News Forum - 1 new death as daily Covid-19 infections in Phuket top 200

[Thaiger]

Just 16 days after Phuket saw domestic Covid-19 infections surpass 100 cases in a day, the island has now passed the 200 mark with 209 new Covid-19 infections reported yesterday. The Phuket Provincial Public Health Office also released data confirming 1 more Phuket Sandbox international traveller infection and 1 death from Covid-19. The surge in cases has now pushed the 7-day rolling today to over 1000, after passing 900 yesterday and 800 the day before. The current 7-day total in the province is 1,046. The numbers on Phuket over the past week, per capita, are well in excess of Bangkok […]

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[riclag]

Once those hospital beds max out the Petri Phuket officials are gonna face a grim reality . The temporary stoppage of the experiment.

For the sandbox to continue they must stop people from avoiding  check points ? They must come up with better technology to detect positive cases before international people step on a plane

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by riclag

[BIGGLES]

Good idea to start with, not perfect, but a good idea.

Poorly managed, too many exemptions in respect of who can enter. The tourist is not the problem, the Thai's are the problem. What could have been a 'safe' destination, is nothing more than a petri dish.

Right now, you want your head looking at if you come here. This is not a holiday, it's a nightmare and getting worse. Saddens me to say it.

Thailand going onto the UK red list for better or worse, takes away the second largest market after the USA.

This year and at least next year, is done for.

Close it down, clear the crap out, rethink it as a proposal, streamline the paperwork, and relaunch in the new year, only for those who are fully vaccinated, especially all Thai's on the island, even delivery drivers etc ,If not this nonsense will go on for ever!

[AlexPTY]

Pretty dark picture I may say. I think officials underestimated virus ability to infect vaccinated people. It should be a good example of what happens when you open flood gates. Do you think it was worth it? Anyone made any money? 

[JamesR]

5 hours ago, BIGGLES said:

Good idea to start with, not perfect, but a good idea.

Poorly managed, too many exemptions in respect of who can enter. The tourist is not the problem, the Thai's are the problem. What could have been a 'safe' destination, is nothing more than a petri dish.

Right now, you want your head looking at if you come here. This is not a holiday, it's a nightmare and getting worse. Saddens me to say it.

Thailand going onto the UK red list for better or worse, takes away the second largest market after the USA.

This year and at least next year, is done for.

Close it down, clear the crap out, rethink it as a proposal, streamline the paperwork, and relaunch in the new year, only for those who are fully vaccinated, especially all Thai's on the island, even delivery drivers etc ,If not this nonsense will go on for ever!

That is why I got out of Phuket at the end of August last year, I had spent seven months in the lockdowns, at one point we could not travel out of our local area to go to the supermarkets etc.

I knew it would get worse as no vaccines had been ordered at that time in Thailand whereas in the UK millions had been orders well before they had been tested and released.

Back then Phuket was already like a ghost town in the tourist areas, lots of my Thai neighbours left their houses as there was no work for them locally.

So I am holding off going to Phuket as a sandbox is impossible to operate if there are very few vaccines to give out, it can not work anywhere in the world under those circumstances.

It will get worse before it gets better, I know a few people who are waiting to return to Thailand but have decided not to go yet and now from Monday as you say Thailand will be on the red list meaning people returning back home will have to have testes before leaving Thailand and also pay around £2k to stay in a hotel once they get back to England (I think Scotland, Wales might also decide to put Thailand on the red list soon).

 

[Brettbkk]

Please provide updates data on number of jabs in arms for the past day, past week, past month in Phuket.  The only way out of the Petri dish problem.

[King Cotton]

34 minutes ago, Brettbkk said:

Please provide updates data on number of jabs in arms for the past day, past week, past month in Phuket.  The only way out of the Petri dish problem.

Fair comment, Brettbkk and welcome to Thaiger Talk.  And sorry I missed your debut post, the other day!

Please feel free to tell us a bit about yourself in 'Introductions'. It's good to pick-up on those sometimes differing regional or geographical perspectives.

And check-out the Guidelines, too, when you get a free minute. They're there to help us all enjoy our time here.

Happy posting

King Cotton

[PapayaBokBok]

8 hours ago, JamesR said:

(I think Scotland, Wales might also decide to put Thailand on the red list soon).

reaches for mask....

[HiuMak]

23 hours ago, Thaiger said:

Just 16 days after Phuket saw domestic Covid-19 infections surpass 100 cases in a day, the island has now passed the 200 mark with 209 new Covid-19 infections reported yesterday. The Phuket Provincial Public Health Office also released data confirming 1 more Phuket Sandbox international traveller infection and 1 death from Covid-19. The surge in cases has now pushed the 7-day rolling today to over 1000, after passing 900 yesterday and 800 the day before. The current 7-day total in the province is 1,046. The numbers on Phuket over the past week, per capita, are well in excess of Bangkok […]

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Must be Fake news.... other parts of thailand numbers easing but Phuket soars.

[JamesR]

27 minutes ago, HiuMak said:

Must be Fake news.... other parts of thailand numbers easing but Phuket soars.

The fake news is from you, they are doing a lot more testing in Phuket as they want to prove the sandbox system can work so they can roll it out to other areas, hence they are finding a lot more cases which will be missed in other parts of Thailand where they are not doing many tests.

It is quite simple really. 

[Bob20]

42 minutes ago, HiuMak said:

Must be Fake news.... other parts of thailand numbers easing but Phuket soars.

 

11 minutes ago, JamesR said:

The fake news is from you, they are doing a lot more testing in Phuket as they want to prove the sandbox system can work so they can roll it out to other areas, hence they are finding a lot more cases which will be missed in other parts of Thailand where they are not doing many tests.

It is quite simple really. 

Numbers are not easing. They do about 50.000 tests daily and do them mostly in high-risk areas or for people that get them because they worry they carry the virus. it's NOT random testing.

Even being the devil's advocate, if it were truly random, 1000 difference in positive numbers (up or down) on a 50.000 test, is not statistically significant and not a sign for getting worse or improving.

Better look at the countries mortality rate. As those numbers are pretty stable, nothing is easing at all!

 

[Zool]

I would recommend avoiding Phuket and do the normal ASQ in Bangkok. I just did the quarantine there and it went without a hitch. The people working in the quarantine hotels are very competent and they have it down to a science, as they've been doing it for a while now. 

[Soidog]

3 hours ago, JamesR said:

The fake news is from you, they are doing a lot more testing in Phuket as they want to prove the sandbox system can work so they can roll it out to other areas, hence they are finding a lot more cases which will be missed in other parts of Thailand where they are not doing many tests.

It is quite simple really. 

I think that’s correct @JamesR  

I think one reason we see so many twists, turns and sudden changes in Thailand is due to how Thais work with each other. Driven by the highest of Thai principles of not causing loss of face (especially to your boss). When someone in authority said we need to do more testing in Phuket to prove the sandbox works, you can imagine some local doctor thinking - but that will make number increase. -  When the boss, in his perfect wisdom realises this, he will “instruct” them to stop doing so many tests. With a smile and a wai, the tests will be reduced and hey-presto, Covid is falling. Ship sick people out and back to Bangkok or anywhere, and their death doesn’t get reported in the Phuket numbers either. And that is how you run a Covid sandbox. 

[oldcpu]

19 hours ago, Brettbkk said:

Please provide updates data on number of jabs in arms for the past day, past week, past month in Phuket.  

This information can in part be found on different Thai government web sites ... for example: https://www.facebook.com/83ssj/?__tn__=-UC*F

Here is a sample from 22-August-2021:

Note that the target figure of 466,587 is not the actual population of Phuket.  I don't know if anyone has a really accurate count of how many people in Phuket. There was a large exodus of people OUT of Phuket in June/July-2020, and then a trickle back in during the February-to-July-2021 timeframe.  My guess, based in part on a Phuket news article on a Phuket officials' estimate, is including Thai residents, Thai out-of-province workers, migrant workers, expats, and children, to be a bit less than 600,000 people in Phuket. So one can recalculate the % based on that number, if one wishes.

I find (1) the # of daily tests conducted in Phuket more interesting, although the official figures for that are not IMHO not so clear, as they don't count all the rapid tests in that #, and (2) the Phuket hospital status which is produced daily. While the # of people being isolated in hospitals, field hospitals, and hospitels in Phuket is climbing, so is the number of facilities available for people increasing with more care facilities continually being made available. Fortuntely the # of critical cases in hospitals in Phuket (ie ICU) is not (yet) climbing at the same rate of the virus spread in Phuket, and that makes me optimistic that the still ongoing vaccine application in Phuket has helped.

.

Edited August 29, 2021 by oldcpu

[JamesR]

10 hours ago, Soidog said:

I think that’s correct @JamesR  

I think one reason we see so many twists, turns and sudden changes in Thailand is due to how Thais work with each other. Driven by the highest of Thai principles of not causing loss of face (especially to your boss). When someone in authority said we need to do more testing in Phuket to prove the sandbox works, you can imagine some local doctor thinking - but that will make number increase. -  When the boss, in his perfect wisdom realises this, he will “instruct” them to stop doing so many tests. With a smile and a wai, the tests will be reduced and hey-presto, Covid is falling. Ship sick people out and back to Bangkok or anywhere, and their death doesn’t get reported in the Phuket numbers either. And that is how you run a Covid sandbox. 

That is possible of course but I can not confirm nor deny it is happening. 

[HiuMak]

21 hours ago, JamesR said:

The fake news is from you, they are doing a lot more testing in Phuket as they want to prove the sandbox system can work so they can roll it out to other areas, hence they are finding a lot more cases which will be missed in other parts of Thailand where they are not doing many tests.

It is quite simple really. 

 

18 hours ago, Soidog said:

I think that’s correct @JamesR  

I think one reason we see so many twists, turns and sudden changes in Thailand is due to how Thais work with each other. Driven by the highest of Thai principles of not causing loss of face (especially to your boss). When someone in authority said we need to do more testing in Phuket to prove the sandbox works, you can imagine some local doctor thinking - but that will make number increase. -  When the boss, in his perfect wisdom realises this, he will “instruct” them to stop doing so many tests. With a smile and a wai, the tests will be reduced and hey-presto, Covid is falling. Ship sick people out and back to Bangkok or anywhere, and their death doesn’t get reported in the Phuket numbers either. And that is how you run a Covid sandbox. 

I don't see the numbers of testing in Thailand anywhere in the internet. Maybe I am missing out on this one, anyone has the info? Anyway nothing is absolute concrete in Thailand.

[RWD]

On 8/28/2021 at 1:05 PM, Thaiger said:

Just 16 days after Phuket saw domestic Covid-19 infections surpass 100 cases in a day, the island has now passed the 200 mark with 209 new Covid-19 infections reported yesterday. The Phuket Provincial Public Health Office also released data confirming 1 more Phuket Sandbox international traveller infection and 1 death from Covid-19. The surge in cases has now pushed the 7-day rolling today to over 1000, after passing 900 yesterday and 800 the day before. The current 7-day total in the province is 1,046. The numbers on Phuket over the past week, per capita, are well in excess of Bangkok […]

The post 1 new death as daily Covid-19 infections in Phuket top 200 appeared first on Thaiger News.

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And did anyone really believe the sandbox was good for health?  It was an exercise in revenue streaming plain and simple....Same happened between NZ and AUS and their non quarantine bubble as neither country had had a local infection (NZ for over 12 months).

 

[Bob20]

7 minutes ago, HiuMak said:

I don't see the numbers of testing in Thailand anywhere in the internet. Maybe I am missing out on this one, anyone has the info? Anyway nothing is absolute concrete in Thailand.

The numbers of tests are not published. Just the numbers of positives.

That's how they manipulate the population, as that is insufficient to draw conclusions, which they do anyway!

Best to look at the daily numbers of deaths. At 250-300 and an average mortality rate of 0.5%, that puts daily cases at 50.000-60.000, or around 1.2million a month.

So, when they claim the number is going down, let's see if that's true by declining numbers of deaths. Else it's just manipulation or wishful thinking.

[Malc-Thai]

18 hours ago, oldcpu said:

This information can in part be found on different Thai government web sites ... for example: https://www.facebook.com/83ssj/?__tn__=-UC*F

Here is a sample from 22-August-2021:

Note that the target figure of 466,587 is not the actual population of Phuket.  I don't know if anyone has a really accurate count of how many people in Phuket. There was a large exodus of people OUT of Phuket in June/July-2020, and then a trickle back in during the February-to-July-2021 timeframe.  My guess, based in part on a Phuket news article on a Phuket officials' estimate, is including Thai residents, Thai out-of-province workers, migrant workers, expats, and children, to be a bit less than 600,000 people in Phuket. So one can recalculate the % based on that number, if one wishes.

I find (1) the # of daily tests conducted in Phuket more interesting, although the official figures for that are not IMHO not so clear, as they don't count all the rapid tests in that #, and (2) the Phuket hospital status which is produced daily. While the # of people being isolated in hospitals, field hospitals, and hospitels in Phuket is climbing, so is the number of facilities available for people increasing with more care facilities continually being made available. Fortuntely the # of critical cases in hospitals in Phuket (ie ICU) is not (yet) climbing at the same rate of the virus spread in Phuket, and that makes me optimistic that the still ongoing vaccine application in Phuket has helped.

.

I belive recently the governor of phuket put a request of 470k booster vaccines for 70% of the population so your guess looks pretty good

[Soidog]

4 hours ago, HiuMak said:

I don't see the numbers of testing in Thailand anywhere in the internet. Maybe I am missing out on this one, anyone has the info? Anyway nothing is absolute concrete in Thailand.

The following picture shows the data of daily tests for the U.K. and for Thailand (similar population size). As you can see, Thailand is doing around 60,000-70,000 per day compared to 600,000-800,000 in the U.K.  The more you test the more you find. I’m not suggesting infection rates are 10X higher from this test data, but they certainly aren’t as low as the numbers suggest. I’ve included the link to the data also

I believe this low level of testing and the case numbers found, is the main reason for the U.K. placing Thailand in the Red list for travel. 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-covid-19-tests-per-day?country=GBR~THA

[Guevara]

4 minutes ago, Soidog said:

The following picture shows the data of daily tests for the U.K. and for Thailand (similar population size). As you can see, Thailand is doing around 60,000-70,000 per day compared to 600,000-800,000 in the U.K.  The more you test the more you find. I’m not suggesting infection rates are 10X higher from this test data, but they certainly aren’t as low as the numbers suggest. I’ve included the link to the data also

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-covid-19-tests-per-day?country=GBR~THA

Well explained, it's what I've been saying for a long time. On paper and at first glance the UK figures look bad but even the UK's European neighbours don't come close to the 260 million plus tests that the UK has undertaken. In comparison, Thailand has barely scratched the surface. Could be an iceberg or they have got very lucky. I'd place my money on the iceberg, with heavy heart.

[Soidog]

On 8/29/2021 at 7:05 AM, Bob20 said:

Numbers are not easing. They do about 50.000 tests daily and do them mostly in high-risk areas or for people that get them because they worry they carry the virus. it's NOT random testing.

Even being the devil's advocate, if it were truly random, 1000 difference in positive numbers (up or down) on a 50.000 test, is not statistically significant and not a sign for getting worse or improving.

Better look at the countries mortality rate. As those numbers are pretty stable, nothing is easing at all!

Yes that’s right. The attached shows the daily cases reported and deaths (note log scale). Although the reported case numbers are falling, they are yet to show through in deaths. This may be due to the normal lag in cases to deaths. If the case numbers are truly reflective of reality, then deaths should fall in the next 10-14 days…..

[Bob20]

1 minute ago, Soidog said:

Yes that’s right. The attached shows the daily cases reported and deaths (note log scale). Although the reported case numbers are falling, they are yet to show through in deaths. This may be due to the normal lag in cases to deaths. If the case numbers are truly reflective of reality, then deaths should fall in the next 10-14 days…..

Yup, that's what I've been saying. Plus not taking into account that vaccination has been done mostly regionally in and around Bangkok and the rest remains mostly unprotected.

Songkran part 2

Too early to base easing restrictions on.

[Soidog]

8 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

Yup, that's what I've been saying. Plus not taking into account that vaccination has been done mostly regionally in and around Bangkok and the rest remains mostly unprotected.

Songkran part 2

Too early to base easing restrictions on.

Yes I agree. I would imagine the vast majority of that 70,000 daily tests are in and around Bangkok. They really won’t have a clue what is going on out in the sticks. Even deaths won’t be being recorded. Some old fella who has spent the last 3 years lying on his bed outside his house who then dies won’t be counted. They will have him burnt and not tested. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only people (certainly vast majority) being recorded as death due to Covid, are those who die in hospital? 

[oldcpu]

5 hours ago, Bob20 said:

The numbers of tests are not published. Just the numbers of positives.

That is not accurate (for Phuket).

The number of 'official' tests are published for Phuket (although the occasional day is missing - or I simply can not find it). 

I note thou, the 'official' test count does not including testing via the rapid testing that is now available.  Below is an official slide from 29-August from the web..

If one looks at the slide from the day before, and subtracts the numbers, one can figure out how many 'official' accounted for tests are being done each day.  

By my rough estimate for 'official' testing, on average there was about 100 per day in June, about 200/day in July.  In August it briefly rose to about 600/day ... but its now dropped to just below 400/day.  I note thou, this does NOT include the more rapid tests, which they are doing so the actual number is higher than 400/day.  However they don't include the rapid test POSITIVE results in their daily totals, but rather they isolate the people and then perform a more official PCR test, and only then if POSITIVE include that result in the daily new case numbers.

At least that is my understanding, and if anyone knows more, please correct me, as I am keen to get this accurate.

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by oldcpu