News Forum - 38 countries reportedly on short list for no quarantine reopening

[ThairdOfBS]

Australia and New Zealand ??????  if they are not included then its painfully obvious that its purely an exercise in Baht raking

[Jacob23]

I am Canadian. Really hoping they include Canada. 

I love to go to Thailand every year for my winter vacation. 

[Khunmark]

9 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

I hope you don't think I am Yank bashing. The US has done a lot of good, but a lot of that good has been undone because a huge chunk of America is in an undeclared war with itself. That became obvious when you could see Americans abusing their fellow countrymen for the crime of wearing a mask.

My concern, is that while Americans are fighting a proxy war with the virus as an underlying factor, the virus is going to be around for a hell of a long time. I've seen those that say "People are not dying from the virus, but from underlying conditions". That's mainly true, but there are those who are young and healthy who it does kill. More to the point though, if you just count the obese, diabetics and asthmatics, there are over 200 mill cases of these in the US. In fairness many of those will have more than one of those conditions, but these are among the most common health conditions in the US, and I'd guess that the total number with at least one of these conditions numbers150 mill.

Now factor in that the vaxxes, although better than nothing, are not perfect. They don't guarantee immunity, and for those with immunity because of vaxxing, that does not prevent them being carriers. As I've said, I estimate that maybe as many as 30% will refuse the vax. I hope I am wrong. But if I was deciding which countries to open up to tomorrow, I'd be looking at the US and the metrics and saying that "Proportionately. they have 4X more infections than average, 3.5X and 10X more unresolved cases than average. 30% are refusing to get vaxxed, and many are not only refusing to wear a mask, but abusing those who do. Do I really want to let them into my country and risk the recent gains we have made"?

I think what Chameleon is inferring is that the ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated is inconsequential as it will be only the vaccinated who will be permitted to fly. And the U.S have a large pool of vaccinated people to draw on should they except the invitation to travel.

[Jason]

How about we just wait for the "list" to come out...the speculation and commentary is premature. I reiterate my early point though. YOu can invite anyone you like, but it's the restrictions other countries place on travel to Thailand that determine who can go.

[JohninDublin]

7 hours ago, mickkotlarski said:

Ah yes. For a nation that saw huge numbers of people inbound/outbound it slammed all avenues firmly shut very decisively. I still put it ahead of India but with low test numbers and ridiculously low numbers of infected individuals recorded it does seen suspect. Highly populated nations like  the US, Russia and Brazil have much higher spread of infection. 

Did China really do such a great job controlling the pandemic it created (accidentally/intentionally) or is it politburo propaganda?

It's unfortunate that Worldometers.com. one of the sites I use for number-crunching does not archive the pages from individual days. In case you are unaware, it gets most of its data from Johns Hopkins. There was a spell when they were regularly "updating" the figures they sent to JH, and would often wipe 6-10k cases a day of previously reported infections, I presume they were telling JH, that these were misdiagnosed. I saw 10's of Thousands of cases taken off the figures for China by this method.

The problem of course, is that JH, just like the CDC VAERS site, can only publish what it is told, so if China say, "We misdiagnosed 6463 cases that we earlier reported. We now discover that it was earache and not CV" and JH are obliged to amend the figures. 

It's worth noting that just about the time everyone was blaming China for this, by Apr 2020 when the virus was then known by about five months, they had already made 8 definitions of what constituted CV. So if you keep adding symptoms that must be present in order to be called CV, you can redefine the hell out of the stats. As I am sure sure you are well aware, CV had a multitude of symptoms and some  cases were asymptomatic. One of the rarer symptoms was a rash on toes. If you write the definition so that this symptom must be present, suddenly many cases are no longer called covid.

[JohninDublin]

52 minutes ago, Khunmark said:

I think what Chameleon is inferring is that the ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated is inconsequential as it will be only the vaccinated who will be permitted to fly. And the U.S have a large pool of vaccinated people to draw on should they except the invitation to travel.

You might be right, but in spite of those numbers, and knowing that the VAX is not foolproof, I can imagine why many will question whether allowing the US unrestricted access to their countries might need a cautious approach. OTOH, those who have been vaxxed, are likely to enjoy better outcomes if they do become infected, but it does not stop them being carriers and based on active cases, of which the US accounts for 55% of all such cases, there is huge reservoir to draw upon.

[Benroon]

Arrggghhhhh - can someone please specify what the f*** happens when you land at BKK from November 1st else every forum, every comment, every newspaper article, every TV snippet is utterly pointless ! 

[satpete]

you may get a blue exit at BKK, take a blue car, drive to a blue zone, stay in a blue hotel and stay 7 days in blue zone , take two pcr tests before travel outside of the blue, or stay in field hospital for about 14 days on positive test,
walking around there may be screening hubs again and you may pay for next test, you are traced by tracking app all days, and you think about new Thailand holidays without quarantine ?

wait for royal gazette

Edited October 17, 2021 by satpete

[Alavan]

15 hours ago, Chameleon said:

BUT ....are you hung up on percentages or are you looking for countries that will make the biggest financial impact on the Thai economy??

That would be the USA...not Portugal, Spain, Finland, etc.

 

OK, forget about Portugal. How about Switserland, Germany, Scandinavia? I hear a lot more of those languages spoken in Phuket than US-English.
So there must also be some financial impact from those countries. Why would Thai now start again with flights from Zurich and Kopenhagen? Must be that next to Frankfurt, London and Paris they also expect business from those countries.
Never met much US citizens in Phuket. Maybe the flight is to long and they have the choice of a lot of Caribian islands closer.

[Alavan]

14 hours ago, Chameleon said:

But the USA with its vast financial and intellectual resources did play an extraordinarily prominent role in the development of the Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and Astra Zeneca vaccines, as well as contributing and collaborating on Pfizer vaccine with Europe.

I won't deny the financial input from the US, but the Pfizer vaccin was researched in Germany and first produced in Puurs (Belgium), and yes, the production is in the Pfizer plant in Europe.
Astra Zeneca was researched at the Oxford university and is produced by the Swedish-English company Astra Zeneca.
J&J vaccin was researched in Belgium (Beerse) by the company Janssen pharmaceutica and produced in Leiden (Holland). Janssen is now part of Johnson as they are the mayor shareholder.
That makes only Moderna a 100% US vaccin, if you look for "financial and intellectual" resources.
The Pfizer and J&J vaccins have US financial backing, and AZ has nothing to do at all with the US.

[mickkotlarski]

2 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

It's unfortunate that Worldometers.com. one of the sites I use for number-crunching does not archive the pages from individual days. In case you are unaware, it gets most of its data from Johns Hopkins. There was a spell when they were regularly "updating" the figures they sent to JH, and would often wipe 6-10k cases a day of previously reported infections, I presume they were telling JH, that these were misdiagnosed. I saw 10's of Thousands of cases taken off the figures for China by this method.

The problem of course, is that JH, just like the CDC VAERS site, can only publish what it is told, so if China say, "We misdiagnosed 6463 cases that we earlier reported. We now discover that it was earache and not CV" and JH are obliged to amend the figures. 

It's worth noting that just about the time everyone was blaming China for this, by Apr 2020 when the virus was then known by about five months, they had already made 8 definitions of what constituted CV. So if you keep adding symptoms that must be present in order to be called CV, you can redefine the hell out of the stats. As I am sure sure you are well aware, CV had a multitude of symptoms and some  cases were asymptomatic. One of the rarer symptoms was a rash on toes. If you write the definition so that this symptom must be present, suddenly many cases are no longer called covid.

Thank you for that John.

I use the worldometer as a guide to look at trends. But the data is only as good and as credible as the source providing it. There have been strange and illogical figures, some of which I understand but the China info is both non surprising yet disturbing at the same time.

We will never truly know for sure but sometimes its better that way.

   

[JohninDublin]

2 hours ago, Benroon said:

Arrggghhhhh - can someone please specify what the f*** happens when you land at BKK from November 1st else every forum, every comment, every newspaper article, every TV snippet is utterly pointless ! 

I think the answer to your question is that TH will make it up as they go along. When Phuket was re-opened, AFAIK, there was no announcement that bars would remain closed. That happened after the "re-opening".

Same with those who were quarantined. Nothing was said about passengers in close contact with the infected would be allowed to leave the country, though why you should want to put these people on  plane if they represent a risk, puzzles me.

[Benroon]

19 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I think the answer to your question is that TH will make it up as they go along. When Phuket was re-opened, AFAIK, there was no announcement that bars would remain closed. That happened after the "re-opening".

Same with those who were quarantined. Nothing was said about passengers in close contact with the infected would be allowed to leave the country, though why you should want to put these people on  plane if they represent a risk, puzzles me.

You're not helping John 

[Benroon]

2 hours ago, satpete said:

you may get a blue exit at BKK, take a blue car, drive to a blue zone, stay in a blue hotel and stay 7 days in blue zone , take two pcr tests before travel outside of the blue, or stay in field hospital for about 14 days on positive test,
walking around there may be screening hubs again and you may pay for next test, you are traced by tracking app all days, and you think about new Thailand holidays without quarantine ?

wait for royal gazette

do you know when the royal gazette gets updated ?

[satpete]

you may get a blue exit at BKK, take a blue car, drive to a blue zone, stay in a blue hotel and stay 7 days in blue zone , take two pcr tests before travel outside of the blue, or stay in field hospital for about 14 days on positive test,
walking around there may be screening hubs again and you may pay for next test, you are traced by tracking app all days, and you think about new Thailand holidays without qurarantine ?

wait for royal gazette

[mickkotlarski]

9 hours ago, ThairdOfBS said:

Australia and New Zealand ??????  if they are not included then its painfully obvious that its purely an exercise in Baht raking

BINGO!!!!

[JohninDublin]

53 minutes ago, Benroon said:

You're not helping John 

My apologies, but AFAIK, most new "rules" introduced by TH recently, suggest policy "on the hoof" is the new style of gov.

[Benroon]

Arrggghhhhh - can someone please specify what the f*** happens when you land at BKK from November 1st else every forum, every comment, every newspaper article, every TV snippet is utterly pointless ! 

[Luigi]

UK low risk country?  it has been recording over 45,000 COVID cases for 4 days.

[Alavan]

3 hours ago, Benroon said:

Arrggghhhhh - can someone please specify what the f*** happens when you land at BKK from November 1st else every forum, every comment, every newspaper article, every TV snippet is utterly pointless ! 

As nobody knows, I guess the gouvernment included and haven't decided yet, your guess is as good as anybody elses.

[Pierre]

3 hours ago, Luigi said:

UK low risk country?  it has been recording over 45,000 COVID cases for 4 days.

Impressive how people keeps comparing apples and bananas. Those numbers are useless.

Over the last  3 months UK have made an average of 850.000 tests daily compared to e.g. Italy who have an average daily test on about 150.000, that .

In same period Thailand have performed an average of 50.000 daily tests 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Pierre

[Pierre]

On 10/16/2021 at 10:41 AM, Jason said:

I wonder which countries will permit thei citizens to go to Thailand.....

Well us from nordic countries are allowed to travel there if we want to without any quarantine when returning and we don't even need a test upon arrival in our home countries

[PapayaBokBok]

21 hours ago, Benroon said:

Yes I know about the words Thailand Pass but what is it ?

an app to use on your phone--thats all i know of it.....will likely be in thai too...

[PapayaBokBok]

7 hours ago, Benroon said:

Arrggghhhhh - can someone please specify what the f*** happens when you land at BKK from November 1st else every forum, every comment, every newspaper article, every TV snippet is utterly pointless ! 

Sad to say but in true thai fashion you will likely find out once you arrive as thats how thais do things...

2 speeds..slow and stop

[farang]

yes,everyone is wanting details as how to get a visa and state what is going to be approved. so far nothing but  hints of what might be required.i hope that useless insurance is dropped.why buy it when most coming there already have their home countries insurance . so this is just haveing to buy  insurance double.and if you have been vaccinated and a  covid test alreay whats the point.as for farangs running out not paying doc bills i dont think so.all it takes is a call to immigration to put a hold on his departing flight.they do that for other bills not paid such as rent/hotel bills or mortorcycle rentals.so i think that statement about unpaid bills is total b/s.