Coronavirus - Thailand

[Jellybean]

Below, I highlight one report from the Bangkok Post, an updated selected extract from the worldometer website and a reference to a report in The Guardian dated April 12th, 2020:

33 new cases, no deaths, total 2,733

65% of all patients have recovered, number still in hospital reaches three-week low

published : 18 Apr 2020 at 12:33
updated: 18 Apr 2020 at 14:04
writer: Online Reporters

The government on Saturday reported 33 new local cases of new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and no deaths, raising total cases to 2,733.

Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, said the death toll remained at 47.

To date, 68 of 76 provinces and Bangkok have reported infections. The number of recovered patients is now 1,787, or 65.4% of all cases, he said . . .

For full report see: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand...hs-total-2-733

Stats008.png

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

And I would like to end this post by saying that back on January 22 at post #1; I started this topic after I received an email on ‘Thailand travel advice’ from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) with a link to Public Health England which contained the following reassuring words:

The risk to the UK population has been assessed as low. This has been raised from very low due to current evidence on the likelihood of cases being imported into this country.

As of today, as noted in the above table, 14,576 of my fellow Brits have died of Covid-19 and, alarmingly, there is press speculation that the UK might end up having Europe’s highest number of deaths due to Covid-19!*

*Link to news story in The Guardian dated April 12th, 2020:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...andemic-expert

[Jellybean]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...-bats-11974420

A few nights ago, arsenal, I was listening to a radio phone-in show in the UK which was discussing the subject mentioned in your link. Reference was made to reports in the The Washington Post and one report from The Washington Times which I have copied below as I thought they may be of interest to members:

State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

By
Josh Rogin
Columnist
April 14, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. GMT+1

Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge . . .

For the full report see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...coronaviruses/

Joint Chiefs chairman: U.S. intel investigating whether coronavirus leaked from Wuhan lab
By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Tuesday, April 14, 2020

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating whether the coronavirus may have leaked from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday.

Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the nation’s most senior military officer, told reporters at the Pentagon the initial assessments indicate the coronavirus causing the global pandemic appears to have been a “natural” event arising from animal-to-human transmission . . .

For the full report see: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ting-whether-/

[Jellybean]

And once again, to lighten the mood, I repost images first posted on facebook:

CV34.jpg

And, after all the gloomy news, one last image to end on a positive note:

CV37.jpg

[dinagam]

Hope springs eternal.
I'm already missing the sea and spending time, sometimes an entire day on Jomtian Beach.
However during this lockdown I have all the time to watch all the shows at the Royal Opera House and other grand theatres in Russia and Italy. So many great talents and performances. Thanks to You Tube I get to feast on the Fashion Channel all the great haute couture presentations of exquisite collections by very special and talented designers.
Life is beautiful despite the occasional hiccups.
Guys. Watch what you eat and drink.

[Jellybean]

I believe this story has gone global, but I am not sure how many members of the forum outside of the UK have heard of Captain Tom Moore, aged 99 years old, from Yorkshire, England. He pledged to raise £1,000 by walking 100 laps of his garden with the aid of a Zimmer before he turned 100 at the end of the month. At the time of writing this post, he has raised more than £23,000,000 for the UK’s National Health Service charities to help them with the Coronavirus crisis.

As a very special 100th birthday tribute , I along with many people in the UK hope Her Majesty the Queen is advised by her Ministers to confer a knighthood on Tom for his amazing fund raising efforts.

Below, I have copied a very moving video of an artist painting a portrait of Tom with the song, You’ll never walk alone playing in the background and a BBC News link:

Coronavirus: Captain Tom Moore passes £23m in NHS fundraising

A 99-year-old war veteran has been left "speechless" after raising more than £23m for the NHS.

Capt Tom Moore originally aimed to raise just £1,000 for NHS Charities Together by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.

The Duke of Cambridge hailed him as a "one-man fundraising machine" . . .

For the full story see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...herts-52333127

CV38.jpg

[Oliver2]

A remarkable achievement by anyone, let alone someone of that age....

yet it is tragic that the NHS, once the envy of the world, has been so denuded of appropriate financing by successive governments, including that of Lord Blair of Fallujah, that it needs this sort of action.

Meanwhile, buying American nuclear weapons of dubious value doesn't depend on "charity"....the money is always . Our money.

[Nirish guy]

To be fair though if the British ( and many other) Governments were found to HAVE ordered say 200 extra ventilators that were never going to be needed ( in normal times) or likewise order many tons of random PPE equipment ( other than is already ordered and needed and overstocked already to cope for most known emergency scenarios) they would of course then have been slaughtered too for bad mismanagement of NHS funds.

I do agree they should fund the NHS better of course but I think it's so easy for people ( not you personally Oliver) to bash them about funding over unseen things like this cropping up. No Government in the world seemed particularly "ready" for this equipment wise and to expect our NHS to have enough of "everything?" to deal with "anything" at "all" times seems to be a bit over hopeful and unrealistic perhaps.

That doesn't take away from the great job the NHS and a lot of their staff member HAVE done in coping with the shit storm that did land at their door with little or no notice of course.

[Brad the Impala]

UK government stockpiles containing protective equipment for healthcare workers in the event of a pandemic fell in value by almost 40% over the past six years, the Guardian has found.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...0-in-six-years

This reduction in stocks took place took place despite a government drill in 2016 that revealed "gaping holes in Britain’s Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) plan." The report arising from that plan was never published.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget

I'm happy to apportion blame when a government has deliberately underfunded the NHS and ignored their own internal warnings of what would happen in this event.

[Nirish guy]

UK government stockpiles containing protective equipment for healthcare workers in the event of a pandemic fell in value by almost 40% over the past six years, the Guardian has found.

Whilst I'm not disagreeing with you in general Brad the above does state that it's the VALUE of the stock pile that had dropped, not necessarily the quantity - this could of course be down to numerous things such as the value of the pound and the lowering in the world wide price of PPE equipment in general at any given time. its important that figures and "facts" like that aren't skewed for incorrect ( or political) reasons - and I dont mean here on the board I mean in general.

Actually even in that Guardian link you posted there Brad the Government representative said basically the same when saying " the value of the emergency stockpile “does not relate to the volume of its contents”, adding that “through responsible procurement” officials had been “successful in maintaining its stock”.

I have no doubt that they've quietly cut away at that and many other things, of that I have no doubt, but for people to go for the easy low hanging fruit that's so easily batted off by them does actually direct from the actual cuts they probably were making quietly elsewhere that we probably amenity aware off (yet).

PS that second link you posted there Brad is broken.....

[goji]

Despite all the whinging amongst the left wing pro EU media (e.g. BBC, Guardian) when the UK did not join the EU ventilator procurement scheme, the UK has not been short of ventilators.
At least 2 EU countries HAVE been short of ventilators.

It's pretty damn difficult to trust the Guardian when they have run all sorts of negative headlines on ventilators, whilst omitting to prominently report that we have done just fine with ventilator supply and the EU has not.

Can you imagine them running the headline "Disastrous EU ventilator shortages have been avoided by UK government" ?
All the left wing ****s employed there just report one side of the story.


Getting PPE is obviously difficult, with every country on the planet requiring above normal levels. All these useless thick journalists complain and whinge, but they don't go out and get objective data on supply & demand, then compare with other countries.

The UK death rate per capita remains below Belgium, Italy, Spain and France. Yet the left wing media only compare the government with Germany, which has done considerably better.
That's the same left wing media have spent years avoiding any positive discussion about the merits of more private sector involvement and consumer choice, as they have in Germany. They expect the government to Germany's results with the same health care structure as in Cuba.

I don't have a high regard for our current crop of politicians (from any party), but the one group of people who would screw it up even more badly are the journalists.