Bangkok Reports

[QUOTE=Smoothy;2462134]Those numbers sound reasonable to you?[/QUOTE]Smoothy,

No one is saying they have identified every case during the last 6 months or that there are definitely no undetected cases left in Thailand. However, from my experience being here and looking into the available data with a critical eye I certainly believe they provide a realistic indication of the true picture. I had a lot of scepticism back in March but the harder I looked the less likely significant rigging of the numbers seemed likely.

There are lots of conspiracy theorists who denounce the information as being manipulated to allow the Government to use the situation to justify the rule by emergency decree. They conveniently overlook that if the Government were manipulating data for this purpose they would be announcing higher numbers to justify the ongoing emergency decree.

If the information was going to be manipulated, then surely the cluster from Lumpini Boxing Stadium, which is the largest to date, would have been hushed up? Given the Boxing Stadium is owned by the Army and the event went ahead even though all such places had been ordered shut this was where a cover up would have happened if anywhere.

I have not seen a single whistle blower on any of the platforms shouting "my hospital is overwhelmed", "the mortuaries are overflowing" or "the Government covered up my husband's death". There was one gentleman on here who questioned that a friend of his had passed away and not been reported, but a look at the available data identified a probable match which he subsequently verified.

There was a piece on National Geographic a few days ago [URL]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/look-inside-thailand-prevented-coronavirus-gaining-foothold/[/URL] from a Thai photo journalist. "Expecting the worst, I began photographing Bangkok in the early days of the pandemic. I was especially afraid of a runaway outbreak in the city's slums and that our healthcare facilities would be overrun. It didn't turn out that way. The work has been frustrating at times, not because there've been so many cases but because there've been so few. Much to my relief, I am gradually running out of things to shoot. " Now the nay sayers cry that he couldn't write bad news because it would be against the decree, but had he had bad news to tell then it would have appeared without his byline and probably been syndicated to far more outlets and for far more money than National Geographic paid. I almost get a sense of the guy's disappointment at not getting the scoop of the year.

One recurring theme from a lot of the stuff I've seen about "how it was done" is the network of 1 million health volunteers, which allowed both contact tracing and preliminary screening in "at risk" areas (so temperature check and any symptoms) to be rolled out quickly to the rural masses. Simply put you cannot swab test nearly 70 million people, and you cannot test even 5% of them given the resources available and their geographic dispersal.

Finally, I usually avoid commenting on politics in general and Thai politics in particular, and I am certainly not going to enter into a discussion about the state of Thai democracy (or lack thereof depending on viewpoint), the use of emergency decree to govern in the situation or any of that kerfuffle. But I would pose the question "Has not having to worry about approval ratings or re-election freed the politicians to chose the right decision rather than the popular decision?" I am not picking on any country or political party, but some of the restrictions here have been hugely unpopular with Thais but, fingers crossed, thus far effective.

[QUOTE=RunMann;2462160]No one knows the actual numbers in any country but the OP had only 3 deaths reported as opposed to 58 in your link. The virus is still out there so Thailand like most other countries that are opening back up can expect the actual number of cases and deaths to rise, regardless of the number they report.[/QUOTE]I am not in Thailand for the time being but following the situation closely as I'd like to return there whenever the situation improves and travel open. Given that lots of countries massage the number, it sort of levels the field and it seems that the situation is quite good in Thailand as compared to Europe, the Americas and some other countries. Numbers might be a few thousands more but it seems to be no where near some countries such as the Philippines where the pandemic unfortunately for them seems to be in full swing.

[QUOTE=Smoothy;2462134]You consider those numbers to be reliable? Even though Thailand was an international travel hub at the start of corona and left the gogos and everything else open for at least a full two months after their first case on Jan 13. Yet, they claim the most deaths they had in any single day was 4 with a total of 58. And zero deaths in the past month.

Those numbers sound reasonable to you?[/QUOTE]I didn't believe the Thai reported numbers at all. Not until I lost a friend in Isaan and Getting Fed Up actually found a listing for his death. Thanks again, GFU. I now believe the numbers reported are reasonably close, especially the number of deaths. To be sure some Thai deaths were misidentified as see-19 (or not) especially early on as Thailand learned about the disease. But that happened in every country.

I only wish the USA had things under control like Thailand. I happen to live in Los Angeles county where the virus is running wild. I heard we were #1 (worst) in the USA recently.

Regarding the situation in the USA. I truly believe we have some of the smartest people in world. As well as most of the stupidest. How hard is it to wear a mask?

[QUOTE=Allover;2462349]I didn't believe the Thai reported numbers at all. Not until I lost a friend in Isaan and Getting Fed Up actually found a listing for his death. Thanks again, GFU. I now believe the numbers reported are reasonably close, especially the number of deaths. To be sure some Thai deaths were misidentified as see-19 (or not) especially early on as Thailand learned about the disease. But that happened in every country.

I only wish the USA had things under control like Thailand. I happen to live in Los Angeles county where the virus is running wild. I heard we were #1 (worst) in the USA recently.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=RacShack;2461699]First sigh, you have money up, 2nd not want to shower; a pro monger is out the door! Why do people continue to pay for lackluster performance?[/QUOTE]I agree with you in general, but an important difference here is that this was an African girl. When you're dealing with a different ethnicity or a new scene, there's more ambiguity about the expectations, so you end up making mistakes you wouldn't have made with your familiar, usual Thai freelancer fare, where both of you know the procedure, and both immediately know what kind of behavior is unacceptable.

I concur with that assessment. It's possible to hide a lot but as the writer of TV show The Wire (David Simon) said, "you can't hide a body". His reference was to police statistics that changed violent crimes to lesser offenses to make the crime look better, and I fully expect the same to happen worldwide with corona. However in the end in societies with open internet, I. E. Not China, if the hospitals, morgues, and slums were full of bodies it would be on facebook, twitter, and a dozen other places and that just never happened. In the end the only worldwide reliable statistic is going to be a comparison of death rates over the previous periods and even that will be shaded by some countries. I still think given Thailand's international travel exposure it's a miracle they haven't seen the outbreak everyone expected. Unfortunately unless they wait out the year or more it's going to take to get a vaccine it's going to make it's way back and they will be stuck with the same dilemma of closing down again. The inability of the UK, US, South America and others to get it under control at all means it's going to continue to incubate and spread. Some places may be able to operate with an effective 14 day quarantine system, but it's still to early to tell on that and in reality if that is in place is there enough demand for air travel that any airline is flying across borders?

It's like a greek play at this point, despite all of us isolating ourselves in our countries, provences / states, and homes we are still reliant and interconnected throughout so much that unless you want to stay in that hole we are all going to subject to the decisions made by those far away from where we reside. Reminds me of the scene in Armageddon when Billie Bob says there is a place on earth where you can hide from it.

[QUOTE=GettingFedUp;2462256]Smoothy,

No one is saying they have identified every case during the last 6 months or that there are definitely no undetected cases left in Thailand. However, from my experience being here and looking into the available data with a critical eye I certainly believe they provide a realistic indication of the true picture. I had a lot of scepticism back in March but the harder I looked the less likely significant rigging of the numbers seemed likely.

There are lots of conspiracy theorists who denounce the information as being manipulated to allow the Government to use the situation to justify the rule by emergency decree. They conveniently overlook that if the Government were manipulating data for this purpose they would be announcing higher numbers to justify the ongoing emergency decree.

If the information was going to be manipulated, then surely the cluster from Lumpini Boxing Stadium, which is the largest to date, would have been hushed up? Given the Boxing Stadium is owned by the Army and the event went ahead even though all such places had been ordered shut this was where a cover up would have happened if anywhere.

I have not seen a single whistle blower on any of the platforms shouting "my hospital is overwhelmed", "the mortuaries are overflowing" or "the Government covered up my husband's death". There was one gentleman on here who questioned that a friend of his had passed away and not been reported, but a look at the available data identified a probable match which he subsequently verified.

There was a piece on National Geographic a few days ago [URL]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/look-inside-thailand-prevented-coronavirus-gaining-foothold/[/URL] from a Thai photo journalist. "Expecting the worst, I began photographing Bangkok in the early days of the pandemic. I was especially afraid of a runaway outbreak in the city's slums and that our healthcare facilities would be overrun. It didn't turn out that way. The work has been frustrating at times, not because there've been so many cases but because there've been so few. Much to my relief, I am gradually running out of things to shoot. " Now the nay sayers cry that he couldn't write bad news because it would be against the decree, but had he had bad news to tell then it would have appeared without his byline and probably been syndicated to far more outlets and for far more money than National Geographic paid. I almost get a sense of the guy's disappointment at not getting the scoop of the year.

One recurring theme from a lot of the stuff I've seen about "how it was done" is the network of 1 million health volunteers, which allowed both contact tracing and preliminary screening in "at risk" areas (so temperature check and any symptoms) to be rolled out quickly to the rural masses. Simply put you cannot swab test nearly 70 million people, and you cannot test even 5% of them given the resources available and their geographic dispersal.

Finally, I usually avoid commenting on politics in general and Thai politics in particular, and I am certainly not going to enter into a discussion about the state of Thai democracy (or lack thereof depending on viewpoint), the use of emergency decree to govern in the situation or any of that kerfuffle. But I would pose the question "Has not having to worry about approval ratings or re-election freed the politicians to chose the right decision rather than the popular decision?" I am not picking on any country or political party, but some of the restrictions here have been hugely unpopular with Thais but, fingers crossed, thus far effective.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Allover;2462349]I didn't believe the Thai reported numbers at all. Not until I lost a friend in Isaan and Getting Fed Up actually found a listing for his death. Thanks again, GFU. I now believe the numbers reported are reasonably close, especially the number of deaths.[/QUOTE]I hope the change in your belief was supported by something stronger than your own sample_size_of_one experience.

[QUOTE] To be sure some Thai deaths were misidentified as see-19 (or not) especially early on as Thailand learned about the disease. But that happened in every country.[/QUOTE]My recollection is that what 'mostly' happened was that many C19 caused deaths were unwittingly (mis) classified as a variety of other reasons. This happened in the UK, the US and many other countries. {I have no opinion on how this played out in Thailand.).

Post pandemic, the pressure to misclassify intentionally escalated in a variety of countries. China was flagrant about this. But the UK, Iran, Egypt Florida in the US, India, much of Africa have been reported as engaged in this. I am sure statistical comparisions will, in the future, uncover a lot of this malarkey.

[QUOTE] I only wish the USA had things under control like Thailand. I happen to live in Los Angeles county where the virus is running wild. I heard we were #1 (worst) in the USA recently.[/QUOTE]Difference is that Thailand has a dictator for real; the US has a president who wishes he could be a dictator for real. The former provided what appears to be meaningful leadership and a unified response. The latter played golf and tweeted.

[QUOTE=MichaelSamuel;2462442]...Some places may be able to operate with an effective 14 day quarantine system, but it's still to early to tell on that and in reality if that is in place is there enough demand for air travel that any airline is flying across borders?[/QUOTE]My guess is that there will be enough demand. And international air travel may be far safer than how some of us (me included) had imagined. Lot of recent stuff in the press to that point.

[QUOTE]It's like a greek play at this point, despite all of us isolating ourselves in our countries, provences / states, and homes we are still reliant and interconnected throughout so much that unless you want to stay in that hole we are all going to subject to the decisions made by those far away from where we reside. Reminds me of the scene in Armageddon when Billie Bob says there is a place on earth where you can hide from it.[/QUOTE]The fact is that with the exception of the isolated places (e. G. Fiji, with zero infection) and NZ, Aus and maybe a few more countries, isolation and self quarantining are being practiced quite spottily. Today's social media is awash with videos of the tennis players Alexander and Misha Zverev partying hard in a huge group of 'unmasked' people, less than a week after promising to self quarantine after exposure to C19. The entire state of Florida and many parts of the US are / were in a state of denial till recently.

These are educated people with full access to information. Causes and consequences.

As you put it, we are all subject to the fallout from their actions.

Bill Gates recently opined that until a vaccine is developed and administered to at least 70% of the population of the planet, travel and tourism is unlikely to return to anywhere resembling pre-pandemic levels. And he believes, as does Fauci, that the US is still in the midst of the first wave. The election of 2016 is turning out to be far more costly for the entire world than imagined.

[QUOTE=Kazeu;2462363]Regarding the situation in the USA. I truly believe we have some of the smartest people in world. As well as most of the stupidest. How hard is it to wear a mask?[/QUOTE]Ego versus empathy. Individualism versus collectivism. Sometimes this thing called free will really isn't free. Don't worry, maybe it's was meant to all come down. This may be the end for everything. And there will be a new beginning. That's why folks should be trying to hit those last minute goals. I know I am. Almost there.

July 1 is the big day. The start of a new beginning. Here is a link to Stickboy's column giving the reopening dates of Nana Bars & Go Go's.

[URL]https://www.stickboybkk.com/go-go-bars/list-of-nana-plaza-bar-opening-dates/amp/?__twitter_impression=true[/URL]

Without going into the philosophical Determinism versus Libertarianism discussion of whether free will actually exists for me the question is whether free choice exists.

Some will say yes she can say no to sex without a condom. Others will argue in reality she does not have that option because of her circumstances. She needs the money.

Did the coal miner going down the pit really have a choice and exercising free will.

Saying BBFS is something that women want because they don't say no is simply disingenuous.

Always exceptions but how many girls do you think if given the option of sex with a condom or without would willingly opt for the former.

In my experience very few.

They don't say no because they want the sensation of an uncovered dick inside them they agree because they are either foolishly unaware of the health risks or else just accept these risks as a necessary part of the job.

[QUOTE=NattyBumpo;2462577]July 1 is the big day. The start of a new beginning. Here is a link to Stickboy's column giving the reopening dates of Nana Bars & Go Go's.

[URL]https://www.stickboybkk.com/go-go-bars/list-of-nana-plaza-bar-opening-dates/amp/?__twitter_impression=true[/URL].[/QUOTE]Better than nothing.

The you tubers can do their thing.

[QUOTE=NattyBumpo;2462577]July 1 is the big day. The start of a new beginning. Here is a link to Stickboy's column giving the reopening dates of Nana Bars & Go Go's[/QUOTE]That does not matter a lot when you still can't fly there. And the few who can will be in quarantine for 2 weeks.

What BJ bars are open now?

[QUOTE=Downandup;2462833]That does not matter a lot when you still can't fly there. [/QUOTE]IMHO the bar openings matter and are of real interest in particular to see how many girls they will have on hand, the social distancing effect if any they employ, and the amount of trade they get from ex pats and others who are in BKK now. The ISG Thailand has a few regular contributors who live in BKK. I am looking forward to reading their reports on the state of back in business Go Go's.

I have speculated before on these pages that I do not think Thailand or any SE Asian country will truly open up to international travel until an effective vaccine is made available. That could take a 1 year to 18 months to happen if it happens at all. In the meantime I find it very interesting and relevant to my interests to watch how or if these various P4P venues survive. I consider the Go Go bar openings a milestone event. I wish them all the best because personally, I don't think BKK will be half as much fun if the Go Go's don't survive.