What is situation right now in Thailand with regard to COVID-19?

If a normal flu season can kill tens of thousands in some western countries and covid-19 is far worse than normal flu virus then deaths will be quite high.

When it comes to Thailand I think only severe cases admitted to hospital are being counted and report.

I find the following website provides some interesting articles.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/news

Straydog wrote:

If a normal flu season can kill tens of thousands in some western countries and covid-19 is far worse than normal flu virus then deaths will be quite high.

When it comes to Thailand I think only severe cases admitted to hospital are being counted and report.

I find the following website provides some interesting articles.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/news

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That's my fear; that only people with obvious symptoms are being counted.  If there's anything to be learned from Wuhan, and Italy, most of Europe, and now the US, it's that aggressive proactive measures are required to fight this virus.

Waiting until people have symptoms is not proactive at all.  Screening incoming passengers from abroad with only a thermo-scan is not proactive.  Thailand needs to have a much more proactive strategy IMO. 

Countries that are fairing relatively well are the ones that are proactive, like Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan; they have managed to "flatten the curve on exponential growth".   

Vietnam's strategy is another model of how a country should handle this.  They took extremely aggressive and bold measures form the outset.  Their public health ministry has set up an excellent website that provides frequent and very detailed updates, and they even have an app that sends important text messages with those updates.

What they all have in common is complete transparency with the public, proper testing, and bold and decisive containment actions to contain the spread. 

In Thailand, I really see very few examples of this, and worse, it seems that officials of different agencies within the Kingdom are providing conflicting information, and information that is provided on one day, is retracted or revised the next so that nobody is really sure what is going on, or what the message is on how the public should be dealing with this.

On that same subject, I am scheduled to fly in Thailand on 3/26, will I be able to get in?  The second part of my trip is Vietnam which I have heard they have closed the borders to new arrivals.  Does anyone have any facts about Thailand doing that?   Thank you Bobby

NomadBob123 wrote:

On that same subject, I am scheduled to fly in Thailand on 3/26, will I be able to get in?  The second part of my trip is Vietnam which I have heard they have closed the borders to new arrivals.  Does anyone have any facts about Thailand doing that?   Thank you Bobby

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You are correct about Vietnam.  Temporary ban on ALL new visas until at least 15 April.

In Thailand, restrictions are far more relaxed but in a extremely confusing state of flux.  My impression (and this is just my personal opinion) is that the government is not being very transparent about the situation (not because they are trying to hide anything but because they still trying to get a handle on the situation), and worse, there seems to be no unified "voice" from various officials.  Conflicting guidelines are issued one day, and then retracted or changed the next.

It's really is a stark contrast to how things are being handled in Vietnam which, more or less, is handling this crisis in a "gold standard" sort of way IMO!

Right now, things seem relatively stable, at least where I live in Chiang Mai.  There are noticeably less tourists here for sure, but everybody seems to be calm.  There is no panic buying or any indication that people are freaking out. 

If you look around, you see that just as many people are walking around without masks as with them, and most public places such as restaurants, food courts, night markets, etc are operating as usual...though that seems about to change per government guidelines...at least that is what they're saying in the news right now.

BUT, of course, here in Thailand, what the government proclaims and what they actually implement are two different things usually.  You really just need to try and keep up to date on a day to day basis. 

If I were in your position, I'd hold off your trip at least for a month to see how things really progress here, if you possibly can.  If you still plan to come, you should check with your embassy about any late breaking restrictions, and if there are any, your airline tickets, hotel deposits, etc will probably be easily refundable.

The real important thing to consider if you still plan to come is whether or not your flight itinerary will involve a stop / layover in one of the high risk areas since I do not believe there are any direct flights from western nations bound for Thailand. 

If you have a layover in any of those hot spots, you will face a period of quarantine upon entering Thailand.  You should consider the fact that almost all flights from Western nations involve a stop in what Thailand now deems to be a high risk area.

Therefore, the risk of having to spend 14 days of your vacation in isolation may not be how you would want to spend your vacation.

Straydog wrote:

If a normal flu season can kill tens of thousands in some western countries and covid-19 is far worse than normal flu virus then deaths will be quite high.

When it comes to Thailand I think only severe cases admitted to hospital are being counted and report.

I find the following website provides some interesting articles.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/news

===
Personally I would be a little wary of getting your facts from that site.  Many of their stories lack fair and balanced reporting, presenting only one viewpoint on controversial subjects, for instance in whether or not NSAID drugs exacerbate Covid-19, which has absolutely NOT been proven, one way or the other.  Very little of it is impartially science-based unfortunately.  Furthermore, most of their headlines are definitely of the "click bait" type.

There are much better sources to stay informed.  One of the best general sites for up-to-date, science-based, and responsible reporting on Covid-19 is Dr. John Campbell's youtube channel where he does daily updates at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB … BupFtBDxg.

Another very balanced source of information and statistics, country by country can be viewed here - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

One of the best features of this site is their daily chart of country-by-country stats which contains a column that shows cases per 1 million of population, which is a much better indicator of how the virus is affecting a particular nation than just "number of confirmed cases"

For news more specific to Covid-19 in Southeast Asia, CNA News is very good at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC83jt4 … 58fzQrrKZg

Within Thailand, there really is not a good source of up-to-date news on Covid-19, and the official website of the Public health ministry is not the greatest at all, but can be viewed at https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/e … ation.php. where they release updates every few days or so. 

Be warned though, the website is very poorly managed with MANY broken links and poor translation, as seems to be the case with all Thai government-based websites.  The extremely poor online communications of vital information does not  instill much confident in the Ministry of Public Health, at least as far as I'm concerned.

There are some YouTubers within Thailand that are posting about Covid-19 with pretty regular updates and seem to be providing some pretty transparent and reliable reports "from the ground" but none I'd really be comfortable to recommend.  best advice use the advanced search feature on YouTube, search "Thailand" "Covid-19", and filter results for 24 hour period to see latest.

Hello everybody,
I am from Italy and look what is happening over there by displaying the most strict lockdown in the world ever (which by the way hides the real intent of this so-called pandemy)...The most of infections take places in a family enviroment, beside the phycological & physical problems related to living inside for long time (ask immates).
So what is happening here is paradise...
Ps. Sorry to ask...You people live in a buddhist country for what reason exactly...Since you have not yet understood this basic principle?
YOU DON'T DIE BECAUSE YOU GET A DESEASE...YOU GET A DESEASE BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO DIE.

866,000 People in Phitsanulok and 6 cases and no they are not lying about the number. Anyone has Covid 19 the entire province knows about it in 5 minutes.


I'd say Thailand have done a great job or the heat is stopping the virus spreading or our immunity systems have been strengthened with all that spoon sharing over the year.

I am happy to be here and so is my man who can't believe how it is spreading in his country which is supposed to be much smarter and more advanced in brain cells than the poor issan folk in Thailand.

Thank you for the feedback.  Hope all is well.

Chalanda wrote:

866,000 People in Phitsanulok and 6 cases and no they are not lying about the number. Anyone has Covid 19 the entire province knows about it in 5 minutes.


I'd say Thailand have done a great job or the heat is stopping the virus spreading or our immunity systems have been strengthened with all that spoon sharing over the year.

I am happy to be here and so is my man who can't believe how it is spreading in his country which is supposed to be much smarter and more advanced in brain cells than the poor issan folk in Thailand.

HAHA! The reason Thailand has very little is because 80% of the Thai's use a nasal/sinus flush daily! It is the best way to defeat any virus but especially this virus which collects in the nose and sinus and builds up and then moves down into the lungs! If flushed out daily it never really gets much to the lungs and your body has time to build antibodies and protect itself! Somewhere on this form is the reciepe for making the flush that works!