Gov: Don’t believe viral video, Phuket bridge checking all entries

[Thaiger]

When the Phuket Sandbox launched, restrictions to enter the island by land were tightened to match, requiring any overland traveller to provide proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of arrival or be denied entry. Authorities are once again reinforcing that messaging after a video has gone viral appearing to show vehicles passing freely through the Phuket bridge checkpoint without any inspection. The video posted to social media on July 2 is 2 minutes and 15 seconds and narrated by a man saying he’s seen 6 trucks and a motorbike pass without stopping while he was […]

The post Gov: Don’t believe viral video, Phuket bridge checking all entries appeared first on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

[Soidog]

Oh ok. I won’t believe what I see on a video and believe what you tell me to believe instead. Only one problem with that. I wasn’t educated in a Thai Government school and so I learned how to question statements. Look for evidence and check facts. 
 

If I was running things I’d install webcams on the bridge and let people stream the images whenever they want. If there’s nothing to hide then that would kill the debate. Maybe they already have cameras but I heard they have been down these last couple of weeks for maintenance ;-) 

[Stef]

So if an individual who has a vaccine certificate drives into Phuket he does not have to have a Corvid free certificate…That is pretty reckless being that many who are fully vaccinated still can catch and spread Corvid! 

Hoping for the best but worried none the less.

[TobyAndrews]

So the video was a fake. Who said so? Why was it a fake?

Maybe if the phamtom fake video person would wait a week and publish another depicting the same, 

Let the bridge guard dispute it . . .

[ENIGMA]

Stef,
Is it not more concerning to have a un-vaccinated person that was tested 3 days before arriving than a vaccinated person? An un-vac is going to hold a 100% strength viral load if they are infected.

[Objectivance]

"Even going as far as to say some locals are offering rewards for the identity of the man in the video for spreading disinformation."

A veiled threat to the whistleblower, that definitely confirms what he/she is claiming. 

[Stef]

10 hours ago, ENIGMA said:

Stef,
Is it not more concerning to have a un-vaccinated person that was tested 3 days before arriving than a vaccinated person? An un-vac is going to hold a 100% strength viral load if they are infected.

ENIGMA, 

I personally know someone who is sitting in a hospital quarantined today in Bangkok who was FULLY vaccinated in the USA…they found they were infected when they tested before the flight home.  The vaccine protects the vaccinated individual…The information in the Corvid test protects others.  

[HolyCowCm]

2 minutes ago, Stef said:

ENIGMA, 

I personally know someone who is sitting in a hospital quarantined today in Bangkok who was FULLY vaccinated in the USA…they found they were infected when they tested before the flight home.  The vaccine protects the vaccinated individual…The information in the Corvid test protects others.  

Yeah, vaccinated does not mean cannot get it or be a carrier infecting others. It could plainly sit in your nose or throat cavity and be discharged by the carrier. Which one di you friend get? Sick or just positive?

[Stef]

5 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Yeah, vaccinated does not mean cannot get it or be a carrier infecting others. It could plainly sit in your nose or throat cavity and be discharged by the carrier. Which one di you friend get? Sick or just positive?

HolyCowCm,

They tested positive and I understand they had/have no symptoms and are just waiting to be released. Good for them but the risk of infecting others was there. So I worry about this “enter with vaccine certificate only “ issue. 

[SickBuffalo]

6 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Yeah, vaccinated does not mean cannot get it or be a carrier infecting others.

The chances are far lower that you will become infected and, if you do, about 66% lower that you will transmit it to someone else.

Dealing with people who are fully vaccinated with the effective Western vaccine is a completely different risk equation from dealing with the unvaccinated or those vaccinated with Sinovac.
 

14 minutes ago, Stef said:

 The vaccine protects the vaccinated individual…The information in the Corvid test protects others.

That is a mischaracterization because vaccines are rarely about the individual. In the case of this pandemic, the vast majority of people getting vaccinated are in no real danger themselves. They are doing it because, collectively, we can protect the small minority of people who are vulnerable.

In Israel, once 60% of the adult population had received their Pfizer jabs, the level of active cases fell through the floor. Everyone benefited, even the unvaccinated.

All a Covid tests tells you is that, at the time of the test, the subject did not yet have a detectable infection, if the test was carried out correctly (big if).

Effective inoculation is far better than tests. That is why the EU are allowing the fully vaccinated to skip tests and quarantines when flying within the the EU. Flights that are vaccinated-only will also no longer enforce masks.
 

[HolyCowCm]

22 minutes ago, Stef said:

HolyCowCm,

They tested positive and I understand they had/have no symptoms and are just waiting to be released. Good for them but the risk of infecting others was there. So I worry about this “enter with vaccine certificate only “ issue. 

Yeah, that is the wild card unfortunately either being asymptomatic infected or as I kind of see it not infected but it is hitching a ride in your cavity soon to either jump or lights go out. Anyway, that is my take on it. Get a swab and it touches the virus at the place it is hitchhiking and still transmittable. 

[Stef]

1 hour ago, SickBuffalo said:

The chances are far lower that you will become infected and, if you do, about 66% lower that you will transmit it to someone else.

Dealing with people who are fully vaccinated with the effective Western vaccine is a completely different risk equation from dealing with the unvaccinated or those vaccinated with Sinovac.
 

That is a mischaracterization because vaccines are rarely about the individual. In the case of this pandemic, the vast majority of people getting vaccinated are in no real danger themselves. They are doing it because, collectively, we can protect the small minority of people who are vulnerable.

In Israel, once 60% of the adult population had received their Pfizer jabs, the level of active cases fell through the floor. Everyone benefited, even the unvaccinated.

All a Covid tests tells you is that, at the time of the test, the subject did not yet have a detectable infection, if the test was carried out correctly (big if).

Effective inoculation is far better than tests. That is why the EU are allowing the fully vaccinated to skip tests and quarantines when flying within the the EU. Flights that are vaccinated-only will also no longer enforce masks.
 

I am not saying that a Vaccine cert  is less important than a corvid test or visa versa. It just seems that if you only require people driving into Phuket via bridge to have proof of vaccination and not a corvid free test as well,  then you risk allowing in infected vaccinated people. If you can request a corvid free test from air travelers why not from road travelers as well… half measures  are half as effective it seems to me.  BTW Israel is spiking again as is America and UK from the arrival of the delta Variant,  the same variant we are now dealing with here. Many of the infected there are vaccinated as well.  Israel just reimposed mask wearing indoors.  This whole corvid situation is fluid. With new variants come new challenges. Seems to me adding a test for those driving into Phuket is a justifiable inconvenience, especially since vaccination there and in the rest of kingdom is not complete.

[SickBuffalo]

20 hours ago, Stef said:

If you can request a corvid free test from air travelers why not from road travelers as well…

Almost all airlines and countries will now drop the test requirement for fully vaccinated travelers. They were just waiting for the official certification systems to get going. Finland is one example, announced it today.
 

20 hours ago, Stef said:

if you only require people driving into Phuket via bridge to have proof of vaccination and not a corvid free test as well,  then you risk allowing in infected vaccinated people.

The risk is negligible. No outbreaks anywhere have stemmed from a fully inoculated person (fully vaccinated + two weeks). They can still catch it but the symptoms, if any, are mild and we have no clear examples of them passing it on.

20 hours ago, Stef said:

BTW Israel is spiking again as is America and UK from the arrival of the delta Variant,  the same variant we are now dealing with here. Many of the infected there are vaccinated as well.

Yeah, I saw that today. A paper I read observed that one dose of AZ, Pfizer, or Moderna is essentially useless against Delta, but two doses + the necessary two weeks, are very effective. That is why the UK is rushing to give all the second AZ jabs earlier than originally planned.

In Israel, the number of fully vaccinated stalled at just under 60%. 6% have just one shot and don't want their second (maybe they had a bad experience with the first or perhaps their mind was changed by finding some hard data on TikTok). The remaining 34% appear to be determined to remain unvaccinated.
 

20 hours ago, Stef said:

This whole corvid situation is fluid. With new variants come new challenges.

Sure, anything is possible, but, at this time, a variant has not yet emerged that can stop full vaccination, with the good Western vaccines, from being effective enough in practice.

Obviously, everyone is concerned about the possibility, and authorities everywhere will move quickly if it does, but the fear cycle being pumped by the click-fueled media is convincing people that it has already happened. It has not happened, and most likely will not.

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by SickBuffalo

[SickBuffalo]

21 hours ago, HolyCowCm said:

Yeah, that is the wild card unfortunately either being asymptomatic infected or as I kind of see it not infected but it is hitching a ride in your cavity soon to either jump or lights go out. Anyway, that is my take on it. Get a swab and it touches the virus at the place it is hitchhiking and still transmittable. 

Most respiratory experts agree that symptoms are how respiratory infections get passed around. Asymptomatic transmission was always bullshit designed to frighten the public into being extra cautious. A white lie, told for the greater good, but it never made any biological sense.

[HolyCowCm]

44 minutes ago, SickBuffalo said:

Most respiratory experts agree that symptoms are how respiratory infections get passed around. Asymptomatic transmission was always bullshit designed to frighten the public into being extra cautious. A white lie, told for the greater good, but it never made any biological sense.

No wasn't a lie, but was drastically downgraded as a way to transmit it say to 20% +++. And then asymptomatic people at 30-40%-ish range will develop symptoms? I look at it this way, if someone sneezes and you walk through it, it can hitch hike in or on you or float and rest on something that then still needs hand to eye or mouth contact to get into you. Likely hood, very slim I think unless in a populated through fare like sky train or in a bus zone etc. Then if you sneeze or spit or wipe your saliva or rub your affected outside area somewhere then it can be picked up. Same like TB or the common cold in a sense, but the virus is not festering and multiplying in this sense. So, mu thought is, if you are already vaccinated and immune, if it hitch hikes a ride in your throat and you have allergies and sneeze or wipe your saliva somewhere, at sometime with in a certain period of it still being active (not multiplying) you can contaminate and infect someone. Of course this is just my odd thinking. Best to be cautious.

[SickBuffalo]

25 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Best to be cautious.

The problem is that caution also has a cost.

The modern world has just experienced an existential crisis in which it has decided that no one can be allowed to die. Fear of social media has persuaded politicians to cede power to the unthinking mobs energized by the political chaos of the past ten years.

We have just asked people to stop their careers, their educations, their relationships, their medical appointments, their family events, their travels, and to remain locked in their homes for over a year, and we have spent more money than any civilization has ever spent on anything, even wars, in order to prevent a small minority of very old or unhealthy people from dying.

Thailand likes to think it is a modern economy that no longer needs tourism. It turns out that, no, they still really, really need tourism and all the silly farang money that ends up funding entire extended families in Isaan. The money spigot stopped 18 months ago and Thai families have used up all their reserves. Already with the highest levels of personal debt in Asia, few planned for a rainy day. People I know with businesses entirely unrelated to tourism tell me that consumer spending fell off a cliff in April.

I don't want very old, or very obese residents of Thailand to die, but I also don't want to see the continuing rise in suicides, mental instability, stress, loss of personal ambition, destruction of relationships, political tension, deteriorating fitness, worsening healthcare, and all the other costs that will ripple out over the next few decades.

Thailand, and all other countries, need to accept that the problem is not the properly vaccinated. We need to re-open every shop, restaurant, bar, stadium, theatre, concert hall to the people who support them without endangering themselves and others. That means those verifiably fully inoculated with effective vaccines. We need to accept that there is always some small level of risk, but that the safety theatre of masks and tests does not eliminate that, it merely pretends we have control that we do not.

We need to do this today because, globally, we have already fucked ourselves, and it is already going to take decades to unfuck ourselves. Waiting another year will only put off the inevitable and leave us with an even bigger mess to sort out.
 

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

4 minutes ago, SickBuffalo said:

they still really, really need tourism and all the silly farang money that ends up funding entire extended families in Isaan.

You forgot the funding of Sick Buffaloes as well. Can’t forget them!

[SickBuffalo]

9 minutes ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

You forgot the funding of Sick Buffaloes as well. Can’t forget them!

I staunchly support the lavish funding of all Sick Buffalos!

[HolyCowCm]

21 minutes ago, SickBuffalo said:

The problem is that caution also has a cost.

The modern world has just experienced an existential crisis in which it has decided that no one can be allowed to die. Fear of social media has persuaded politicians to cede power to the unthinking mobs energized by the political chaos of the past ten years.

We have just asked people to stop their careers, their educations, their relationships, their medical appointments, their family events, their travels, and to remain locked in their homes for over a year, and we have spent more money than any civilization has ever spent on anything, even wars, in order to prevent a small minority of very old or unhealthy people from dying.

Thailand likes to think it is a modern economy that no longer needs tourism. It turns out that, no, they still really, really need tourism and all the silly farang money that ends up funding entire extended families in Isaan. The money spigot stopped 18 months ago and Thai families have used up all their reserves. Already with the highest levels of personal debt in Asia, few planned for a rainy day. People I know with businesses entirely unrelated to tourism tell me that consumer spending fell off a cliff in April.

I don't want very old, or very obese residents of Thailand to die, but I also don't want to see the continuing rise in suicides, mental instability, stress, loss of personal ambition, destruction of relationships, political tension, deteriorating fitness, worsening healthcare, and all the other costs that will ripple out over the next few decades.

Thailand, and all other countries, need to accept that the problem is not the properly vaccinated. We need to re-open every shop, restaurant, bar, stadium, theatre, concert hall to the people who support them without endangering themselves and others. That means those verifiably fully inoculated with effective vaccines. We need to accept that there is always some small level of risk, but that the safety theatre of masks and tests does not eliminate that, it merely pretends we have control that we do not.

We need to do this today because, globally, we have already fucked ourselves, and it is already going to take decades to unfuck ourselves. Waiting another year will only put off the inevitable and leave us with an even bigger mess to sort out.
 

Many parts I do agree with you but you have to agree it is a catch 22 of damned if you do and damned if you don't now as is going to have a more vicious effect either way. What is easily seen is the elite big boys here greedily purposely dropped the ball whether you believe in vaccines or not.  My biggest gripe is where it came from and how it was covered up and blatantly let loose to travel, and that is where the world should put a foot down and do massive protests giving restrictions and turn their back letting them wallow in united handed down punishment for what has happened in the destruction of countries, their people's lives and economies. Instead I see them being rewarded which is utterly disgusting . Talking about this country got me a holiday and some posts deleted on another site. So I am trying to be soft and subtle in many ways here as I still think someone at sometime or the other is going to push that complaint button on me. But agree, peoples lives are going down the flushed toilet now and the rich elite are only get richer with no care and full protection.