News Forum - Tuesday Covid Update: 6,904 new cases and 61 deaths

[Thaiger]

6,904 new Covid-19 cases and 61 coronavirus-related deaths were reported today by the CCSA. In the 24-hour period since the last count, the CCSA has recorded 8,024 recoveries. There are now 97,244 people in Thailand being treated for Covid-19. In the latest and most severe wave of the virus, first recorded on April 1, the the CCSA has reported a total of 1,953,632 confirmed Covid-19 cases. Out of the new cases reported today, 258 were found in correctional facilities. More than 75,000 inmates in Thailand’s overcrowded prisons and detention centres have tested positive for Covid-19 over the past several months. […]

The story Tuesday Covid Update: 6,904 new cases and 61 deaths as seen on Thaiger News.

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[JohninDublin]

I am sure that plenty will tell me, not to believe the numbers because this is TH, but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months.

[Bob20]

35 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I am sure that plenty will tell me, not to believe the numbers because this is TH, but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months.

Hi John,

We don't just not believe, we know. Simply from the positive ATK's not being counted. Not even talking about villages and schools reported with high numbers, but not showing up in the stats at all...

And if they did more tests instead of the meager ~30k a day, I bet they'd find one or two more cases too

But if it puts you in a better mood, stay in tomorrow, put on your fave music loudly and don't read the papers or watch tellie.

With the right technique, tomorrow can be Covid free for you

[JohninDublin]

11 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

Hi John,

We don't just not believe, we know. Simply from the positive ATK's not being counted. Not even talking about villages and schools reported with high numbers, but not showing up in the stats at all...

And if they did more tests instead of the meager ~30k a day, I bet they'd find one or two more cases too

But if it puts you in a better mood, stay in tomorrow, put on your fave music loudly and don't read the papers or watch tellie.

With the right technique, tomorrow can be Covid free for you

You know, but what do you know? Would it be unreasonable of me to presume that the TH gov might have a formula of say declaring only 25% of all infections, in which case regardless of the exact figures we would at least see whether the figures are increasing or declining.

That's the real problem. Nobody believes the figures, but nobody can even begin to give a reasoned estimate of what the true figures are. Therefore I am inclined to believe that the figures are in decline, which does seem likely as a result of vaxxing, and I am grateful for this.

[Bob20]

18 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

You know, but what do you know? Would it be unreasonable of me to presume that the TH gov might have a formula of say declaring only 25% of all infections, in which case regardless of the exact figures we would at least see whether the figures are increasing or declining.

That's the real problem. Nobody believes the figures, but nobody can even begin to give a reasoned estimate of what the true figures are. Therefore I am inclined to believe that the figures are in decline, which does seem likely as a result of vaxxing, and I am grateful for this.

But would it not also be reasonable to assume that if they did 60k PCR-tests again, we'd see 15.000 cases, just like before.

Showing a higher rate of vaccination mostly with the virtually useless Sinovac (for Delta), which is embarrassing to admit.

If there are no cases, then why else are all those field hospitals, hide them away hotels and isolated homes full with ATK-positives? 

We agree that they manipulate the figures. I am just less inclined to believe it's for the good of the people, but more to try to save face over previous promises for which they try to provide accommodating numbers...

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, JohninDubin said:

I am sure that plenty will tell me, not to believe the numbers because this is TH, but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months.

It is like fairy tale. and do you believe in magic? Now you see it, now you don'T? 

[JohninDublin]

5 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

But would it not also be reasonable to assume that if they did 60k PCR-tests again, we'd see 15.000 cases, just like before. Showing a higher rate of vaccination mostly with the virtually useless Sinovac (for Delta). Why else are all those field hospitals, hide them away hotels and isolated homes full with ATK-positives? 

We agree that there manipulation of the figures. I am just less intent to believe it's for the good of the people, but more to try to save face over previous promises for which they try to provide accommodating numbers...

I find myself exasperated with being told the numbers cannot be believed, when nobody can supply a reasoned explanation of what are the true numbers. Of course you can't believe the numbers, but I'm inclined to believe that if numbers were increasing at a time when they are reported as being in decline, sooner or later a whistle-blower will come forward.

During the meantime, is it not unreasonable to believe that in country where there is still much mask-wearing and people tending to be more observant of social distancing, with bars and many other social gatherings still banned, and the amount of vaxxing that has been taking place, might have contributed to a decline in the number of reported infections?

It seems to me that the recurrent theme from so many is "we can't believe the numbers". Fair enough! But does that mean that they cannot be in decline?

[JohninDublin]

5 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

It is like fairy tale. and do you believe in magic? Now you see it, now you don'T? 

See my reply to @Bob20immediately below your post.

[Bob20]

2 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I find myself exasperated with being told the numbers cannot be believed, when nobody can supply a reasoned explanation of what are the true numbers. Of course you can't believe the numbers, but I'm inclined to believe that if numbers were increasing at a time when they are reported as being in decline, sooner or later a whistle-blower will come forward.

During the meantime, is it not unreasonable to believe that in country where there is still much mask-wearing and people tending to be more observant of social distancing, with bars and many other social gatherings still banned, and the amount of vaxxing that has been taking place, might have contributed to a decline in the number of reported infections?

It seems to me that the recurrent theme from so many is "we can't believe the numbers". Fair enough! But does that mean that they cannot be in decline?

We tend to believe the opposite and for neither there is concrete evidence as all numbers come from the same unreliable source.

You happily focus on the advantages of seeing a more open country and lower reported numbers.

I angrily focus more on the countless clusters and higher infection numbers outside BKK and think they let go too early and manufacture lower numbers.

So best we agree to disagree

[mickkotlarski]

1 hour ago, JohninDubin said:

I am sure that plenty will tell me, not to believe the numbers because this is TH, but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months.

Hi John

In myself you have a sympathizer. Like yourself I have been badmouthed by other forum members and one was bluntly rude. But even with all the grey areas associated in obtaining these statistics the numbers are dropping across the board. 

The situation can change but must optimism and hope be killed off so someone can show their keyboard bravado.

The fact is that governing bodies, medical institutions and travel authorities will use these statistics in on the fly decisions that affect us all personally.

[JohninDublin]

Hi back at you.

It seems that so often when I post something about the improving data out of TH, it gets challenged along the lines of "You can't trust the figures from the TH gov". The irony is that most of them are pro-vax so the idea that things can't be improving after the administration of over 40 mill jabs, appears to be ironic.

Do I believe the TH gov figures are accurate? Not by a long way. Do I believe that in all the circumstances, especially the vax roll-out, that things are improving in TH? Definitely. The two are not mutually exclusive.

[Malc-Thai]

45 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I find myself exasperated with being told the numbers cannot be believed, when nobody can supply a reasoned explanation of what are the true numbers. Of course you can't believe the numbers, but I'm inclined to believe that if numbers were increasing at a time when they are reported as being in decline, sooner or later a whistle-blower will come forward.

During the meantime, is it not unreasonable to believe that in country where there is still much mask-wearing and people tending to be more observant of social distancing, with bars and many other social gatherings still banned, and the amount of vaxxing that has been taking place, might have contributed to a decline in the number of reported infections?

It seems to me that the recurrent theme from so many is "we can't believe the numbers". Fair enough! But does that mean that they cannot be in decline?

John what were your thoughts on the news feed about, doctors complain to the health authority for not recording antigen tests.. when the daily official report quoted over 10k positive tests from pcr testing, but 10k antigen tests were not recorded on the daily total.it would have been double that was actually recorded

Sorry can't find the news link on here but was posted on the thaiger

[JohninDublin]

17 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

John what were your thoughts on the news feed about, doctors complain to the health authority for not recording antigen tests.. when the daily official report quoted over 10k positive tests from pcr testing, but 10k antigen tests were not recorded on the daily total.it would have been double that was actually recorded

Sorry can't find the news link on here but was posted on the thaiger

My post is not about believing the numbers. I said in my opening post that this is what people would focus on in response to me. My post is about whether I believe that things are getting better in TH. So if I had to give you an answer, it would be that in spite of that issue, I still think that matters are improving. With over 40 mill vaxxes to date, why wouldn't matters be improving?

[Malc-Thai]

5 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

My post is not about believing the numbers. I said in my opening post that this is what people would focus on in response to me. My post is about whether I believe that things are getting better in TH. So if I had to give you an answer, it would be that in spite of that issue, I still think that matters are improving. With over 40 mill vaxxes to date, why wouldn't matters be improving?

"but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months."

Ah sorry must have misunderstood this 

[JohninDublin]

2 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

"but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months."

Ah sorry must have misunderstood this 

No problem.

[Bob20]

18 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

"but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months."

Ah sorry must have misunderstood this 

Did you maybe forget this at the end: ? 

[billywillyjones]

1 hour ago, JohninDubin said:

Hi back at you.

It seems that so often when I post something about the improving data out of TH, it gets challenged along the lines of "You can't trust the figures from the TH gov". The irony is that most of them are pro-vax so the idea that things can't be improving after the administration of over 40 mill jabs, appears to be ironic.

Do I believe the TH gov figures are accurate? Not by a long way. Do I believe that in all the circumstances, especially the vax roll-out, that things are improving in TH? Definitely. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The bottom line is things are improving partly due to vaccines and partly due to this panicdemic virus is not as deadly as many have screamed about for month.  They just don't want to admit that things are not as bad as they have been led to believe.

[MikeW]

I wonder why sa kaeo jumped so high did they just test more people 

[9S_]

3 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

I am sure that plenty will tell me, not to believe the numbers because this is TH, but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months.

ATK has be known to show false positives. A school tested their students and found 90 students infected with Covid. But when they went to the hospital no students were tested positive with RT-PCR tests. 
 

[9S_]

21 minutes ago, billywillyjones said:

The bottom line is things are improving partly due to vaccines and partly due to this panicdemic virus is not as deadly as many have screamed about for month.  They just don't want to admit that things are not as bad as they have been led to believe.

India followed the same path. They had that crazy peak and cases gradually lowered

[Stonker]

4 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

I find myself exasperated with being told the numbers cannot be believed, when nobody can supply a reasoned explanation of what are the true numbers. 

 

2 hours ago, billywillyjones said:

The bottom line is things are improving partly due to vaccines and partly due to this panicdemic virus is not as deadly as many have screamed about for month.  They just don't want to admit that things are not as bad as they have been led to believe.

 

4 hours ago, mickkotlarski said:

Hi John

In myself you have a sympathizer. Like yourself I have been badmouthed by other forum members and one was bluntly rude. But even with all the grey areas associated in obtaining these statistics the numbers are dropping across the board. 

The situation can change but must optimism and hope be killed off so someone can show their keyboard bravado.

Spot on, although I don't agree with @billywilllyjones about the virus being 'not as deadly' as it's not just about deaths.

While I don't think the figures are correct, no-one has ever put forward a shred of evidence to show that they've been "manipulated" and all the verifiable figures such as excess deaths show not only that the trend is down but that some 'estimates' of cases and deaths have been wildly exaggerated.

Excess deaths over the last 18 months have been consistently around double the rate of known Covid deaths, apart from a brief period during lockdown and curfew when they dropped to a negative.

That's about average world-wide, and a lot less than some (which are up to thirty to a hundred times) and less than Hong Kong (10x) or the Philippines (3x).

Even at double the rate, which is unlikely according to the excess rate studies as Thailand hasn't had an extended strict lockdown which would make other deaths drop - and other deaths may well have risen as an indirect result due to pressure on the health service and people avoiding hospitals.

That's not so much my view, as the general view in all the excess death studies.

Rates are obviously particularly high in Chiang Mai, but taking serious cases out of province seems to have been misunderstood by some as being a sign of things getting out of control when it's the reverse.   It's not a forced move, but  is actually just unusually sensible contingency planning on the part of the provincial authorities - possibly because they had time to prepare and to learn from mistakes elsewhere.

Only two 'regular' hospitals in Chiang Mai have suitable ICU facilities for Covid cases, so rather than try to temporarily convert the others and fill all the Chiang Mai hospitals up with Covid patients to the detriment of normal patients, Chiang Mai has kept the other ICUs and most hospital beds available for those normal patients by the simple expedient of moving serious Covid cases to neighbouring provinces that already have suitable ICU facilities they're not using.

At the same time, rather than quarantine mild to moderate cases in hospitals unnecessarily, again to the detriment of normal patients, those who can't quarantine at home have been isolated in hotels and field hospitals  - with the latter effectively just being mass isolation and observation centres rather than 'hospitals' - again keeping capacity available for other normal patients.

Rather than knee jerk reaction to numbers that got out of hand, it all makes sound medical and common sense -  particularly if you read what the experts on the ground have to say.

Are the numbers dropping across Thailand?

Well, that's not only what the government  figures show but that's what all other figures such as excess deaths and numbers on ventilators indicate too.

Why? Not because of government controls, because there aren't any, but because most individuals are still masking and distancing giving a breathing space for effective vaccines to finally be distributed - my province (Loei) has walk-in AZ + Pfizer (1 + 1) at local hospitals for anyone for the next three days.

It's by no means over and time for tea and medals, and I don't think that'll happen until Songkran time, but unless the rush to open bars, entertainment and travel for 'tourism' sets everything back - which is quite likely - then things are looking up.

[JohninDublin]

18 minutes ago, Stonker said:

Spot on, although I don't agree with @billywilllyjones about the virus being 'not as deadly' as it's not just about deaths.

While I don't think the figures are correct, no-one has ever put forward a shred of evidence to show that they've been "manipulated" and all the verifiable figures such as excess deaths show not only that the trend is down but that some 'estimates' of cases and deaths have been wildly exaggerated.

Excess deaths over the last 18 months have been consistently around double the rate of known Covid deaths, apart from a brief period during lockdown and curfew when they dropped to a negative.

That's about average world-wide, and a lot less than some (which are up to thirty to a hundred times) and less than Hong Kong (10x) or the Philippines (3x).

Even at double the rate, which is unlikely according to the excess rate studies as Thailand hasn't had an extended strict lockdown which would make other deaths drop - and other deaths may well have risen as an indirect result due to pressure on the health service and people avoiding hospitals.

That's not so much my view, as the general view in all the excess death studies.

Rates are obviously particularly high in Chiang Mai, but taking serious cases out of province seems to have been misunderstood by some as being a sign of things getting out of control when it's the reverse.   It's not a forced move, but  is actually just unusually sensible contingency planning on the part of the provincial authorities - possibly because they had time to prepare and to learn from mistakes elsewhere.

Only two 'regular' hospitals in Chiang Mai have suitable ICU facilities for Covid cases, so rather than try to temporarily convert the others and fill all the Chiang Mai hospitals up with Covid patients to the detriment of normal patients, Chiang Mai has kept the other ICUs and most hospital beds available for normal patients by the simple expedient of moving serious cases to neighbouring provinces that already have suitable ICU facilities they're not using.

At the same time, rather than quarantine mild to moderate cases in hospitals unnecessarily, again to the detriment of normal patients, those who can't quarantine at home have been isolated in hotels and field hospitals  - with the latter effectively just being mass isolation and observation centres rather than 'hospitals'.

Rather than knee jerk reaction to numbers that got out of hand, it all makes sound medical and common sense -  particularly if you read what the experts on the ground said.

Are the numbers dropping across Thailand?

Well, that's not only what the government  figures show but that's what all other figures such as excess deaths and numbers on ventilators indicate too.

Why? Not because of government controls, because there aren't any, but because most individuals are still masking and distancing giving a breathing space for effective vaccines to finally be distributed - my province (Loei) has walk-in AZ + Pfizer (1 + 1) at local hospitals for anyone for the next three days.

It's by no means over and time for tea and medals, and I don't think that'll happen until Songkran time, but unless the rush to open bars, entertainment and travel for 'tourism' sets everything back - which is quite likely - then things are looking up.

A very well-reasoned explanation of why it's possible to believe that the numbers, whatever they may be, are in decline. Of course that doesn't mean that either of us are correct about that, but there are plausible reasons why we have the same conclusions, even if we did arrive at them by different routes.

Incidentally, just found out that Europe is (based on last 7 days) reporting 16x per capita, the infection rates of Asia. Of course, Europe is close to fully open, which is perhaps one very good reason why TH should not be in too much of a rush to reopen the bars.

[Stonker]

20 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

A very well-reasoned explanation of why it's possible to believe that the numbers, whatever they may be, are in decline. Of course that doesn't mean that either of us are correct about that, but there are plausible reasons why we have the same conclusions, even if we did arrive at them by different routes.

Incidentally, just found out that Europe is (based on last 7 days) reporting 16x per capita, the infection rates of Asia. Of course, Europe is close to fully open, which is perhaps one very good reason why TH should not be in too much of a rush to reopen the bars.

Thanks.

Look at any of the sites on excess deaths, as you have also, and they all warn very strongly about taking the figures out of context, and explain why relating them to specifics such as lockdowns, hospital beds, health service stretch, etc., can increase or reduce the figure without it being directly related to Covid.

As you say, there's no definitive way of saying which conclusion and what numbers are correct - unless you test everybody every fortnight, as the experts have always said - but it's the only conclusion which is supported by all the available evidence and contradicted by none.

..... and I think we're in complete agreement that rushing in to opening everything up, with or without international tourists, just can't be a risk worth taking yet.

[Soidog]

9 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

I am sure that plenty will tell me, not to believe the numbers because this is TH, but I am delighted to see that TH is below 7k cases for the first time in over 4 months.

To be honest John, I’ve given up debating the data now. It’s simply a waste of time given the access we have to the data. The differences in what test data is collected and the definition of death from Covid.
 

All I will do is list a few key numbers and make a few comments or observations. I will compare the U.K. with Thailand for no other reason that they have similar populations. 
 

Tests performed daily :

UK - 720,000  Thailand -38,000 

Daily positive cases:

UK 38,000  Thailand 8,000

Daily deaths:

Uk 117  Thailand 75

Percentage of tests confirmed positive: 

U.K. - 5%.  Thailand 20%

Double vaccination rate: 

U.K. 79.5%. Thailand 49%

So what does all the above tell us?

The fully vaccinated rate in the U.K. is 30% higher than Thailand with AZ and Pfizer and yet it has 4.5 times as many infected people and 56% more daily deaths. The U.K. tests over 20 times as many people as Thailand and yet it’s percentage of positive tests is 1 in every 20 test, whereas Thailand is 1 in every 5 test  

What could be causing this seemingly counterintuitive set of data?

Higher population Density in U.K. 

The U.K. has been fully opened longer and things like the wearing of face masks, social distancing and limitations on the numbers attending gatherings has largely been removed. 

The U.K. weather is colder. 

The UK population is more mobile with many more people commuting daily.  

Could these factors be the reason for the apparent disconnect? Possibly? 

 

[HiuMak]

20 hours ago, Thaiger said:

6,904 new Covid-19 cases and 61 coronavirus-related deaths were reported today by the CCSA.

This is my daily lottery number