News Forum - Thailand reopening sees 13,000 travellers, 10 Covid-19 infections

[Thaiger]

After the first 4 days of Thailand’s big reopening, over 13,000 people have arrived with just 10 of those travellers testing positive for Covid-19. According to the Director of Risk Communication and Health Behavior Development Bureau from the Ministry of Public Health Dr Sumanee Watcharasin, 13,229 people have entered Thailand in the last 4 days, and 10 international travellers – just o.o75% of all arrivals into Thailand so far this month – were found to have Covid-19 infections. Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok was by far the main entry point, with nearly 70% of all international arrivals passing through Thailand’s main […]

The story Thailand reopening sees 13,000 travellers, 10 Covid-19 infections as seen on Thaiger News.

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[gummy]

And of those how many were tourists I wonder ?

[ThailandBob]

And how many of the 10 were false positives I wonder?

[JamesEmanuel]

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

[BBY]

What about those people that have spent money to to satisfy the regulations, as has happened to a good friend of mine. He had a Pre approved COE rejected by their local Embassy (despite the FAQ intimating they wouldn’t) and told to re-apply for the Thailand Pass without having enough time (7 working days) to do so. Not much being said about that is there.

it doesn’t instill a great deal of faith in the system, or look good does it. Especially when you hear numbers like 65000 applications and only 12000 processed. 

Embassy’s should have been instructed to run the COE system alongside the Thailand Pass for at least a month or until a suitable point in time was reached.

A wrong turn at every corner. 
 

 

[Poolie]

1 hour ago, gummy said:

And of those how many were tourists I wonder ?

Loads!

[Soidog]

I don’t wish to point out the elephant in the room. However, the target is 300,000 per month or 10,000 per day. So by now, there should have been 40,000 arrivals. Even allowing for a slow start (even though everyone is just clambering to get to Thailand), 13,000 is just 32% of target. I’m sure it’s teething troubles and this will be made up in the coming days.

I’m sure they don’t need me to point out that if it doesn’t, then they will end up with 100,000 a month and only 200,000 by the end of the year against a published target of 700,000. Just sayin…

[vvdb.fr]

2 hours ago, JamesEmanuel said:

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

For my exemple : I arrived on November 4th from France, 2:00 pm pick-up test in Thailand. my test 72hrs was taken at 9:00 am on the 2nd november ... in 53 hours the disease has time to develop greatly. But I'm negative !

I booked my trip before change of scheme. I'm in 15 days SHA+.

The first people with Thailand Pass will arrive in 10 days

Edited November 5, 2021 by vvdb.fr

[ace035]

That's a good stats .075% out of 13,229 tested positive for COVID-19, we shall see some improvement for the next month. Hope it stays like that. Keep it up Thailand.

[ace035]

2 hours ago, JamesEmanuel said:

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

Who knows? Possibility unvax which require them to quarantine at least 10 days.

[Jason]

Sounds like it's best. To hold off for a bit, till the bugs are ironed out of it.

[BillPacker]

If there are 10 positive test results. What happens to the close contacts on the plane? No mention at all of what is happening. 

[Lowseasonlover]

1 minute ago, BillPacker said:

If there are 10 positive test results. What happens to the close contacts on the plane? No mention at all of what is happening. 

Tricky question, There was that German woman who was sat close to a guy who tested positive and she tested negative but still had to go into quarantine for 14 days at her expense. 

All her test came back negative, I think the same happened to 14 other passengers on that same flight, not everybody.

[RiffRaff64]

8 hours ago, JamesEmanuel said:

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

In my case, I test before I leave the states then fly to Tokyo for a 9 hour layover then on to BKK. It’s that 9 hour layover that is where you can pick up a virus. ‍

[DonG]

5 hours ago, ace035 said:

Who knows? Possibility unvax which require them to quarantine at least 10 days.

no test is 100%

[pascal]

hummmm does not looks good from my point of view. Europe is obviously reaching a 5 waves, too much uncertainty for everything, 13000 in 4 days is barely nothing , i don t think peoples are willing to travel in these conditions. All these borders re-opening offer a hope but it does look like smoke and mirror. seems we are far from the end of this crisis.

[palooka]

9 hours ago, gummy said:

And of those how many were tourists I wonder ?

None -they are all the uber rich rushing to get in first for the Prayut visa offer before he changes his mind again. 55555

 

 

[HiuMak]

1 hour ago, RiffRaff64 said:

In my case, I test before I leave the states then fly to Tokyo for a 9 hour layover then on to BKK. It’s that 9 hour layover that is where you can pick up a virus. ‍

if you are lucky, 9 minutes will do, you never know. Air travel is so dangerous now

[Malc-Thai]

10 hours ago, JamesEmanuel said:

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

You can be exposed to covid 2 or 3 days before your test to fly..

your test will most probably come back as negative. Then you fly 3 days later..

when you land it could be 6 and a half days from your exposure to covid and now the test will come back as positive..

also your first test may have been a false negative

[Saltire]

How many Thai returners were on these flights? No mention of them, but there has to be many.

Did any bring Covid home, they don't need the COE or Thailand Pass if I recall correctly?

How many of the 10 were perhaps Thai?

 

[Leeshard]

11 hours ago, JamesEmanuel said:

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

Because PCR tests are not reliable and were never designed to test for Covid-19. Last month my daughter paid 4,000 baht for a PCR test in preparation for flying to America. It came back positive the next day. In a panic she paid another 4,000 baht for another test. It came back negative on the day she was due to fly. Fortunately her flight was due to take off late evening otherwise she would have been stuffed.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Leeshard
Missing word

[Malc-Thai]

3 minutes ago, Saltire said:

How many Thai returners were on these flights? No mention of them, but there has to be many.

Did any bring Covid home, they don't need the COE or Thailand Pass if I recall correctly?

How many of the 10 were perhaps Thai?

I personally don't think these will ever get reported. The government want to flag wave at the success of tourists coming to Thailand and count every number they can.

Weather its thais returning,  married couples that live six months in each of their partners country's, expats returning to live in their condos..

They also don't report how many people get isolated that sat next or near to an infected person after the bad press from the German lady forced into 14 days quarantine at her expense and tested negative at every test.. 

One saving grace I could say,  is that the flights are not full, so at least not so many would be sitting too close to be forced into quarantine 

[JohninDublin]

18 hours ago, ThailandBob said:

And how many of the 10 were false positives I wonder?

Or false negatives? 

[JohninDublin]

17 hours ago, JamesEmanuel said:

How is it possible that you have to show a Negative Covid PCR test to be allowed to board a plane and then you test Positive when you arrive in Thailand?

How do they go from Negative to Positive in one day or less?

It's about "viral load". The original test may be up to 72 hours old by the time you board the flight (96 in some cases), and in it's earliest stages, the viral load might be too small to detect. That's why with HIV tests, you are told to take a second test 3 months later if you test negative first time around.

Of course if you become infected in transit, that is unlikely to be detected on arrival, and that was the reason for a secondary test within 7 days.

[JohninDublin]

15 hours ago, Soidog said:

I don’t wish to point out the elephant in the room. However, the target is 300,000 per month or 10,000 per day. So by now, there should have been 40,000 arrivals. Even allowing for a slow start (even though everyone is just clambering to get to Thailand), 13,000 is just 32% of target. I’m sure it’s teething troubles and this will be made up in the coming days.

I’m sure they don’t need me to point out that if it doesn’t, then they will end up with 100,000 a month and only 200,000 by the end of the year against a published target of 700,000. Just sayin…

Wondering how much the bureaucracy has impacted that? 

The scheme was announced about two weeks ago, and so far we have seen 1500 visitors arrived from both Germany and US on the back of what appears to be a needlessly complicated COE system. Did the TH foreign Ministry give the Embassies tasked with processing these, much in the way of extra resources?