TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS FOR THAILAND ARRIVALS

[tommy dee]

guys will keep this brioef as am working flat out on it.

 

arrivals from manyu countries here will be expected to self quarantine.  that means staying iundoors in a home or hotel.  others can be with you, like family, and are not qualratined unless they get sick.

 

also you arent supposed to go out.  checks on pp will show when u arrived and from where so beware.

 

also flights MAY be diverted to utopao, as its close to sattahip where quarantine accom is already aVAILABLE BUT THIS HASNT BEEN APPROVED BY THE GOVT YET

 

GOT TO RUSH..

 

NOTEW TO MODS.. DO NOT MERGE THIS PAGE

 

 

 

[Bazle]

12 hours ago, Bazle said:

Now I AM getting concerned:

https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-03-20-intl-hnk/h_869a6c4d3e1251084fe0fbf10994e758

People arriving from multiple places in Asia, the Middle East and Europe will be forced to self-quarantine by Thai authorities, the country's Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said in a Facebook post Tuesday.

The minister's post said Japan, Germany, South Korea, China "including its special territories Macao and Hong Kong," Taiwan, France, Singapore, Italy and Iran have been declared as "dangerous communicable disease areas."

Anyone traveling from those places will have to self-quarantine for 14 days "with no exceptions," Charnvirakul added.

The measures imposed by the Thai government include isolating or quarantining those with temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius (99.5 degrees Fahrenheit) or with suspicious coronavirus symptoms. 

Travelers who have no fever and show no symptoms will still have to enter self-quarantine for 14 days. They will not be allowed to leave their premises unless special permits from Thai authorities are obtained.

 

10 hours ago, Stillearly said:

Apparently the Health minister has deleted his original post ....

 

[Thai Spice]

So, how are they going to enforce that ?

At the airport asking where you stay and signal you to that hotel and give them instructions to not let you out ?  

How you think any hotel can / will enforce that ? They don't have the authority for that. 

Put a policeman at every hotel to enforce it ? 

So a tourist that comes here for 1 week, will be delivered to his hotel, locked up there, and then escorted back to the airport ?

Pick you from the airplane, put you in a bus to a quarantine camp ? Guarded by the army ?  While you have paid for hotel and tours ? 

For Thai residents or foreigners living in Thailand and returning from overseas, will they plant a police officer 24/24 for 2 weeks in front of your house ?

 

Etc, etc.....  completely irrealistic. 

What a fucking joke !

If they wanted to definitively kill tourism and what's left of Thailand's reputation that is exactly the way to do it !

 

[Painter]

Several t'internet articles say that the initial mention of these orders (first made in a Facebook account of the minister in question) was quickly removed.

eg. https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2020/03/04/high-risk-countries-quarantine-thai-workers-south-korea-published/

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Painter

[tommy dee]

44 minutes ago, Thai Spice said:

So, how are they going to enforce that ?

At the airport asking where you stay and signal you to that hotel and give them instructions to not let you out ?  

How you think any hotel can / will enforce that ? They don't have the authority for that. 

Put a policeman at every hotel to enforce it ? 

So a tourist that comes here for 1 week, will be delivered to his hotel, locked up there, and then escorted back to the airport ?

Pick you from the airplane, put you in a bus to a quarantine camp ? Guarded by the army ?  While you have paid for hotel and tours ? 

For Thai residents or foreigners living in Thailand and returning from overseas, will they plant a police officer 24/24 for 2 weeks in front of your house ?

 

Etc, etc.....  completely irrealistic. 

What a fucking joke !

If they wanted to definitively kill tourism and what's left of Thailand's reputation that is exactly the way to do it !

 

its self quarantine not jail.  me if i ran an hotel i wouldnt want them in my gaff as someone else will be in the room after they leave.  but there is no mention of anything except self quarantine.  so travel on transport to your hotel,home, stay indoors for 2 weeks.  yes crap but its a crap illness.  its self monitoring.  as in the UK and some of europe BTW!!!

i see the pay des frogs is on the list 😉

 

[Thai Spice]

1 minute ago, tommy dee said:

its self quarantine not jail.  me if i ran an hotel i wouldnt want them in my gaff as someone else will be in the room after they leave.  but there is no mention of anything except self quarantine.  so travel on transport to your hotel,home, stay indoors for 2 weeks.  yes crap but its a crap illness.  its self monitoring.  as in the UK and some of europe BTW!!!

i see the pay des frogs is on the list 😉

 

And do you think many frogs will give a shit ?  We were joking about this at the Carrefour bakery this morning with a few compatriots... Saw one couple with masks, no need to tell you which country they were from?

Good thing, the parking area which has usually a few Chinese minibusses was empty.

Sure self quarantine will work with somebody who just spend a few 1000's $ to come on holiday ....

 

[Stillearly]

from Richard Barrows page 
 

⏰ Not much clarity during the Ministry of Health press conference about the statement last night that was later rescinded. They are saying wait for the minister to finish meeting with the PM. But it looks like the wording will change from “must” self-quarantine to “recommended”. The list of countries might change too. Basically, the minister jumped the gun with his announcement on Facebook. Hopefully we will get a new announcement this afternoon. 

 

[Murchie]

19 minutes ago, Thai Spice said:

And do you think many frogs will give a shit ?  We were joking about this at the Carrefour bakery this morning with a few compatriots... Saw one couple with masks, no need to tell you which country they were from?

Good thing, the parking area which has usually a few Chinese minibusses was empty.

Sure self quarantine will work with somebody who just spend a few 1000's $ to come on holiday ....

 

I'm sure the families of the four French people who have died will give a shit.

Would you have a joke about it if one of your compatriots was to succumb to the Coronavirus. 

[Thai Spice]

2 hours ago, Murchie said:

I'm sure the families of the four French people who have died will give a shit.

Would you have a joke about it if one of your compatriots was to succumb to the Coronavirus. 

Mate, sorry, for me this is no different from the 1000's of people who die from cancer, pneumonia, flu, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc.....

Just that those few ones are much more (way too much) mediatized... same as the early HIV victims were pointed out  and shamed !

And I am sure not the only one who thinks like that. 

Secondly we should speak about "additional mortality" only. Take the China case for example, of  1000 people whose death was attributed to this virus how many would have anyway died during the same period from the decease they were already suffering from ?

 

[KWA]

As mentioned, this appears to be fake news at the moment.  Perhaps time to (at least temporarily) close this thread until any official, ratified instructions/guidelines are published.

[Mr. Smooth]

32 minutes ago, Thai Spice said:

Mate, sorry, for me this is no different from the 1000's of people who die from cancer, pneumonia, flu, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc.....

Just that those few ones are much more (way too much) mediatized... same as the early HIV victims were pointed out  and shamed !

And I am sure not the only one who thinks like that. 

Secondly we should speak about "additional mortality" only. Take the China case for example, of  1000 people whose death was attributed to this virus how many would have anyway died during the same period from the decease they were already suffering from ?

 

TS, usually we are on opposite sides of a point in the political thread, but on this, I am right there with you.

I honestly believe this is a media driven story and blown out of proportion. For perspective, in the United States during the "flu season" as measured between mid-October 2019 and February 20th, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 29 MILLION people have gotten sick with the flu, 280,000 have been hospitalized and 16,000 have died. Included in those deaths are 105 children who have died as a result of the flu.

Again, those stats are just in America. I am sure that European countries have similar per capita results from their populations.

I've yet to watch a news broadcast over the winter where the stats on the flu were the lead story or how much less economic output will result from the numbers of sick people contracting the flu virus, or the tragedy of thousands dying because of it.

As of March 3rd, the Corona virus has infected an estimated 100 people in America and 9 have died.

A tornado just ripped through a town in the state of Tennessee last night while most folks were sleeping, killing 29 people at last count.

I bet outside of that particular region of the US, the headlines won't even have it as a front page story. But I bet the Corona virus will be from coast to coast.

All a matter of perspective. Or, as the joke that's going around here now is that the Corona virus has killed fewer people than boyfriends who have been dumped by Taylor Swift.

[RR007]

Its not the deaths or infections that will do any of us harm probably chances of any of us getting it is what 0.0001% but the real problem is the disruption off the back of it....when the CEO of Emirates ponders shutting down the entire airline until the problem subsides thats the real issues

Cathay Pacific has shut down 75% of all services. Easy jet and Ryan air following suit.

Edited March 4, 2020 by RR007

[Bazle]

5 minutes ago, RR007 said:

Its not the deaths or infections that will do any of us harm probably chances of any of us getting it is what 0.0001% but the real problem is the disruption off the back of it....when the CEO of Emirates ponders shutting down the entire airline until the problem subsides thats the real issues

Cathay Pacific has shut down 75% of all services. Easy jet and Ryan air following suit.

As I've said before, I think the biggest danger now is panic. That seems to be just as infectious as the virus.

[Thai Spice]

10 minutes ago, RR007 said:

Its not the deaths or infections that will do any of us harm probably chances of any of us getting it is what 0.0001% but the real problem is the disruption off the back of it....when the CEO of Emirates ponders shutting down the entire airline until the problem subsides thats the real issues

Cathay Pacific has shut down 75% of all services. Easy jet and Ryan air following suit.

But the reason they do it is because of the panic... Countries blocking their borders, people locking themselves up at home, the list is endless...

Of course if you start to block everybody from working, from travelling, from going to the restaurant, etc....the global economy is going to suffer.

There is a MASSIVE overreaction, enhanced even more by the media hype.

The example by @Mr. Smooth about the victims of the tornado is very typical.

So WTH, next besides needing to f**k with a condom (because we could from AIDS) the 2 partners should also wear a mask because they could also die from the Corona ? What next ? 

Feck it, I never used either of them.

Anyway climat change is going to kill us all if you listen to the other gang, so what's the point ?

 

[Thai Spice]

7 minutes ago, Bazle said:

As I've said before, I think the biggest danger now is panic. That seems to be just as infectious as the virus.

Panic is more dangerous, it spread much, much faster than any virus.

Shout "fire" in a movie theather .... There will be dozens of people taken over and in 30 sec, 100 people are shouting. Even if there is nothing....

And panic makes people irrational. Like starting to stock toilet paper instead of drinking water....

Imagine if 1h after Chernobyl all the Russian TV channels would have said "a massive radioactive cloud has been released and is drifting, but we dont know in which direction". 30 min later it is relayed by all the US , Europe and Asian medias.  Within 2 hours every country is convinced the cloud is maybe coming in their direction, etc etc etc....

Throw in some expert who for a few bucks will make big exposés on TV channel, explaining the worst doomsday scenario with images from Hiroshima as exemple...etc etc etc .....

And meanwhile the old frog is sitting at the beach sipping a Bintang... Wisdom .... 😁😁😁

 

 

 

 

[Stillearly]

14 minutes ago, Thai Spice said:

 

And meanwhile the old frog is sitting at the beach sipping a Bintang... Wisdom .... 😁😁😁

 

 

 

 

Or just a Cnut ... 😉😉😉 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great

Edited March 4, 2020 by Stillearly

[Thai Spice]

1 minute ago, Stillearly said:

Or just a Cnut ... 😉😉😉 

But a wise one !

 

[tommy dee]

without doubt a lot of it is knee jerk reaction.  I am waiting to see the outcome in europe where its hit italy and germany badly and its mid winter.  when we see figures from there in the next month it will give all of us a true reading,  no one believes the chinese figures, no one.  so global counts are a farce.  germany at least and italy will have to be honest about numbers, and have good med facilities.  here its upa dn down like a yoyoy and todays news may not even stand for a day, as yet not rescinded but not confirmed, yet on official ogvt. document.

what i do know is that it has decimated the majority of turnover in thailand.  and the roll on effects onto other businesses, like mine too, is horrendous...

the one thing china did right was try and contain it as best it could.  numbers here were early and mainly chinks or people who worked with them.  its really slowed down now.  and if its true that the virus doesnt do well in hot weather, then we are lucky

 

[Evil Penevil]

1 hour ago, KWA said:

As mentioned, this appears to be fake news at the moment.  Perhaps time to (at least temporarily) close this thread until any official, ratified instructions/guidelines are published.

Apparently what happened is that the Thai Minister of Health released a statement on his personal Facebook page.  That statement wasn't yet official government policy and may never be.  From the Facebook page of TAT in Singapore:

[Evil Penevil]

Good background article from The New York Times:

How does the coronavirus compare with the flu?

As new cases appear on the West Coast, some — including the president — are comparing it to the seasonal flu. Here’s a close look at the differences.

Published Feb. 29, 2020
Updated March 3, 2020

Is this new coronavirus really a serious danger? Doesn’t the flu kill more people?

As the United States recorded its first coronavirus death on Saturday — and as other cases popped up in people without known risks on the West Coast — Americans wondered how to measure this new threat against a more familiar foe: influenza.

President Trump, a self-described germophobe, said on Wednesday he was amazed to learn that tens of thousands of Americans died from the flu each year, contrasting that number with the 60 or so known to be infected with the coronavirus. On Friday, Mr. Trump accused the news media and Democrats of exaggerating the dangers of the virus.

“The flu kills people,” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said on Wednesday. “This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence.”

To many public health officials, that argument misses the point.

Yes, the flu is terrible — that’s exactly why scientists don’t want another contagious respiratory disease to take root. If they could stop the seasonal flu, they would. But there may yet be a chance to stop the coronavirus.

In many ways, the flu is the best argument for throwing everything at the coronavirus. Here’s a closer look at the similarities and differences.

Which virus is deadlier?
The coronavirus seems to be more deadly than the flu — so far.

On average, seasonal flu strains kill about 0.1 percent of people who become infected. The 1918 flu had an unusually high fatality rate, around 2 percent. Because it was so contagious, that flu killed tens of millions of people.

Early estimates of the coronavirus death rate from China, the epicenter of the outbreak, have been around 2 percent. But a new report on 1,099 cases from many parts of China, published on Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine, finds a lower rate: 1.4 percent.

The coronavirus death rate may be even lower, if — as most experts suspect — there are many mild or symptom-free cases that have not been detected.

The true death rate could turn out to be similar to that of a severe seasonal flu, below 1 percent, according to an editorial published in the journal by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But even a disease with a relatively low death rate can take a huge toll if enormous numbers of people catch it. As of Sunday, there were about 87,000 coronavirus cases and 3,000 deaths. This week, for the first time, the number of new cases outside China exceeded the number within the country.

How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key Factors
Here’s what early research says about how the pathogen behaves and the factors that will determine how far it will spread.

Which virus is more contagious?
So far, the new coronavirus seems to be more contagious than most strains of the flu, and roughly as contagious as strains that appear in pandemic flu seasons.

Each person with the coronavirus appears to infect 2.2 other people, on average. But the figure is skewed by the fact that the epidemic was not managed well in the beginning, and infections soared in Wuhan and the surrounding province. As an epidemic comes under control, the reproduction number, as it’s called, will fall.

By comparison, the figure for the seasonal flu is roughly 1.3. The reproduction number for the flu of 1918 was about the same as that of the new coronavirus, perhaps higher, but that was before modern treatments and vaccines were available.

In both flu and the illness caused by the coronavirus, people may be contagious before symptoms develop, making it difficult or even impossible to control the spread of the virus. Nobody knows how many people infected with the coronavirus have only very mild symptoms or none at all.

Who is most at risk from infection?
Both the coronavirus and influenza are most dangerous to people who are older than 65, or have chronic illnesses or a weak immune system.

Death rates among men infected with the coronavirus in China, particularly those in their late 40s and older, have exceeded those among women, a pattern not seen in the seasonal flu. The reason for the discrepancy is not known, although Chinese men do smoke more, often resulting in compromised lung function.

There seems to be another important difference: The flu appears far more dangerous to children, particularly very young ones, who can become severely ill. Children infected with the new coronavirus tend to have mild or no symptoms.

The flu is also especially dangerous for pregnant women, who can become severely ill from it. Whether the new coronavirus poses as serious a threat to pregnant women is not known.

Which virus makes you sicker?
As of Feb. 22, in the current season there were at least 32 million cases of flu in the United States, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 flu deaths, according to the C.D.C. Hospitalization rates among children and young adults this year have been unusually high.

There would be even more illnesses and deaths if there were no flu vaccine. Most people recover in less than two weeks, and sometimes in just days.

By contrast, about 70 people in the United States have been infected with the new coronavirus, and there has been one death. There are no treatments or vaccines for the coronavirus, only supportive care for infected people.

Most cases of coronavirus infection are not severe, but some people do become quite sick. Data from the largest study of patients to date, conducted in China, suggests that of coronavirus patients receiving medical attention, 80 percent had mild infections, about 15 percent had severe illnesses, and 5 percent were critical.

The first symptoms, fever and cough, are similar to that of the flu, so the diseases can be hard to tell apart without a test to identify the virus. Pneumonia is common among coronavirus patients, even among those whose cases are not severe.

Experts think there may also be many people with no symptoms at all, or such mild ones that they never bother to seek medical attention. Because those cases have not been counted, it’s not possible now to know the real proportion of mild versus severe cases.

Antibody tests, which can determine whether someone has ever been infected, may eventually help to establish how many people had mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infections.

Can people become immune to the coronavirus?
After viral infections, people generally develop antibodies in their blood that will fight off the virus and protect them from contracting it again. It’s reasonable to assume that people who have had the new coronavirus will become immune to it.

But it is not known how long that immunity will last. With other coronaviruses, which cause the common cold, immunity can wane.

There are vaccines for the seasonal flu, of course, and these induce at least partial immunity to influenza.

What treatments are available?
There is no approved antiviral drug for the coronavirus, though several are being tested. Doctors can recommend only the usual remedies for any viral illness: rest, medicine to reduce pain and fever, and fluids to avoid dehydration.

Coronavirus patients with pneumonia may also need oxygen, and a ventilator if breathing trouble worsens.

For the flu, however, there are four prescription medicines. All work best if they are taken within a day or two of when symptoms start.

They’re not miracle cures: They can lessen the severity of the illness and shorten its course by a day or so, and they may lower the risk of serious complications.

The drugs are also recommended for people who have been exposed to a flu patient, to try to prevent the illness.

The flu, like the coronavirus illness, can also cause pneumonia and breathing trouble. Anyone who becomes short of breath needs medical attention quickly.

Can I get vaccinated?
An experimental vaccine for the coronavirus may be ready for testing in humans within a few months, but will take much longer, at least a year or two, to become available for widespread use.

Flu vaccines, on the other hand, are widely available and generally 40 percent to 60 percent effective, which means they will reduce cases by that amount in a population that has been vaccinated, compared with one that has not.

The vaccine for the current season falls into that range, according to the C.D.C., which said on Feb. 21 that people who have not been vaccinated should still get the shot, because the flu season is ongoing.

Experts have been urging people to get the flu shot for all the usual reasons. But now there’s another: If there is a coronavirus outbreak in the United States, hospitals will need all the beds, equipment and staff they can muster.

It will be important not to have those resources taken up by patients with flu that could have been prevented.

Will the coronavirus go away when the weather warms?
Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that the coronavirus will retreat as weather warms, just as influenza does. In fact, because this is a new virus, there is no information about how the weather might affect it.

Even if the virus were to diminish in the spring, it might rebound later in the fall, as the weather cools. This is a pattern often seen in severe flu seasons.

Containment is becoming less likely, because of the contagiousness of the virus, the possibility that people can spread it before they have symptoms and the increasing number of outbreaks around the world.

The cases in California, Oregon and Washington State without known links to overseas travel, reported on Friday, may be a warning sign that the new coronavirus has already begun to circulate.

Reporting was contributed by Gina Kolata and Knvul Sheikh.

Edited March 4, 2020 by Evil Penevil

[Freee!!]

1 hour ago, Mr. Smooth said:

A tornado just ripped through a town in the state of Tennessee last night while most folks were sleeping, killing 29 people at last count.

I bet outside of that particular region of the US, the headlines won't even have it as a front page story.

As a matter of fact, it made prime time TV news here in the Netherlands. Probably because it was a slow news day besides COVID-19 but even so.

[tommy dee]

35 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

Apparently what happened is that the Thai Minister of Health released a statement on his personal Facebook page.  That statement wasn't yet official government policy and may never be.  From the Facebook page of TAT in Singapore:

 

not quite,  it was an official government headed document as used in all law chages.    most media kept copies.   reporting on it isnt motivational i can assure you.  as to the rest, who knows, by tomorrow we will have an official statement that it was a mistkae, a junior has been fired ... or it will be published as law.  right now, no one knows

[Murchie]

3 hours ago, Thai Spice said:

Mate, sorry, for me this is no different from the 1000's of people who die from cancer, pneumonia, flu, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc.....

Just that those few ones are much more (way too much) mediatized... same as the early HIV victims were pointed out  and shamed !

And I am sure not the only one who thinks like that. 

Secondly we should speak about "additional mortality" only. Take the China case for example, of  1000 people whose death was attributed to this virus how many would have anyway died during the same period from the decease they were already suffering from ?

 

Well for me it's very different as there is very little know about it and to date there is no vaccine.

However if you don't give a shit about people dying and enjoy a laugh and a joke about it crack on.

[misteregg]

not quite,  it was an official government headed document as used in all law chages.    most media kept copies.   reporting on it isnt motivational i can assure you.  as to the rest, who knows, by tomorrow we will have an official statement that it was a mistkae, a junior has been fired ... or it will be published as law.  right now, no one knows

He will probably blame it on a “fucking farang” and ask us all to voluntarily deport ourselves

[misteregg]

Can’t wait for the new Michael Moore documentary, “Coronanona”