News Forum - Health Ministry predicts infections will fall to 5,000 a day by end of October

[Soidog]

7 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

I really like that you can excuse them for it.

Wanna go for a meal tonight?

My treat!

Unless I don't bring any money

I’m mellowing in my old age @Bob20

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

13 minutes ago, Bob20 said:

Yes, if they keep adding facilities they can control the percentiles, but not the actual numbers.

I’m talking about the 35 ICU bed numbers that haven’t changed, when they have had a daily death rate of 2 on average. Phuket only has 49 ICU beds. Maybe ICU is the safest place on Phuket?

[JohninDublin]

9 minutes ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

But that never happens ….. prime example for this is the reported ICU cases in Phuket over the last two weeks.

As I wrote previously, one possible explanation for that is that there are only 35 ICU beds n Phuket. Thus as one person dies or recovers, that bed is filled by someone on a waiting list. Defining the number of ICU beds, does not define the numbers who actually need ICU treatment. Therefore the numbers cannot actually increase, and can only decline when beds exceed the numbers needing ICU falls below 35.

OTOH, if you were to tell me that you think or know that the people needing ICU beds in Phuket, was a lot more than 35, I'd probably agree with you. Any area that a couple of months ago was reporting cases in single figures, and these rapidly shoot up to 200+, has probably got a very bad attack to deal with.

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

13 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

So the real question I have for those who think that the figures are being manipulated, is how easy is it to get a test

Maybe the wrong question there, it should be how active is the government being in carrying out testing. Thailand is one of the lower countries to actively test for COVID19. The less you test, the less active cases you will find.

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

2 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

As I wrote previously, one possible explanation for that is that there are only 35 ICU beds n Phuket. Thus as one person dies or recovers, that bed is filled by someone on a waiting list.

But why didn’t the ones on the waiting list fill the remaining empty 14 ICU beds, if that’s the case?

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

21 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

Epidemiologists are not stupid. If they start to see flights returning from TH with clusters of infections in previously vaxxed passengers, they will soon add back on the red-list.

Just like the UK?

[gummy]

1 minute ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

Just like the UK?

Exactly

[JohninDublin]

11 minutes ago, Soidog said:

Exactly right @JohninDubin  they can manipulate all they want for the local audience. The rest of the world is far less easily fooled. One statistic I’ve shown a couple of times now is the “positive rate”. (Link attached). This is a measure of the number of tests conducted to the number of positive cases found from those tests. For Thailand that’s currently around 26%. So they can do 100,000 and show 26,000 cases. Or they can do 100 and show 26 cases. It doesn’t change the 26%. Until they get those numbers down to less than 10% they will struggle to move off of the Red Lists in many countries. 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoothed?tab=chart&time=2021-04-02..latest&country=THA~GBR~FRA~ESP~GRC

Being a number-cruncher at heart, I was pleased to see those figures mirrored my main source of stats, Worldometers.com.

But the most important piece of info related to my post is missing, insofar as we don't know why these people were tested. If they were a random sample of say 100k, we can say that in all probability, that 26% of the population is infected. But if these were people who sought a test because they were feeling unwell, which is what I suspect, that reduces the per capita infection rate dramatically. 

I am presuming that those who are feeling unwell are not denied testing, so the true rate of infection per capita has to based on the number of tests carried out. Though the figures might suggest that their is a 26% infection rate, the important figure is the actual number of tests carried out. As long as the gov does not impede testing, if indeed there is only a need to test only 100 people, though 26% may be infected, the real figure that we need to pay attention to, is not the percentage, but the number of tests carried out.

But, I have no problem agreeing with your main point. If TH decides to falsify the figures, they will almost certainly be found out.

I wrote about my disbelief of the Wuhan figures on here recently. Though we may ever know the true figures, when you see reports, that the crematoria in Wuhan were working 24 hours a day instead of the average 6 hours prior to CV, and there had been a huge increase in the sale of funeral urns I think my scepticism is well founded. 

A few years back the Irish Minister of Justice boasted that in efforts to improve road-safety, they had doubled the number of breath-tests in one year. Very quickly, the people who supplied the nozzles for the hand-held test machines questioned this. If the Minister was correct, he had carried out far more tests, than he had been supplied nozzles for. 

In assessing whether a country is telling the truth about there country's performance, there is nearly always good evidence to support or debunk such claims from other sources such as the Wuhan Urns or the Irish nozzles. That's why I am not to concerned about suspicions of false data. 

[JohninDublin]

52 minutes ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

Maybe the wrong question there, it should be how active is the government being in carrying out testing. Thailand is one of the lower countries to actively test for COVID19. The less you test, the less active cases you will find.

That applies to random testing. More importantly, are the people being denied access to testing? That has happened in more than a few countries, including the US, UK and Ireland. It's actually in the country's interest to introduce random testing. If only the people who are feeling unwell are tested, the number of positives will be higher as a percentage. Test everyone and it dilutes that percentage.

Or you can do what the UK did when they reintroduced testing after abandoning it. You can limit the number of tests by selecting "at risk groups" only and then make appointments for health-care workers during normal working hours at test centres 50 odd miles away from where they are located. Then, when they ask why they can't be tested at a local centre, you can tell them that it is fully booked or temporarily closed due to staff shortages. 

Alternately, you can have a free for all which tests those who are feeling unwell. So that my remains my question: How difficult is it to get a test in TH if you think you might be infected? 

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

7 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

How difficult is it to get a test in TH if you think you might be infected? 

From reports, it depends on the day, the hospital you go to, etc. At one stage hospitals were reported as only testing a certain number a day. So even if you felt unwell you would have to find a hospital that had not run its quota for the day. But that’s allegedly … as reported by Thai media.

[Bob20]

19 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

How difficult is it to get a test in TH if you think you might be infected? 

Depends on how much you cough and spray saliva around in reception

[JohninDublin]

1 hour ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

But why didn’t the ones on the waiting list fill the remaining empty 14 ICU beds, if that’s the case?

I am not a bed manager in a hospital. I don't know the exact figures for how many ICU beds there are on Phuket, but the figures will have been planned based on population and prior experience. CV was not a planned for event, so it makes sense to me if the number of beds is say 49, for the hospital management to say that we need to reserve X beds for regular ICU cases. CV cases will need to queued.

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

Just now, JohninDubin said:

I don't know

Exactly.

[Bob20]

1 minute ago, JohninDubin said:

I am not a bed manager in a hospital. I don't know the exact figures for how many ICU beds there are on Phuket, but the figures will have been planned based on population and prior experience. CV was not a planned for event, so it makes sense to me if the number of beds is say 49, for the hospital management to say that we need to reserve X beds for regular ICU cases. CV cases will need to queued.

Hospitals will take patients until theyr'e at capacity. That can mean full or out of staff/equipment/medication. That's not just for economic reasons, but for ethical reasons as well.

[JohninDublin]

5 hours ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

But why didn’t the ones on the waiting list fill the remaining empty 14 ICU beds, if that’s the case?

I thought the answer was implicit in my last reply: Probably because they are being kept ready for standard ICU cases? With or without CV, you are still going to be getting heart attacks, serious traffic accidents etc.

[JohninDublin]

3 hours ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

Exactly.

Do you really think it is appropriate to butcher my post in order to satisfy some agenda you have. You asked why these beds were not being used and I gave you a plausible answer, which is probably obvious. However you then change my original text from, " I don't know the exact figures for how many ICU beds there are on Phuket, but ..."  to "I don't know " and then make that disingenuous response. I think that action says something about you, and it is not to your credit.

[Soidog]

11 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

Being a number-cruncher at heart, I was pleased to see those figures mirrored my main source of stats, Worldometers.com.

But the most important piece of info related to my post is missing, insofar as we don't know why these people were tested. If they were a random sample of say 100k, we can say that in all probability, that 26% of the population is infected. But if these were people who sought a test because they were feeling unwell, which is what I suspect, that reduces the per capita infection rate dramatically. 

I am presuming that those who are feeling unwell are not denied testing, so the true rate of infection per capita has to based on the number of tests carried out. Though the figures might suggest that their is a 26% infection rate, the important figure is the actual number of tests carried out. As long as the gov does not impede testing, if indeed there is only a need to test only 100 people, though 26% may be infected, the real figure that we need to pay attention to, is not the percentage, but the number of tests carried out.

But, I have no problem agreeing with your main point. If TH decides to falsify the figures, they will almost certainly be found out.

I wrote about my disbelief of the Wuhan figures on here recently. Though we may ever know the true figures, when you see reports, that the crematoria in Wuhan were working 24 hours a day instead of the average 6 hours prior to CV, and there had been a huge increase in the sale of funeral urns I think my scepticism is well founded. 

A few years back the Irish Minister of Justice boasted that in efforts to improve road-safety, they had doubled the number of breath-tests in one year. Very quickly, the people who supplied the nozzles for the hand-held test machines questioned this. If the Minister was correct, he had carried out far more tests, than he had been supplied nozzles for. 

In assessing whether a country is telling the truth about there country's performance, there is nearly always good evidence to support or debunk such claims from other sources such as the Wuhan Urns or the Irish nozzles. That's why I am not to concerned about suspicions of false data. 

Yes I agree that the percentage of positives can only be used as an indication of overall infection rates if testing is widespread, random and open to all. I don’t think Thailand’s testing is any of those. I think it’s more focused in areas of concern and hence the 26% figure is pessimistic in my view. By how much I really wouldn’t like to guess. However, until Thai authorities can show numbers to the outside counties which allow them to make a good assessment of actual infection rates, then I suspect they will stick with the 26% ( falling) and remain on the red travel list. I am very much hoping Thailand comes off the U.K. red list soon. I could not travel in the New Year while it remains red, simply for personal reasons which may cause me to have to return to the U.K. at short notice. 

[Lawyers_Guns_and_Money]

At this point, you would think that at least one of these predictions would accidentally be correct. 

[HiuMak]

The downward trend in the number of deaths each day is trending down. That is a positive sign.

[JohninDublin]

10 hours ago, Soidog said:

Yes I agree that the percentage of positives can only be used as an indication of overall infection rates if testing is widespread, random and open to all. I don’t think Thailand’s testing is any of those. I think it’s more focused in areas of concern and hence the 26% figure is pessimistic in my view. By how much I really wouldn’t like to guess. However, until Thai authorities can show numbers to the outside counties which allow them to make a good assessment of actual infection rates, then I suspect they will stick with the 26% ( falling) and remain on the red travel list. I am very much hoping Thailand comes off the U.K. red list soon. I could not travel in the New Year while it remains red, simply for personal reasons which may cause me to have to return to the U.K. at short notice. 

Hope your travel probs resolve soon.

Delighted to see that someone understands where I am coming from with this. It's not so much that I trust TH, as it is that even if they want to falsify case numbers, there will be people such as there own epidemiologists, explaining why this is likely to be detected and such discovery will be harmful.

Even a secretive country like China can't hide evidence that tends to show that the Wuhan data has been falsified. What chance has a more open country like TH getting away with it?