18 hours ago, Das said:

The Land of Smiles... if your wallet's open. The locals around tourist areas know their game.

Wander off the beaten track and you'd be lucky to get much more than a blank stare. What I will say is these people are more likely to help you for your nothing (albeit with a straight face), but close to no-one that this campaign is aimed at will ever end up outside their manicured habitats.

 

Absolute correct.

 

This is is nothing else than another marketing campaign to fill the pockets of a few in LOScam. The whole country, especially Phuket and its tourism industry has scammed foreigners and tourists for decades followed by property developers and other dubious service providers.

 

Nothing is for free in LOScam especially not if you are a foreigner you are subjected to double or triple pricing. A country to avoid.

 

[Johnmc17]

On 6/27/2021 at 8:18 AM, Tjampman said:

Bill, when making an opinion piece quoting yourself is a bit weird.

It's the only reason he's on here... Self interest