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The drum roll gets louder.
It appears that the success of this reopening will rely heavily on the use of Thai-Made covid vaccines.
What could possibly go wrong?
Fingers-crossed this will be a go. The bar owners (and everyone else) are biting at the bit to reopen, and the prostitutes are running out of mascara.
colmx - fuck Phuket, just get your ass to Pattaya.
https://pattayaone.news/8-tourism-pr...en-in-october/
At present, Thailand is rapidly vaccinating it's population with imported and licensed vaccines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
It seems proposals for the Pattaya sandbox involve restricting where we can go within Pattaya during the sandbox period. So they can f*ck that, as Phuket offers more freedom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
We'll have to wait and see what the restrictions will be for the 8 Provinces in the plan. If there's a 14 day quarantine and all the bars are closed, no tourists will come and they'll still be back at square one.Quote:
Originally Posted by goji
They don't need another "Sandbox Scheme"...they need a real "Reopening". That means, no quarantine for vaccinated tourists - with bars and entertainment venues open. At least that's what the working boys want. And I know that's what you want too.
I'm not saying they're going to pull this off, but I do like the fact that there seems to be a fire lit under their asses to get the people vaccinated. As I've said before, I think October is being overly optimistic, but things are moving in the right direction anyway.
Here's recent data showing a significant decrease in reported cases in Thailand - with about 22% of the population being vaccinated. Great progress in the past two weeks.
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-c...ries/thailand/
I can't say that I disagree with you about that. This "Sealed Route Programme" of theirs for Pattaya sounds insane.Quote:
Originally Posted by goji
For mass tourism and an attempt at a full recovery, yes they need a real reopening, with the same rules as 2019. Better still, double the number of days people get when arriving to partially compensate for reduced visitor numbers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
However, as of today, I believe we can go anywhere we like in Phuket with their sandbox scheme. So if that were combined with reopening of bars & unrestricted domestic travel after 7 days, I would have thought quite a few board members would consider it in the winter.
Doing what we like in Phuket seems far better than any daft scheme which restricts our itinerary in Pattaya.
According to slightly different figures in the Pattaya Mail, 24.9 million have received first doses. which is almost 36%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
9.7 million have received second doses.
They delivered 4.8 million doses in the last week and if this rate is sustained, 70% of the population should be vaccinated by some time in December. I would like to think the combination of that vaccination rate and economic pressure might lead to some opening up.
That being the case, maybe planning your holiday in Phuket this winter is the answer, and put your plans to return to Pattaya off until next year without all these ridiculous restrictions.Quote:
Originally Posted by goji
My planning will be done at the last minute.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
However, I presume any stupid restrictions applied to the Pattaya sandbox would only apply during the sandbox period.
Assuming one is free to travel after the sandbox period, the obvious move would be to go wherever the sandbox terms are the best then travel to where I want to go afterwards.
I will decide on Sept 17, depending on what the news is like, that gives me 3 weeks to sort the COE paperwork etc, for whichever destination I end up visiting (which may well be Spain!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
Key requirements for me would be removal of the curfew and the reopening of open fronted beer bars (at a minimum)
My main fear in delaying a Thai trip till January is that by that stage Europe might be back into a lockdown as the covid shitshow starts all over again
I hear you loud and clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by colmx
I live 25 minutes from the gay venues in Pattaya - and I wouldn't even go there unless they're open and I have the freedom to do whatever I want for as long as I want. I can't even imagine traveling thousands of miles on holiday to be told I had to be back in my room by 10:00 PM.
Good luck with your planning, and I'll keep my fingers cross for you.
Speedy Dodger wrote.
"I live 25 minutes from the gay venues in Pattaya -"
For me it's usually couple of hours. A coffee at the raised coffee bar on the Bang Saray Beach Front or perhaps Bacca Beach or The Glasshouse. Then a gentle amble along Jomtien Beach road maybe pausing to take in the view and finally stopping off in the complex to see who's about.
We have similar tastes.Quote:
Originally Posted by arsenal
Bocca has tasty pizza...a good selection of Italian reds...a great view...and a waiter named Penn who has an ass sculpted by the Gods. The Glass House is perfect for a romantic dinner...sitting on the beach during sunset with Boy Special...with live acoustical guitar music playing gently in the background. It doesn't get any better than that for me.
Here's more jibber-jabber (wishful thinking) regarding the entire Kingdom opening without quarantine by January 1st.
Read at your own risk:
https://pattayaone.news/whole-countr...ary-next-year/
The whole country 'might' reopen without quarantine on Jan 1st - and then they go and spoil it all by talking about needing 'herd immunity' - presumably from vaccination.
Which would be great - IF they could get people vaccinated in time - IF they overlook the teensy little detail that vaccination is not creating herd immunity elsewhere.
In the UK, the proportion of people who have had Covid now is probably somewhere between a half and two thirds of the entire population. You can crunch the numbers various ways, but it looks as though the actual number of cases is probably in the region of six to eight times the number recorded.
As hardly anyone is getting it twice, we will get our herd immunity the old fashioned way - when enough people have been infected. The vaccines have been good at reducing impact on the older and more vulnerable, but seem pretty useless at curbing spread.
The recorded numbers have just started tumbling again here - might this be the home straight? Hopefully..
But what about the LoS? What's the mood? Are the little people being heard - or are the generals still in 'Tourism doesn't really matter' mode..?
It's getting close to the date when I normally buy my air tickets - normally out New Year's Eve, normally back late March.
I'd love to be confident about January 1st, but I'm thinking of going someplace else first.. - over 25 years since I last went to Sri Lanka - memories of straight acting lads on the beach up for gay for pay - small but rock hard dicks that cum very quickly.. - is it open for business - is it still the same..?
The UK figures here https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ suggest 10% of the UK population have had Covid.
Newspaper reports can suggest anything and are best ignored.
As regards buying your ticket now I suggest you wait. There will be plenty of seats and there is no way of telling what will happen in the 3 1/2 months before you plan to travel.
Those totals are the reported cases - there's a big difference between actual cases and reported ones..Quote:
Originally Posted by gerefan2
Roughly half of those people getting Covid are believed to be unaware of it, or get such mild symptoms they don't think much about it.
Informal research (by me..) indicates that around half the population would not bother to test if they got moderate symptoms. As a follow up question, well over half told me that they would not report being infected if they had a positive test. The NHS 'pinging' system does not seem to enthuse people - they'd rather hunker down until they got better, than become a statistic.
As far as I can tell, the Thai government is intent on vaccinating the population as fast as they can, then just getting on with it. Which ought to make a trip in the winter relatively easy. However, no need to start looking into booking that trip for a couple of months yet.
I think that's it in a nutshell.Quote:
Originally Posted by goji
One positive is the rapid increase in the production and availability of vaccines. Soon any government wishing to vaccinate its population will no longer be limited by vaccine supply issues.
I hope to be back in LOS as soon as travel restrictions, including ASQs, have been entirely removed. Hopefully that will be in January, if not, Songkran is a strong possibility.
Posts relating to Songkran have been moved here:
https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...-it-or-hate-it
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Thailand hopes to welcome tourists to Bangkok, top cities next month
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...th-2021-09-09/
If they plan to open in three weeks (from date of article 9sep2021), they should have concrete plans, partially implemented, and not just hopes by now. I expect further delays.
And how is that going to work out?Quote:
Bangkok's reopening would be partial, however, starting with areas popular with visitors, Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters, without elaborating.
The Independent is reporting:
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-b1919280.html
That Thailand is on the bad boy list for not reporting enough COVID genome results to GISAID - which appears to be the 'official' data collator.
For that reason their correspondent predicts that Thailand will be kept on the UK's Red List this week. The Telegraph however thinks that Thailand is a potential candidate for liberation from the Red List, and that Amber and Green will be abolished this week, which would make travel to Thailand restriction free from the UK perspective.
Incidentally, new reported Covid cases are tumbling in the UK (although it's not widely reported) today's figure is 29% down on last Tuesday
Quote:
Originally Posted by christianpfc
It kind of depends on what silly restrictions are implemented when "reopening".
If people have their movements restricted and there are loads of other petty & pointless restrictions, very few will show up.
Brief Update:
According to a CCSA news briefing yesterday (September 17) tourists entering Thailand under sandbox schemes will still be required to quarantine for 14 days.
UK still suppressing tourism in Thailand. U.S. still recommending against travel to Thailand.
Reports of reopening's included in News releases continue to contradict each other. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Nothing new there.
Bangkok Mayor informed the Press yesterday that Bangkok would not be reopening in October regardless of what the PM says. Nice to see everybody on the same page.
Data being reported showing the current vaccination percentages across the Kingdom are all over the place. In four major newspapers these percentages don't even come within 10 percentage points of each other on the same day - which means none of these data can be trusted.
The Phuket Sandbox resulted in a situation where there are now >200 reported cases of covid every day. The CCSA doesn't want the same thing to happen on the mainland...the PM doesn't want to lose face because he told everyone 100 days ago that the kingdom would be reopened in 120 days...the Health Minister doesn't have the foggiest clue what to do next so he keeps spinning fake news...and, in-the-mean-time, potential tourists to Thailand are sitting there saying "What The Fuck".
The bottom line: They're scrambling like hell to get more vaccine but won't come anywhere close to vaccinating 70% of the population of any province in the next few weeks. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. The PM of course doesn't want to lose face so there will probably another fake reopening (similar to the Phuket Sandbox) where fully vaccinated tourists who have the athletic skills needed to jump through all the hoops, can enter Thailand but will have to quarantine when they get here - and then ride around on secured tour buses to approved locations when they are free to travel outside their hotels. Of course, similar to what happened in Phuket, very few tourists will be foolish enough to jump into this mess especially when the bars and entertainment venues are still closed,, but at least the PM will be able to say there was a reopening.
I still see mid-2022 as a pretty safe bet, as long as they get the vaccine (like they should have done to begin with) and the covid numbers are down far enough to give the CCSA some confidence. At least that's the way the wind seems to be blowing.
Probably correct....the rest of the year is lost for UK visitors , either due to the situation in Thailand or issues here. Still a faint hope for January, though P is still awaiting his first vaccination in Kamphaeng Phaet and I won't be returning until this is done. The hospital he attends is still saying there's no chance of this for two months.
As far as the UK goes most tourists don’t leave until mid December which is 3 months off. A lot can change.
Thailand being on the UK Red List is a small problem for those wanting to travel now, but for those going in December and returning in January or later it should not feature too much. Again things can change.
Anyone seriously thinking of going to Thailand should delay booking until the last minute when it should be a lot clearer what the situation is.
As we have seen with Thailand and the UK things change in an instant.
I have finally given up the ghost on my trip to Phuket next month. BF still not fully vaccinated, no changes to the alcohol restrictions in restaurants (not to mention the reopening of pubs) and no sign of the end of curfews on the mainland
Have booked a holiday to Spain instead and will be there this time 2 weeks!
Hoping now for my usual Thai trip at the end of December...
Whether Thailand reopens of not, if you live in the UK you won't be going to Thailand any time soon. It was expected that the UK would remove Thailand from its list of banned countries. Unfortunately, the decision was to retain Thailand on the list of banned countries.
See: https://www.pattayamail.com/latestne...hailand-372364
Technically speaking UK residents are not banned from visiting Thailand. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office "advises against all but essential travel" to the country. It is 'advice' and, having not seen my family for 18 months, I consider visiting them to be essential. I shall be doing my ASQ shortly.
It might have been expected in Thailand but certainly wasn’t expected here in UK. All the reports I read in advance of the changes announced this week suggested that Thailand would REMAIN on the red list due to the inadequate genomic sequencing of tests talking place in Thailand……and that is exactly what has happened.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaybutton
Last year, with some self interest at stake, I e-mailed gov.uk regarding the classification of another country on the UK list. Obviously they don't want to cause any diplomatic incidents, but they wrote back listing the factors that were taken into consideration. These included the general covid test programme, genomic sequencing and accuracy/integrity of information coming out of the country concerned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andaman!
So I also figured genetic sequencing could be a factor.
However, looking at the current red list, Thailand is on it and countries with less genetic sequencing, like Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam are not. Malaysia also has a higher reported incidence rate of covid.
Of course, what is missing is data about the accuracy of the reported number of covid cases AND whether or not the UK believes the Thai authorities have been honest with the figures,
Attachment 11511
The UK moved Thailand to the red list because of the increase in covid case rates, as well as the low vaccination levels which leave Thailand vulnerable to the new covid variants. The data being collected and reported related to vaccination levels is clearly flawed and unreliable which may have also contributed to the "code red" designation.
I haven't seen any information released by the UK suggesting that genomic sequencing had anything to do with their decision - but could very well have missed this.
Putting Myanmar on that list is moot. AFAIK, Myanmar does not allow tourist to enter, there are no commercial flights to Myanmar anyway, and the political situation is not stable.
The organisation that is collating the genome data for the WHO (I forget the acronym) put Thailand on the bad boy list for not reporting enough data. Without sufficient surveillance and reported data, a new nasty variant of Covid might go unseen and then be spread by travellers. That (I think) is the primary logic for keeping some nations, including Thailand, red listed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodger
That it's been 8 months now since any significant new variant was last detected, and the scientist in charge of the AZ vaccine project is now publicly saying that she does not expect any new and dangerous variants to emerge now - should.. hopefully.. bring an end to the red list.
On the other hand, why the heck is a country like Thailand, well developed in terms of medical facilities, not reporting sufficient genomes?
Thailand was added to the UK Red List less than a month ago. For anyone to expect it to be deleted now was living in cloud cuckoo land.
There will have to be evidence of a sustained reduction in covid before the UK considers its deletion.
That may take months as there is certainly no such evidence at present, in fact quite the reverse in the last 3 days.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
According to a Chief Executive at Moderna the pandemic should be over next year.
I liked what this guy has to say. Not because I understand all this stuff that well - but because it sounded like good news, and that's what I think we all need the most at this juncture.
Read below:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/m...055132723.html
We were also told it would be over in 3 months previously by those who are meant to know these things and yet here I am a year and five months later still trying to avoid it, so I wouldn't go popping any champagne corks JUST yet perhaps :-(
If the number of cases was the main driving force behind red listing, it would be bizarre to red list a country with far fewer cases per head of population than the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by gerefan2
The primary driving factors behind the listings seem to be a) The quality of Covid surveillance and reporting of genomes and b) The known presence of variants that have not circulated widely in the UK.
You could very well be right - and I wonder if the political unrest and heated protests in Bangkok had any influence on this as well???Quote:
Originally Posted by Old git
In any event, it looks like they (the CCSA) have moved the reopening target from October to November anyway - so maybe the status in the UK will change by then.
I don't know about this "sandbox" tourism thing. It just isn't my idea of travel.
Plus, I expect the sandboxes will just be full of nothing but bloody tourists. I predict that everything there will be hyper expensive, because the price gougers will have us by the balls. Think airport level prices.
Currently, my plan is to wait until this fucking thing is finally fucking over, before I think about visiting anywhere in that part of SEA. If that never happens, so be it.
Been thinking of putting the sex tourism thing to the side, and just traveling for the hell of it. Japan or Taiwan look nice.
If it's a Sandbox based on some kind of "open prison" model, where we are told where to eat and where to go, then I think you're completely right. It's going to be full of tourists and prices will be unreasonable.Quote:
Originally Posted by extronaut
However, as I understand it, the Phuket sandbox allows people to go where they like on the island. OK the hotels are off an approved list, but those can be researched in advance.
So if Pattaya has an open prison style sandbox and Phuket has no such restrictions, starting the holiday in Phuket would be sensible.