News Forum - 6 more Covid-19 infected tourist on the run from Koh Chang

[Soidog]

On 1/8/2022 at 11:37 PM, gundam0315 said:

it's really hard to say i think.  When foreigners hang out in areas and see locals not following rules (i've seen many videos of locals breaking their own rules), foreigners probably think (well if they aren't wearing masks why should i? =, etc).  The blame game is passed on and on and someone just needs someone to blame so they don't get in trouble.  

This is a never ending cycle of lockdowns and restrictions, they just need to be done with it and open everything back up and move on but guess what.. they won't do that because the ones making the rules are profiting the most of this situation.  

 

It’s odd how this notion of “ tourists and Foreigners” and “locals” only seems to apply in places like Asia, Central America and Middle East. If an Ethnic Chinese or even Thai  was walking around New York without a mask, no one would even notice them as a  “ tourist or foreigner”. It’s this ingrained “them and us” attitude based on skin colour and appearance in many of these countries that generates the divide. So when there is ANY problem, the people involved are segmented. It can be a car accident, bad manners at a food buffet, a theft or wearing of a mask. The media in Thailand do it all the time. Whenever a “foreigner” is involved, it’s called out. “A foreigner escaped quarantine”. Not “A man left quarantine early”. “Two foreigners were engaged in a fight”. Not “Two men were engaged in a fight”. These are headlines rarely seen in western media. 
 

I know an American guy who was only 6 months old when he was taken to Thailand by his American parents on holiday. His mum got killed in a swimming accident and his father ended up staying and marrying a Thai. Just a year later his father died of a heart attack and so from the age of 18 months he was brought up by a Thai family. The guy doesn’t speak English and works as a casual labourer when he can. His step mother and father recently paid for him to get English lessons and I helped them contact the US embassy in an attempt to locate any remaining family in the US. The reason being, that the guy is treated so badly by the society he’s spent his entire life in, simply because he doesn’t look Thai. I think in the west, we refer to this as racism! 

Many people on this forum perpetuate and excuse this attitude. Many simply virtue signalling or trying to look enlightened in to Thai ways compared to others, or simply trying to appear favourable to the views of the country they now find themselves essentially stuck in. 

 

[DesperateOldHand]

2 hours ago, Soidog said:

It’s odd how this notion of “ tourists and Foreigners” and “locals” only seems to apply in places like Asia, Central America and Middle East. If an Ethnic Chinese or even Thai  was walking around New York without a mask, no one would even notice them as a  “ tourist or foreigner”. It’s this ingrained “them and us” attitude based on skin colour and appearance in many of these countries that generates the divide. So when there is ANY problem, the people involved are segmented. It can be a car accident, bad manners at a food buffet, a theft or wearing of a mask. The media in Thailand do it all the time. Whenever a “foreigner” is involved, it’s called out. “A foreigner escaped quarantine”. Not “A man left quarantine early”. “Two foreigners were engaged in a fight”. Not “Two men were engaged in a fight”. These are headlines rarely seen in western media. 
 

I know an American guy who was only 6 months old when he was taken to Thailand by his American parents on holiday. His mum got killed in a swimming accident and his father ended up staying and marrying a Thai. Just a year later his father died of a heart attack and so from the age of 18 months he was brought up by a Thai family. The guy doesn’t speak English and works as a casual labourer when he can. His step mother and father recently paid for him to get English lessons and I helped them contact the US embassy in an attempt to locate any remaining family in the US. The reason being, that the guy is treated so badly by the society he’s spent his entire life in, simply because he doesn’t look Thai. I think in the west, we refer to this as racism! 

Many people on this forum perpetuate and excuse this attitude. Many simply virtue signalling or trying to look enlightened in to Thai ways compared to others, or simply trying to appear favourable to the views of the country they now find themselves essentially stuck in. 

Why can't they be like us? 

[Soidog]

On 1/8/2022 at 12:07 PM, Raymond said:

Why don’t the hotels hold their passports until the tests come back positive?? It should hold them in place. 

There are problems with unauthorised persons taking your passport and in some countries they will penalise you for handing your passport to unauthorised people. A passport is not technically your property and hence it is not for you to hand it to people without proper authorisation. I would think a better idea is to take a cash deposit which is returned on proper departure. 

[LoongFred]

On 1/9/2022 at 6:33 AM, Soidog said:

Is that the same entitlement as the Thais who open bars serving a few snacks to claim to be a restaurant? Or the same entitlement as as the Thai police who turn a blind eye to bars and. Kind breaking Covid rules? I’m just wondering why it’s only these stupid rule breaking foreigners who are entitled simply because they broke Covid rules? 

The subject was tourists breaking  quarantine and why they do it. It's not nice of you to change subjects to police corruption. Foreigners apparently didn't follow the simple rules and should be shown the door and fined.

[BlueSphinx]

On 1/8/2022 at 2:01 PM, Lifeboat said:

The latest from CDC

Prior to Monday, people who were fully vaccinated — which the CDC has defined as having two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — could be exempt from quarantine.

Those who are both fully vaccinated and boosted do not need to quarantine if they are a close contact of someone with COVID, but should wear a mask for at least 10 days after exposure. The same goes for those who are fully vaccinated and not yet eligible for their booster shot.

... and important - you forgot to mention that in the US a PCR-test is NOT needed anymore, because the the CDC has finally admitted (what they knew already long time) that the PCR-test cannot distinguish between the virus and debris of earlier infection, and the later will be picked up by the test for as long as TWELVE WEEKS after recovery.  So if you recovered from previous infection almost 3 months ago, chances are high that the PCR-test will give a positive result.  And with mild Omicron spreading like wildfire (often with people not even realizing they are infected due to the mild cold-like symptoms) the CDC does not require that unreliable test anymore.

And this begs the question why the Thai authorities are still using that test. 

Also do note that the article once again branded the six as infected and contagious, while the reality is that their test showed a positive result which can be due to a variety of reasons when you are not sick or infected (e.g. recovery from previous infection, faulty test-methodology or incorrect test-result).   And that probably thousands of Thais are currently Omicron-infected without even realizing it due to the mild cold-like symptoms.

[Soidog]

On 1/14/2022 at 12:53 PM, LoongFred said:

The subject was tourists breaking  quarantine and why they do it. It's not nice of you to change subjects to police corruption. Foreigners apparently didn't follow the simple rules and should be shown the door and fined.

I didn’t change the subject. The subject relates to a tourist and how the police treated it. You would expect, wouldn’t you, for the police to actually follow the rules they are supposed to be policing. It’s not nice of them when they bend the rules to suit themselves