Tourism
Medical chief in favour of re-opening borders, calls zero cases target unrealistic
A senior Thai medical professional has confirmed he’s in favour of Thailand re-opening its borders, saying attempting to maintain zero cases of Covid-19 is “unrealistic”. Somsak Akksilp, from the Department of Medical Services, insists the country is adequately prepared in the event of a resurgence of the virus and, with no date set for vaccine availability, the country must move on.
“We cannot afford to maintain zero cases forever. We need to re-open the country. The country must move forward, and people have jobs to do. This means we may have to see a small number of infections, but if we work together to prevent them, the country will be able to achieve a balance between public health and the economy.”
Somsak is confident the nation’s hospitals have enough beds to treat Covid-19 patients if necessary, adding that the public can have faith in the country’s healthcare system.
“We have upgraded our medical system. We won the first round because of the trust between the people and doctors. We believe we will get through this.”
He was speaking as the Public Health Ministry seeks to reduce the quarantine period for foreign tourists to 10 days initially and, if that proves successful, to 7 days for arrivals from “low-risk” countries. However, Interior Minister, Anupong Paojinda, says more research is required before this can happen.
The chairman of the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation echoes Somsak’s claim that Thailand can handle a fresh outbreak of Covid-19. Sophon Mekthon says there are sufficient supplies of PPE and Thailand has the ability to produce more if necessary.
The Bangkok Post reports that the Department of Disease Control says it has the necessary manpower to control the spread of the virus. It’s understood the DDC plans to triple the 1,000 rapid investigation teams currently in place, in order to curtail any potential spread of the virus and reduce the death rate to below 1.4%.
Meanwhile, the arrival of Thailand’s first tourists in over 6 months, scheduled to take place in Phuket this week, has been pushed back. A group of 120 Chinese visitors arriving under the Special Tourist Visa scheme were supposed to land yesterday, but their much-anticipated arrival has been delayed, for reasons that are not entirely clear.
Officials have been vague on the delay, at one point blaming paperwork issues associated with the STV, but later saying the delay was to avoid deterring anxious Thai tourists from travelling to Phuket for the Vegetarian Festival. Yuthasak Supasorn from the Tourism Authority of Thailand insists the foreign visitors will arrive by the end of the month.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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9 new Covid-19 cases were detected in Thai quarantine facilities, including a patient who may have been infected with the virus a second time, or never fully recovered, according to the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration. Most of the cases were army engineers travelling from South Sudan.
Thailand’s total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases is now at 3,700 with 3,491 recoveries and 59 deaths. 150 people are still receiving medical treatment.
- 6 army engineers, ages 25 to 49, travelling from South Sudan tested positive for Covid-19. They arrived on October 12 and they tested positive 3 days later while in quarantine in Chon Buri. They were admitted to Phramongkutklao Hospital in Bangkok.
- 2 people travelling from the United Arab Emirates tested positive for Covid-19. They both arrived in Thailand on October 9 and tested positive 7 days later. A 25 year old masseuse was first diagnosed with Covid-19 on September 1. After arriving in Thailand, she reported symptoms of a cough and headache. She was quarantined in Bangkok and admitted to the Central Chest Institute in the Nonthaburi province, just outside Bangkok, for treatment. A 22 year old student tested positive while quarantined in Bangkok. He was also admitted to the Central Chest Institute.
- A 26 year old woman travelling from Oman tested positive for Covid-19. She arrived on October 14 and tested positive for the virus 4 days later. She was quarantined in Chon Buri and then admitted to a hospital in Samut Prakan.
Daily new Covid-19 cases in Thailand
Daily new Covid-19 cases in Thailand as of October 19, according to Worldometers.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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Coronavirus (Covid-19)
50% of Thailand’s population to get Covid-19 vaccine when available – Health Minister
Half the population in Thailand will be injected with the Covid-19 vaccine once it’s released and available to the public, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul says. Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca are conducting trails of the new vaccine. Thailand is planned to be the Southeast Asia production site for the new vaccine.
The health minister says the vaccine will be first used on Thai nationals who are in their mid-60s and then the ministry will work to make sure at least 50% of the population is injected with the vaccine.
The Public Health Ministry is also going through the World Health Organisation’s COVAX facility to make sure there is a sufficient supply of a vaccine. The ministry’s deputy permanent secretary Supakit Sirilak says about 65 million doses will be needed for Thailand, adding that 40% will be reserved with COVAX, 40% will go to AstraZeneca and 20% will go to other sources.
Siam Bioscience will be producing the vaccine in Thailand. Director of the National Vaccine Institute Nakorn Premsri says they have the potential to produce up to 200 million doses. Production is expected to start in mid-2021.
“Once the technology transfer agreement is signed, the Thai side will have to be trained on production processes. AstraZeneca’s vaccine is expected to pass Phase 3 testing and production should start in December. After that it needs to register with the FDA in the UK and Thailand, before we can start producing the vaccine mid next year.”
SOURCE: Nation Thailand
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“We were really hoping to crater the cases in preparation for a bad winter. We’ve done basically the opposite.”
New Covid-19 cases are again surging in many countries. Globally, the number of infected people exceeded 40 million as of last night with new infections starting to accelerate again. Today the total number of confirmed cases around the world is 40,323,461. The number of total deaths remains at 1,118,826 and recovered patients at 30,135,040 (as of 4pm Thai time).
Notably, the death rate from Covid-19 is not rising as treatment for complicated cases continues to rapidly improve. The US, India, Russia, Brazil, the rest of South America, and parts of Europe and the UK, are the current ‘hot spots’ (below).
In the US, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says following public health measures is the way out of the crisis that has hobbled the economy, claimed thousands of lives and sickened millions.
“The predicted fall surge is here, and rising cases across the US appear to bear that out.”
The US is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day, and 10 states reported their highest single-day cases counts last Friday. As of this morning, US time, there were more than 8.5 million cases and 219,674 coronavirus deaths, according to Worldometers.info
“The Covid-19 crisis would have to be ‘really, really bad’ to implement a national lockdown. Despite the climbing totals, a nationwide lockdown is not the way forward unless the pandemic gets “really, really bad.”
Tara Smith, a professor of epidemiology at Kent State University says the worst fears of rising cases, leading into winter, are being realised.
“We were really hoping to crater the cases in preparation for a bad winter. We’ve done basically the opposite.”
After hitting an all-time high in July, cases did drop significantly, but the US never reached a level where the public health system could truly get a handle on the outbreak or describe it as ‘contained’.
Now infections are on the rise again, driven by ballooning outbreaks across the country’s interior, especially in the Midwest, the Great Plains and the West.
Contributing to the rise is the return of students to schools and campuses across the country, puzzling resistance to social distancing and mask wearing recommendations, and more people spending time in restaurants and other indoor settings as the weather starts to cool down.
SOURCE: worldometers.info | nor.org
TABLE: worldometers.com
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Paul
October 9, 2020 at 9:42 am
Finally.. we see a break through.. Of course this is the most logic thing to do. We can not live in a bubble for ever. The rest of the world is moving on.
patty
October 9, 2020 at 9:47 am
Finally, someone with common sense. Whether the idiot Prayut will listen or not is a different story. Probably not as he has his muppet doctor from the CCSA
Brian Dunbar
October 9, 2020 at 9:53 am
My sentiments exactly!! If this virus is going to be around for a long time, it is time to accept that and get things going again even though it may be too late.
Issan John
October 9, 2020 at 9:58 am
I agree with him that “zero cases” has to be over-optimistic, and that there has to be a “balance”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean reducing quarantine.
Thailand’s got it right so far and, for once, is showing that its policies are among the best in the world – let’s hope greed and the selfish few don’t betray that and cost people their lives.
Andre
October 10, 2020 at 12:10 am
How come so many Thais from sars-cov-2 free Thailand arrive in Japan testing positive for Covid-19? It cannot be that there actually is local transmissions going on? Might have been going on all the time since the first person outside of China tested positive for the virus in Thailand? The climate conditions in Thailand if very favorable in regards to corona virus survival.
Don R
October 9, 2020 at 9:58 am
Sounds sensible, but I’ve lost all hope in Asia as a tourist destination in the near future. Even if borders opened by the end of the year, most of the dystopian policies, irrational fear, and distrust will remain for years. It simply won’t be a pleasant place to visit for many years.
The damage is already done, and the fear of covid has been programmed into the population. Perhaps in a few years, a new crisis will grab people’s attention, and they’ll gradually start to forget about covid. Maybe an economic crisis that brings real hardship, as opposed to a flu virus that mostly effects the elderly…
murika
October 9, 2020 at 10:01 am
they clearly say they sacrifice 1.4 % of their population for money, about 1 millions people, and it’s in the best case scenario. meanwhile 20% gdp lost will not kill 1 million people, it’s a sacrifice for the god of money, meanwhile their is banana, coconut, manioc, fish, wild chicken, and many other free food all over the jungle of the country, nobody starve here, this is motivated by money and pushed by the billionaires hotels owners who don’t care for a millions lives
Fabian
October 9, 2020 at 1:00 pm
They clearly say they have a plan to keep the death rate below 1,4%. That means that out of 1000 people with Covid a maximum of 14 people will die (1,4% is already high, they can go much lower still).
You suggest *everyone* would get Covid, which is very unrealistic. That hasn’t happened in any country yet.
murika
October 9, 2020 at 2:07 pm
did i miss something or the virus has stopped spreading ? at the rate it mutate it will at one point reach everyone of us, because immunity will not happened. Unless a vaccine is found witch is highly unprobeable again because of the mutation rate of it. the famous french professor Raoult a world renown epidemiologist just said a few days ago that a new mutated strain with is much more aggressive has just been identified, their is a reason all those borders are closed, it’s not because polics are bad persons and enjoy make it citizen suffer like a lot of people claim, AND actually the global death rate is more close to 4%, witch would mean more than 2 millions thai people death, only thai governement comes with a make up number of 1.7%, based on what study ? are holidays more important ?
Fabian
October 9, 2020 at 2:44 pm
You make all kinds of doom assumptions. I can say it’s just as likely what we all because we are all killing the planet (not too many people seem worried about that).
Professor Raoult said the new virus strain spreads more easily but the mortality rate is lower. That could actually be a good thing because maybe that way many people develop immunity against a more dangerous strain too (although I’m not sure about this).
That 4% is completely false.
“Fauci and other public health experts have since put the COVID-19 death rate at about 0.6% — six times that of a typical flu season — which is the latest CDC projection.”
The number is getting lower and lower because the treatment is getting better and better.
Jayce
October 9, 2020 at 9:00 pm
You’re making the classic mistake of confusing case fatality rate with infection fatality rate.
The infection fatality rate (I.e. people who get infected but don’t turn into a hospitalized case) has a lot lower mortality than even the 1.4% mentioned.
The case fatality rate might be 1.4% but can’t be applied to the total population as only 30% (depending on the country’s age composition) of the total population would be at higher risk of becoming a hospitalized case…
murika
October 9, 2020 at 11:36 pm
CLOSED CASES
28,849,016 Cases which had an outcome:
27,779,592 (96%) Recovered / Discharged
1,069,424 (4%) Deaths
Jayce
October 13, 2020 at 6:27 pm
Murika, you’re basically reinforcing my point with those numbers: they are CASE fatality rates, it says so in the name when you say closed CASES.
The INFECTION fatality rate is much much lower than that
Albert Zweistein
October 10, 2020 at 5:25 am
No nobody starve here but soon the banks will start knocking on doors to collect the unpaid loans for cars and credit card debts.
Toby Andrews
October 9, 2020 at 10:41 am
They do not want tourists – that is up to them, but the property market will collapse.
Investment will cease. foreign money will flee.
They will become a pariah country, shunned by business.
Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaya, and Laos, will take what was once Thailands.
TS
October 9, 2020 at 11:10 am
and the baht will collape?🙏
alkor
October 9, 2020 at 2:59 pm
It will as 1GBP will be at 50THB in the near future….
Don R
October 10, 2020 at 2:06 pm
I agree that Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar are well positioned to steal Thailand’s massive tourist market. However, this assumes they don’t share the irrational fear of the virus that Thais have.
As for Malaysia, there’s zero chance they’ll open to tourists. Malaysia is already much wealthier than Thailand. Surveys show Malaysians have the highest level of Rona fear of almost any country in the world.
Vietnam too seems unlikely to open, as fear of the virus runs deep there.
IMO, Asia is finished as a tourist destination. They’re not backing down from the fear campaign, which means even when things open it will be an unpleasant place to visit.
Nipral
October 9, 2020 at 11:48 am
In any case the coming high season and at least the next one are lost for Thailand.
This brainless government has ample time to select comities, sub-comities, sub-sub-comities
to design more moronic schemes that make our joy reading but will never work.
Thailand is to be forgotten for international tourism for many years to come.
Hotels, restaurants, retailers, manufacturers etc… will suffer countless bankruptcies,
the economy will collapse, people will keep starving.
And the zero case stupid and unrealistic objective will never be reached.
Thai excellence !!!
Don R
October 10, 2020 at 2:10 pm
Agreed. Time to look for greener pastures. And I think it’s long over due.
viktor
October 9, 2020 at 3:47 pm
can someone enlighten me on the following:
during the so called corona time over 6 month,
about 60 people have died and the country
has closed all borders….yet in one weekend alone
59 people died in raod accidents, but no closure
of any roads, to protect people, has been ordered.
if the death toll on roads accidents os by far greater
then the death toll of influencia, why is the goverment
not able to use the same meassures to ensure road safety ?
Don R
October 10, 2020 at 2:13 pm
Because the media doesn’t hammer fear of traffic accidents into people’s heads non-stop for 9 month straight, thus people tolerate the risk and pack a whole family of 4 onto a 120cc motorbike.
Same thing with tobacco which kills 7 million every year.
Thomas
October 9, 2020 at 3:49 pm
How come? Running out of money? Remember only Farang dirty, not the money. The only places without Covid are a few island nations and North Korea, and of course Thailand. Nothing is low risk; ever crossed a street in Bangkok on foot? That scares me, not the virus.
wendy rigotti
October 9, 2020 at 10:15 pm
we are in the usa and have been in lock down at home since we got back from Thailand in early march.we own a house in hua hin and are trying our hardest to get back. we have no problem with quarentine testing or down loading apps to phone .please let us back in.we have a large bank account in bank of bangkok and want to buy 2 scooters and a car as soon as we can .
west tiger
October 10, 2020 at 1:18 am
The country needs to open quick to save the economy and save the country