News Forum - Thursday Covid Update: 7,982 new cases and 68 deaths

[Thaiger]

7,982 new Covid-19 cases and 68 coronavirus-related deaths were reported today by the CCSA. In the 24-hour period since the last count, the CCSA recorded 8,029 recoveries. There are now 97,470 people in Thailand being treated for Covid-19. In the latest and most severe wave of the virus in Thailand, first recorded on April 1, the CCSA has recorded 1,914,561 confirmed Covid-19 infections. Out of the new cases reported today, 144 were found in correctional facilities. More than 75,000 inmates at Thailand’s overcrowded prisons and detention centres, around a fourth of the country’s inmate population, have tested positive for Covid-19 […]

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[Jason]

I know they talk about directing vaccines to the prisons, but given their overcrowded nature, it should be a priority. 

[Bob20]

26 minutes ago, Jason said:

I know they talk about directing vaccines to the prisons, but given their overcrowded nature, it should be a priority. 

Sorry, no.

You do not send vaccines to covid hotspots. You send vaccines to places before they become hotspots.

Once the cluster has formed you must contain, as vaccination will not take effect quickly anyway. You need other action to curb the spread.

The government have botched things at every opportunity.

They should have had a nationwide strategy, vulnerable people first, then the rest of the elderly etc. Prioritisation by risk, not by area and not by financial or political status.

Again: if a cluster forms, the people infected will get sick or die or recover with some natural immunity. They don't need the vaccine for a while.

Vaccines are not for treatment after the fact (not until natural immunity starts to wane). Vaccines are for prevention.

[FunkmasterWhyLee]

it does not seem that we get below 7000 cases per day soon. i hope that at least in December the cases go down a bit further. a low of tourists will arrive then. maybe they also can boost the vaccination rate in the tourist areas a few percent as well.

[Bob20]

34 minutes ago, FunkmasterWhyLee said:

it does not seem that we get below 7000 cases per day soon. i hope that at least in December the cases go down a bit further. a low of tourists will arrive then. maybe they also can boost the vaccination rate in the tourist areas a few percent as well.

We're way over 10.000 and likely higher than a few months ago.

But they're hiding the numbers with fewer PCR tests and more ATK's (which they don't officially count).

And the death rate is fudged too. Just compare the previous years (up to and including 2019) rates with this year. Lots of additional deaths, but not showing in the daily reports.

[Bob20]

For who is interested:

@Soidog wrote:

Good conversation @Bob20 and @JohninDubin . I think the point about believing the official figures is one we could debate until the cows come home. 

However, looking at the excess deaths data that you supplied John, doesn’t that give you the evidence you need to show Covid deaths are being under reported? There were 506,000 deaths of all causes in Thailand in 2019 which is approximately 42,000 per month (won’t be equally distributed I know). Since June to date, Thailand has been showing approximately 15-18% excess deaths compared to previous years. This equates to around an additional 6,325 death per month compared to previous years or an additional 210 per day. Over the last few weeks Thailand has been officially reporting approximately 70-90 Covid deaths per day. What is causing the missing 120-140 additonal deaths per day, if not Covid? Add to this that underlying road deaths of around 63/day must have reduced somewhat due to less travel and less alcohol, and another 20 daily deaths could be added to that 120-140 (let’s call it 130). This all feels like there is a missing number of around 150 (130+20 from road fatalities) deaths per day in the Covid figures, taking the real number to more like 80+150= 230 Covid deaths per day rather than the 80 being reported. This is in line with the 2-3 times more cases and deaths than I estimated. I think all the evidence you need that deaths are far higher and hence cases are all being well under reported. 

I think comparisons with another country is almost impossible as we start to get in reporting Windows and other definitions. That is a discussion for another topic. 

My estimate of real cases if you were to do randomised testing and include PCR and ATK test would show nearer 150,000 cases per day and deaths of 200 per day

Sorry, I may have included the actually figure of 80 reported twice in the above bringing them number to 150 per day though even that is based on only 15% excess deaths and the latest reported number was 20% and was as high as 37%. 

Whatever the real number is yesterday, it certainly wasn’t the official 64. More like 2-3 times that, and if taking a 28 day window as the U.K. does, that could add another 20-50 on to it. 

In summary it’s misleading. Overly optimistic and supported by other information such as ICU beds being full in CM and no doubt elsewhere. What a gamble the Thais are taking if they open Nightlife such as enclosed bars and clubs. I don’t think they will. They may let restaurants serve alcohol but surely not open bars and clubs on November 1st 

[JohninDublin]

1 hour ago, FunkmasterWhyLee said:

it does not seem that we get below 7000 cases per day soon. 

It was not so long ago, that they were claiming 20K a day.

[JohninDublin]

59 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

For who is interested:

@Soidog wrote:

Good conversation @Bob20 and @JohninDubin . I think the point about believing the official figures is one we could debate until the cows come home. 

However, looking at the excess deaths data that you supplied John, doesn’t that give you the evidence you need to show Covid deaths are being under reported? There were 506,000 deaths of all causes in Thailand in 2019 which is approximately 42,000 per month (won’t be equally distributed I know). Since June to date, Thailand has been showing approximately 15-18% excess deaths compared to previous years. This equates to around an additional 6,325 death per month compared to previous years or an additional 210 per day. Over the last few weeks Thailand has been officially reporting approximately 70-90 Covid deaths per day. What is causing the missing 120-140 additonal deaths per day, if not Covid? Add to this that underlying road deaths of around 63/day must have reduced somewhat due to less travel and less alcohol, and another 20 daily deaths could be added to that 120-140 (let’s call it 130). This all feels like there is a missing number of around 150 (130+20 from road fatalities) deaths per day in the Covid figures, taking the real number to more like 80+150= 230 Covid deaths per day rather than the 80 being reported. This is in line with the 2-3 times more cases and deaths than I estimated. I think all the evidence you need that deaths are far higher and hence cases are all being well under reported. 

I think comparisons with another country is almost impossible as we start to get in reporting Windows and other definitions. That is a discussion for another topic. 

My estimate of real cases if you were to do randomised testing and include PCR and ATK test would show nearer 150,000 cases per day and deaths of 200 per day

Sorry, I may have included the actually figure of 80 reported twice in the above bringing them number to 150 per day though even that is based on only 15% excess deaths and the latest reported number was 20% and was as high as 37%. 

Whatever the real number is yesterday, it certainly wasn’t the official 64. More like 2-3 times that, and if taking a 28 day window as the U.K. does, that could add another 20-50 on to it. 

In summary it’s misleading. Overly optimistic and supported by other information such as ICU beds being full in CM and no doubt elsewhere. What a gamble the Thais are taking if they open Nightlife such as enclosed bars and clubs. I don’t think they will. They may let restaurants serve alcohol but surely not open bars and clubs on November 1st 

Funnily enough, I was just going to follow up on that thread. You've saved me having to bore people with an intro:

I've reviewed the excess deaths figures/reported CV deaths since April to coincide with the arrival of Delta, and have come up with a figure of just under 60K excess deaths against 19k CV reported deaths. On the face of it, the problem is far worse than when I first made this discovery where I first estimated it to be 2X as bad as was being reported. It is actually 3X.

Of course, there is always the (unlikely) explanation that there is something killing Thais 2X as quickly as CV did, and the Thais have not seen noticed it yet. 

[Soidog]

50 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

Funnily enough, I was just going to follow up on that thread. You've saved me having to bore people with an intro:

I've reviewed the excess deaths figures/reported CV deaths since April to coincide with the arrival of Delta, and have come up with a figure of just under 60K excess deaths against 19k CV reported deaths. On the face of it, the problem is far worse than when I first made this discovery where I first estimated it to be 2X as bad as was being reported. It is actually 3X.

Of course, there is always the (unlikely) explanation that there is something killing Thais 2X as quickly as CV did, and the Thais have not seen noticed it yet. 

Well you got there in the end with the number crunching. What you have finally convinced yourself of is simply what myself,  @Bob20 and many others have been saying for many months.  
 

It amazes me that in a country littered with a history of misinformation, corruption and a need to always save face, that anyone believes any of the Covid numbers. The whole mindset of the government is to spin everything to make things look better than they are. Why would Covid be any different?  It’s the same with what they are producing even now. 9,000 cases and 64 deaths. Utter nonsense! We will never know the true numbers for Thailand along with many other countries.
 

I would imagine the same thing is going on with their finances. They did it in 1997 until the dam of misinformation broke and the currency totally collapsed. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were in a far worse condition then they publish. The only time the truth comes out in Thailand is if it’s positive news and even then it’s overstated, or simply nowhere else to hide the bad news.

 

[Griff1315]

 

Buriram report 19 case yet I know of 2  Buriram villages being quarantined one with 24 confirmed cases the other undergoing mass testing.

Maybe they are not included in today's figures MAYBE they won't be in tomorrow's figures either. 

The numbers are obviously false reporting. Are the CCSA not included in the total ban on FAKE news...

 

[Soidog]

1 hour ago, JohninDubin said:

It was not so long ago, that they were claiming 20K a day.

And it’s still over 20,000 a day. They just aren’t reporting it. 
 

If anyone believes this wave has gone from 20,000 to 7,000 in about 8 weeks with little in the way of restrictions, people regularly flouting the rules and double vaccination rates still below 50%, can they explain how? Why would the virus decide to pack up and go home? It defies any sense of logic. I know the Thais have their unique style of logic on day to day things, but they can’t apply it to this virus I’m afraid. 
 

[Bob20]

1 hour ago, JohninDubin said:

Funnily enough, I was just going to follow up on that thread. You've saved me having to bore people with an intro:

I've reviewed the excess deaths figures/reported CV deaths since April to coincide with the arrival of Delta, and have come up with a figure of just under 60K excess deaths against 19k CV reported deaths. On the face of it, the problem is far worse than when I first made this discovery where I first estimated it to be 2X as bad as was being reported. It is actually 3X.

Of course, there is always the (unlikely) explanation that there is something killing Thais 2X as quickly as CV did, and the Thais have not seen noticed it yet. 

Hmmm, funny how recollections can differ after only a few days, but it was good to "win you over" to our side.

With the current ever lower reported numbers I see exactly the same as before. Creative accounting.

[Soidog]

2 minutes ago, Griff1315 said:

Buriram report 19 case yet I know of 2  Buriram villages being quarantined one with 24 confirmed cases the other undergoing mass testing.

Maybe they are not included in today's figures MAYBE they won't be in tomorrow's figures either. 

The numbers are obviously false reporting. Are the CCSA not included in the total ban on FAKE news...

It’s an utter joke mate. The only thing more funny is that some people believe it. I was speaking to a guy in Thailand yesterday. A smart guy who was a maths teacher in the U.K. for 25 years, a degree in maths from Nottingham. He said to me “Really good to see the case and death numbers coming down so quickly. I think this will be near zero by the end of the year”. It took all my willpower not to just hang up on him!  It’s certainly true that you can fool most of the people most of the time! 

[Bob20]

1 minute ago, Soidog said:

It’s an utter joke mate. The only thing more funny is that some people believe it. I was speaking to a guy in Thailand yesterday. A smart guy who was a maths teacher in the U.K. for 25 years, a degree in maths from Nottingham. He said to me “Really good to see the case and death numbers coming down so quickly. I think this will be near zero by the end of the year”. It took all my willpower not to just hang up on him!  It’s certainly true that you can fool most of the people most of the time! 

Some will come back to life if it continues like this!

[mickkotlarski]

5 minutes ago, Soidog said:

It’s an utter joke mate. The only thing more funny is that some people believe it. I was speaking to a guy in Thailand yesterday. A smart guy who was a maths teacher in the U.K. for 25 years, a degree in maths from Nottingham. He said to me “Really good to see the case and death numbers coming down so quickly. I think this will be near zero by the end of the year”. It took all my willpower not to just hang up on him!  It’s certainly true that you can fool most of the people most of the time! 

If the amount of BS in the background stays at the same high level then its good to see the numbers going down.

[palooka]

10 minutes ago, Soidog said:

And it’s still over 20,000 a day. They just aren’t reporting it. 

Nah they were drug overdoses ask "Joe" he'll confirm it.

[Malc-Thai]

18 minutes ago, Griff1315 said:

Buriram report 19 case yet I know of 2  Buriram villages being quarantined one with 24 confirmed cases the other undergoing mass testing.

Maybe they are not included in today's figures MAYBE they won't be in tomorrow's figures either. 

The numbers are obviously false reporting. Are the CCSA not included in the total ban on FAKE news...

Sad thing is Griff if they use atk's then they won't get reported.. I was looking here in phuket. people only went to hospital because they felt pretty sick and got a pcr test that was officially recorded.. now many take atk test themselves and most definitely just isolate at home..  which was introduced a couple of months back by going to a specific clinic then home isolation..

[Griff1315]

1 minute ago, Malc-Thai said:

Sad thing is Griff if they use atk's then they won't get reported.. I was looking here in phuket. people only went to hospital because they felt pretty sick and got a pcr test that was officially recorded.. now many take atk test themselves and most definitely just isolate at home..  which was introduced a couple of months back by going to a specific clinic then home isolation..

I understand that Malc but these are whole villages being locked down no one in no one out. Maybe apart from the young girls heading back to Phuket and Pattaya to work in  the  incredible reopening.

Let's hope they got out before the infections hit.....

[Malc-Thai]

Just now, Griff1315 said:

I understand that Malc but these are whole villages being locked down no one in no one out. Maybe apart from the young girls heading back to Phuket and Pattaya to work in  the  incredible reopening.

Let's hope they got out before the infections hit.....

Haha yes many BR girls here I've seen! .  sadly Exactly same here when they locked down the sea gypsies estimated 2-300 not one positive came out in the official figures and 600 Myanmar camp shut down..as long as they were kept together and locked away until no covid in there they didn't need to report the numbers.. and 9 groups sent in to do 25k random tests in 3 days but only tested 4k in 2 days with over 200 didn't get recorded and stopped.. I can go on and on but sadly we are all now having to just continue with this knowledge of them hiding it!

[JohninDublin]

12 minutes ago, Soidog said:

Well you got there in the end with the number crunching. What you have finally convinced yourself of is simply what myself,  @Bob20 and many others have been saying for many months.  
 

It amazes me that in a country littered with a history of misinformation, corruption and a need to always save face, that anyone believes any of the Covid numbers. The whole mindset of the government is to spin everything to make things look better than they are. Why would Covid be any different?  It’s the same with what they are producing even now. 9,000 cases and 64 deaths. Utter nonsense! We will never know the true numbers for Thailand along with many other countries.
 

I would imagine the same thing is going on with their finances. They did it in 1997 until the dam of misinformation broke and the currency totally collapsed. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were in a far worse condition then they publish. The only time the truth comes out in Thailand is if it’s positive news and even then it’s overstated, or simply nowhere else to hide the bad news.

Just to take a little issue on this. It's not that I necessarily believed the figures from TH. My position was that if there was any falsification of the numbers, it would show up somewhere, and until I looked at excess deaths, nobody could provide any evidence of this. During the meantime, an explanation could be given to explain the figures. 

I do not claim that others were wrong in their suspicions, but people were coming up with figures (guesses) that could not be substantiated. I have a problem with cynicism. "This is Thailand so they must be lying". In most cases, I'd agree that you cannot place too much trust in what the TH gov says, but that approach is far too lazy for me. Meanwhile, nobody was looking to find anything that could support their claims. Once I decided to look for the evidence, it did not take too long to find it. 

If you'd asked the various people I was disagreeing people with, I think it would have been difficult to achieve a consensus of what they believed the true figures are and it would not have been in percentages but in multiples because all they could point to is the difference between testing in the UK and TH. If you use that as a starting point, UK tests 37X more than TH, you then have to decide whether 37X is a realistic figure for TH. If you decide not, you need to factor in a lot of variables and unknowns, which doesn't help matters. This is all guesswork without any evidence. 

[JohninDublin]

33 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

Hmmm, funny how recollections can differ after only a few days, but it was good to "win you over" to our side.

With the current ever lower reported numbers I see exactly the same as before. Creative accounting.

What are the differences in recollections you are referring to?

[JohninDublin]

48 minutes ago, Soidog said:

Well you got there in the end with the number crunching. What you have finally convinced yourself of is simply what myself,  @Bob20 and many others have been saying for many months. 

Yes, but the problem is that what you have been saying for many months, you were saying without any statistical evidence to support your claim. 

[palooka]

53 minutes ago, Griff1315 said:

Buriram report 19 case yet I know of 2  Buriram villages being quarantined one with 24 confirmed cases the other undergoing mass testing.

Maybe they are not included in today's figures MAYBE they won't be in tomorrow's figures either. 

The numbers are obviously false reporting. Are the CCSA not included in the total ban on FAKE news...

Happening in other Provinces also.  People cooking meals for quarantined people triple or quadruple but the official figures drop. Field hospital nearly empty one day and nearly full the next but not reflected in the official numbers.

[Soidog]

12 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

Yes, but the problem is that what you have been saying for many months, you were saying without any statistical evidence to support your claim. 

No that’s not the case. I have seen the excess deaths for many many months and referred to it in several posts. Excess deaths has always been the gateway to the truth. How else do you think I got to the estimate of 2 to 3 times the reported level. It wasn’t a guess, it was an estimate based on the limited data available 

[Tjampman]

I think you guys are putting to much faith in the Thai government to be able to conspire at this level!

You all saw the conditions when there 20k daily cases, people were lining up outside hospitals. It does not seem to be that bad now.

So in my oppinion the cases have gone down. At least in relative terms, as in if the figures now are not correct, they likely were not back in June either.

I saw that the WHO as well as the Economist just released an excess deaths estimate.

And throughout the world the excess deaths seems to be 2x-4x worse than reported. With some exception eg. Russia and India being much higher.

I would rather suspect it is lack of testing that is the problem in Thailand rather then actual malice in hiding data.

This will all be estimates anyway, no country has exact reporting, some places just get closer to it than others.