8 Tourist provinces Planning to Reopen October 1...???

[Dodger]

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.