10 hours ago, Skalliwag said:

😁problem is,I still see his shite when you quote it.😫😫

Hahahaha  and me laughing..... 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

31 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Parisians taking the virus to the countryside 

 

 

Ever heard of "La Toussaint" ?  Or "All Saints Day" in English ? 

It's a long weekend in France.

https://www.afrenchcollection.com/all-saints-day-la-toussaint-a-french-tradition/

As the lockdown starts from Friday, the Parisians probably decided to leave on Thursday.... as they know even under lockdown it is autorised to travel BACK home anytime later.

You should know we're a bunch of very disciplined people 😁😁😁😁😁

More seriously, same happened in March / April, creating some frictions in the provinces. Same happens on every long weekend, july / august cris cross, etc...  And if you go back earlier, same happened in 1939.....

1 hour ago, Freee!! said:

I doubt that explanation, modern explosives take a bit more than lighting up cigarettes in their proximity to go boom, something like a contact explosion as provided by properly inserted detonators (not some packaged detonators  on the same transport). Besides that, detonators in transport are packed against that eventuality and most can't be set off by fire anyway.

One of the explanations (you'll never know the real truth ..) was somebody picked up a detonator, deemed it useless, and threw it back on the pile ...

Now, dont ask how they know that as I guess nobody close to that would have survived.

Concerning explosives transportation rules, well, imagine LOS standards 30 y ago .....

9 hours ago, tommy dee said:

one of the first news stories i did here came from our police source as a lot do, photos without pixalation etc..  thai man with helmet crashed into a pole, he survived, wife and toddler kiled.  pics haunted me for a long time.  sadly now I am immune to it, but it still makes me mad

They used to have a board full.of that kind of pictures outside the main police station in BKK long time ago.

1 hour ago, tommy dee said:

presume packed with care?

Nope, just the usual plastic bag, not even bubble paper. 

But it's a second hand book, and in very decent state.

For the moment I stop ordering anything, as there are no international flights shipments takes ages.

1 hour ago, lazarus said:

The author is featured in this documentary report:

 

I think I watched it and even downloaded it.

Will check it again.

Shipped from the US on 17/06, received 10 days ago.. A record ! 

Far from being the worst one.

I remember one when I lived I  BKK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Bangkok_gas_explosion

"The gas explosion on New Phetchaburi Road in Bangkok was a major disaster in Thailand. It took place on 24 September 1990, when a liquid petroleum gas tanker truck crashed on the expressway exit at New Phetchaburi Road, causing large explosions and fires that burned through 38 shophouses for over 24 hours. 90 people died, 121 were injured and 43 cars were destroyed, making it one of the deadliest man-made disasters in Thailand.^[1]"

Next bad one was a truck loaded with explosives (and detonators on the same truck) . As usual people went to look in the crashed truck to see what they could take, and it blew up in their face ....

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-16-mn-1090-story.html?_amp=true

But WTF I know about Thailand ? 

13 hours ago, boydeste said:

Yes, which brings me back to my original point, the statistics don't reflect that. They usually quote a batch sample number and a balanced sum of positives and negatives. To be accurate they should show inconclusive results too.

Anyway, I have no medical knowledge of the situation apart from the experiences of myself, family and friends.

I appreciate your information on the matter though. Thanks for that.

Have a look at this. It explains is a clear and easily understandable way one of the problems with the PCR tests.

The Ct ......

35 minutes ago, fforest said:

https://thebalisun.com/bali-expats-not-following-mask-protocols-and-running-from-police-in-canggu/

BALI EXPATS NOT FOLLOWING MASK PROTOCOLS AND RUNNING FROM POLICE IN CANGGU

LOL........

Posted it yesterday already...

Note : It's not me. The Cangu crowd is the digital nomads. 

16 minutes ago, Esco said:

If there would be covid here at anything more than a small scale of isolated incidents the expat population would be affected too and soon the whole world would know. 

People aren't dying en mass from covid in Isaan either testing or no testing. The jungle drums are almost faster than Twitter. 

I am not speaking about Covid death only, more about "positive test"

If you dont do mass testing, you have no clue. And Thailand is not doing mass testing. 

Same here. Sure Covid is here in Indonesia. In March / April the papers were full of stories, and stats about burials in Jakarta.  Then the President declared that it is unneccesary to create panic (and I agree). Everybody got the message, and it was finished with the dramatic reports.

And there is no mass testing done. Main testing is for inter island / inter provincial travel which need a Rapid test. But of course a 50 or 100k IDR will get you around it (except for air travel)

This is the 4th most populous country in the world, 268 million, and the official Covid numbers just dont make sense.

Concerning expats, there is important community here in Bali, never heard about one who caught it. But than again, I dont know many who even tested.

Roughly everybody goes on with his life as usual. 

14 hours ago, Jambo said:

Isn't it great to find a topic that fucking ignorant French piss head doesn't post on!

Edited 14 hours ago by Jambo

f**k you....

14 minutes ago, coxyhog said:

Germany & France going to national lockdowns

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-germany-to-enter-four-week-lockdown-from-november-chancellor-merkel-confirms-12117056

Yep, I shake my head .....

So, lockdown 1 month, number of new cases goes down, lockdown is relaxed.

But the virus is still everywhere and will restart to spread, numbers goes up again...lockdow again.... 

Madness. How long will the government use those desperate methods ? 

Oh, yeah.....in two months the magic vaccine will be there  and we will have vaccinated the whole population.....

Anyway, as a friend expat told me yesterday, we're better off here under the sun ! 

A good article about Covid in South Korea : 

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2009935/south-koreans-offer-world-lessons-on-how-to-tame-coronavirus

To be noted that they had a major exercise on virus defense just a few months before Covid broke out. It sure helped. Plus their permanent preparedness for crisis situations, du to the danger caused by North Korea.

4 hours ago, Esco said:

m not saying there's no covid here but they are working round the clock to ensure it doesn't get imported and the positive cases will easily get identified based on the rigorous daily checking

Agreed on that part.

My point is more on their claim " there is no, or very little, covid in Thailand", which is a pure B.S claim if they don't do mass random testing in the population.

5 hours ago, fygjam said:

You may recall that back in the beginning I posted a YouTube video of how a SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test is performed in one of the now closed threads.

But some board member squealed and complained about too much sciency stuff.

 

 

I think you didn't get my point......... 

But besides that, I agree there is no need for multiples postings of "youtube experts"

Meanwhile in the categorie "genius ideas", a Belgian Scientist (Frederique Jacobs) fearing a massive Covid 19 increase during the Christmas gathering and family meetings suggest we should delay Xmas to the summer 2021 as the weather is warmer and risk of contagion will be less.......

Where will this debility stop ? 

7 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Speculating wildly...

RT-PCR is a DNA amplification process (the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an RNA virus but the RNA is converted to DNA because DNA is more stable. The conversion is the RT, reverse transcriptase, part).

PCR searches for small fragments of DNA which are unique to the virus. It keeps doubling the DNA each cycle (the chain reaction) so if there was only one copy of the desired fragment then after one cycle there would be 2 copies. After the next cycle 4 then 8, 16, 32...

I don't know about the UK but in the US the norm is to run to 40 cycles so the one fragment (if present) has been copied over a trillion times (1,099,511,627,776 times to be exact).

Again in the US, there are no hard rules but if viral DNA is detected at 25 cycles or less the person not only has the virus but is also infectious. Over 34 cycles and it is probably "viral litter" left over from an infection but there is no active virus.

So your friend may have shown the presence of viral DNA but at a high cycle count.

Or it may have been something completely different.

Mmmm, you seem to be a bit of a scientific expert ?

Would your other board name be Pete ? You know, another expert from Australia ?

Seems it is the spaghetti bolognaise week ....

Well, technically Napolitana ....

Meanwhile, the massacre game continues.....

https://www.teletrader.com/amp/news/details/53603905

Rolls-Royce plunges 65% as it prepares closures

[28/10/2020] 17:01:00

Shares of Rolls-Royce Holdings plc tumbled more than 65% on Tuesday after news that the company is preparing to temporarily close its factories, cut benefits and reduce working hours due to the ongoing crisis.

According to a report previously published by the Financial Times, the staff of the British firm was informed of new measures based "around pay and benefits and potential operational shutdowns," prompted by the lowered aircraft demand.

Rolls-Royce stocks sank 65.13% to sell for £0.76 at 10:05 am CET. The coronavirus pandemic widely impacted its business operations, as the company's shares lost over 88% of its pre-crisis value from the start of 2020.

6 minutes ago, Washedup said:

The younger generation and their children will paying off covid debt for the rest of their lives 

Definitively.

And :

- will have the value of their school / UNI diplomas devaluated .

- will likely have to take on low paying jobs for which they are (theoretically) overqualified

16 minutes ago, KWA said:

I'm sure I've read the PCR test gives a lot of false positives too, so it seems to me we can't believe a lot of the stats given out (on either side of the debate).

Same with these differing scenarios of predicted deaths etc - all just guesswork.

Fully agreed. 

And that is one of the things that irritates me, you can't believe anybody in this story. 

I have read that PCR can give up to 30 / 40% false positives. 

But you can't find any official data or stats on this, although sure since 6 months there is enough data to do a serious analysis.

About the tests...

Here the "default" test for inter island travel is the so called "rapid test", the one done by picking some blood from your finger. If that one is positive you will be rejected to travel, and you should do a PCR test to confirm (or not) the Rapid test.

Now have a look at the results between the 2 tests : 

So from 627 positive rapid test, only 98 were confirmed by the PCR test ?

https://thebalisun.com/91-bali-inmates-including-7-foreigners-have-covid-19/

"91 inmates including 7 foreigners have COVID-19 after a second PCR swab test confirmed earlier testing. 

Last week 627 inmates, which is half the prison population tested reactive to the Coronavirus during rapid testing. To get more accurate results, Bali authorities tested all the inmates again using the more accurate PCR swab test. "

My problem is that, as mentionned @Pumpuynarak previously,  I have zero confidence in their numbers. In this case is the (enormous) error rate between Rapid and PCR test real, in which case the rapid test should be abandoned, OR did somebody decided that adding 627 "positives" to the stats was a bit too much and they "revised" the results ? 

And to make it even more fun, they just decided that starting this W.E. (which is long 4 or 5 day religious holiday) all tourists arriving in Bali will need to take the Antigen test on arrival in Bali .... We are speaking domestic tourists here as there is still no international travel.

https://thebalisun.com/all-tourists-entering-bali-will-now-face-mandatory-antigen-testing/

A new higher accuracy Antigen COVID-19 will be mandatory for all tourists wanting to enter Bali just in time for the holiday weekend.

It's all a good laugh as long you're not concerned. 

Needless to say, that I have given up on my trips to Java since March ! Too worried they'll have another genius idea while I am there, and I end up listening to my mate Ahmed for a few months ....

Bloody expats .....😁😁😁😁😱😱😱

https://thebalisun.com/bali-expats-not-following-mask-protocols-and-running-from-police-in-canggu/

To be honest, they're bloody idiots. At least have it ready and pull it up if you arrive at a police checkpoint ! Smile, Good Morning, go through, 20 m farther pull it off again.  And the ones doing a runner should be thrown in jail for a W.E. . Not about the mask, but because their stupidity will one make that police will specifically target expats.

It's not like there are checkpoints everywhere....  One every week or less, just chill out and take it easy.

My daugther's vegan doughnuts creation.

This was her stand at an event in a BKK mall last WE.