Miscellaneous COVID-19/Corona Virus Discussion, Questions, etc.

[mak]

“The government has informed the Thai Chamber of Commerce that it has sourced enough vaccines to meet the requirement of every citizens, therefore the private sector does not need to buy any additional vaccines.”

[vidmaster]

Definitely

[Drunk Monkey]

“The government has informed the Thai Chamber of Commerce that it has sourced enough vaccines to meet the requirement of every citizens, therefore the private sector does not need to buy any additional vaccines.”

Does this include expats , non Thais residing here ?? .. i was commented on another thread ""foreigners"" would get a vaccine at some point in the future.

DM

[mak]

We, Thais and Farangs, will get a vaccine in the future. All the eggs are in one basket, namely Siam Bioscience. We will have to wait until Siam Bioscience produces and distributes their version of the Astra Zeneca vaccine.

[Drunk Monkey]

in my spare time i have developed a personalized emoji app for use in snapchat , whattsap n LINE ...so in light of that good news mak ..



DM

[mak]

“Phuket Check Point at Tha Chatchai will be closed from 11pm to 5am each night,” V/Gov Piyapong explained after the meeting of the Communicable Disease Committee yesterday (Apr 27).
“The checkpoint has been open 24 hours, our staff are exhausted, and only a few vehicles pass through the checkpoint in the nighttime,” he said.

[mak]

All foreigners in Thailand will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, it was announced at the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) briefing on Thursday.

[mak]

The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) announced on Thursday that all arrivals from overseas will be required to complete their 14-day mandatory quarantine regardless of their vaccination status or nationality.
Effective May 6.

[tamada]

More than 100 nations, led by India and South Africa, are pushing to temporarily suspend patent rules at the World Trade Organization during this pandemic. But the move has been blocked by a small number of countries, including the UK and the US, as well as by the EU.
By helping block a patent waiver, the UK government is stifling vaccine production, which means many countries will wait years for sufficient doses. That risks letting the virus run rampant, leading to new variants and putting our own vaccination programme in jeopardy. It would be a reckless act of self-mutilation.

Seems greed is the driving force to allow the virus to continue to mutate

My understanding is that the Oxford AZ shot is "open source" and without patent protections.

With India's own large pharmaceutical manufacturing base, the availability of the ingredients and no restrictions on making their own, how did they quickly go from rising star to basket case?

[noosard]

More than 100 nations, led by India and South Africa, are pushing to temporarily suspend patent rules at the World Trade Organization during this pandemic. But the move has been blocked by a small number of countries, including the UK and the US, as well as by the EU.
By helping block a patent waiver, the UK government is stifling vaccine production, which means many countries will wait years for sufficient doses. That risks letting the virus run rampant, leading to new variants and putting our own vaccination programme in jeopardy. It would be a reckless act of self-mutilation.

Seems greed is the driving force to allow the virus to continue to mutate

My understanding is that the Oxford AZ shot is "open source" and without patent protections.

With India's own large pharmaceutical manufacturing base, the availability of the ingredients and no restrictions on making their own, how did they quickly go from rising star to basket case?

I really dont know nor care that much
But for multiple articles to be written on the subject something must be stopping the making of the vaccines in lots of countries
and yes India has turned into a basket case

[tamada]

More than 100 nations, led by India and South Africa, are pushing to temporarily suspend patent rules at the World Trade Organization during this pandemic. But the move has been blocked by a small number of countries, including the UK and the US, as well as by the EU.
By helping block a patent waiver, the UK government is stifling vaccine production, which means many countries will wait years for sufficient doses. That risks letting the virus run rampant, leading to new variants and putting our own vaccination programme in jeopardy. It would be a reckless act of self-mutilation.

Seems greed is the driving force to allow the virus to continue to mutate

My understanding is that the Oxford AZ shot is "open source" and without patent protections.

With India's own large pharmaceutical manufacturing base, the availability of the ingredients and no restrictions on making their own, how did they quickly go from rising star to basket case?

I really dont know nor care that much
But for multiple articles to be written on the subject something must be stopping the making of the vaccines in lots of countries
and yes India has turned into a basket case

For those that do care, here's an opinion on why it went pear-shaped in India. It speaks to the fragility of every country's performance against the coronavirus when they begin to pat themselves on the back.

"An outbreak the size of India’s second wave, apparently fuelled by Covid-19 variants that appear to be more infectious than earlier strains, would have overwhelmed most public health systems – let alone one of the most chronically underfunded in the world, serving a vast, spread-out population.

But public health experts, including some involved in advising the government, say the scale of India’s current outbreak was also partly manmade, the result of a feeling of exceptionalism that emanated from the top of the Indian government and rippled across society, leading to countless administrative and personal decisions that, within a few months, would prove disastrous.

“There was a misreading of the situation in January that we had attained herd immunity and were unlikely to see a second wave,” says K Srinath Reddy, the president of the Public Health Foundation of India. “India went into full-blown celebratory mode. And we know the virus travels with people, and celebrates with crowds.”

In India's case it seems that the ignorance and self-seeking pride of their PM was a key factor.

"In its public statements, few groups were more certain in their conclusion that the pandemic was over than the ruling BJP. At a meeting of its national executive early in the year, with its eye on the upcoming elections, the party issued nothing less than a victory cry.

In the face of the world “speculating over how India with its vast population and limited healthcare infrastructure” would deal with the pandemic, according to a party resolution, it could be “said with pride that India [had] defeated Covid under the able, sensitive, committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... 9-disaster

[sometimewoodworker]

My understanding is that the Oxford AZ shot is "open source" and without patent protections.

With India's own large pharmaceutical manufacturing base, the availability of the ingredients and no restrictions on making their own, how did they quickly go from rising star to basket case?

Your understanding isn’t correct, the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is neither open source nor without patents. However the vaccine is being distributed at cost and manufactured in facilities worldwide. Also some of the required material for the Pune S.I.I. vaccine production facility, probably the largest in the world, comes from the USA and it’s export to India was stopped by the defence procurement act until recently so their output was severely curtailed for some time. There has been a very recent discussion between President Biden and prime minister Modi. This may have released the needed materials.

So while there were certainly other factors involved the huge slowdown of the pace of vaccination caused by the USA restrictions has not helped.

Currently there are large numbers of people dying because they can’t get oxygen therapy due to the extreme demand on supply so the death toll is much greater than it would be if people could be treated in hospital. The suggestion is that under or late reporting means that the numbers may well be 10 times higher than the official figures.

[tamada]

^ I may have misheard some talking head on the radio then or he was talking shuyte. Nobody bailed him up on it either. Thanks for the clarification. The rush to get vaccines to India will only address the longer term recovery from this spike, say 2-3 months down the line? Not much they can do for the current surge though. When you see these people going to hole-in-the-wall shops to get O2 bottles refilled, you wonder what quality they are getting. Pretty sure that hospital-grade oxygen is purer and cleaner than the stuff needed for welding. Good time to get into the dive bottle refilling business maybe.

[sometimewoodworker]

Pretty sure that hospital-grade oxygen is purer and cleaner than the stuff needed for welding.

In fact the different grades of oxygen are all produced in exactly the same way from exactly the same production facilities and as filled into bottles are no different. The only difference is the testing on the bottles that it’s supplied in. This is why the cost is different.

Any contamination in the container is deadly, as you will get a hugely violent reaction, so the fill stations are extremely careful on the point.

So welding oxygen, as long as you are extremely careful of the cleanliness of your connection, is as safe and clean as medical or SCBA oxygen. Yes they technically could be different but in practice they are not.

PADI MSDT Jerome

[mak]

Deja vu.

[tamada]

Pretty sure that hospital-grade oxygen is purer and cleaner than the stuff needed for welding.

In fact the different grades of oxygen are all produced in exactly the same way from exactly the same production facilities and as filled into bottles are no different. The only difference is the testing on the bottles that it’s supplied in. This is why the cost is different.

Any contamination in the container is deadly, as you will get a hugely violent reaction, so the fill stations are extremely careful on the point.

So welding oxygen, as long as you are extremely careful of the cleanliness of your connection, is as safe and clean as medical or SCBA oxygen. Yes they technically could be different but in practice they are not.

PADI MSDT Jerome

Being India, I wonder how many hole-in-the-wall air bottle refillers have air quality monitoring hardware on their compressors.

One of the things I do on vessel safety audits is to check the status, maintenance and service records for the dedicated compressor for refilling the firefighting team's SCBA bottles. I also check the ship's workshop compressors and the source airgun compressors. Although the hardware fittings mostly allow it, neither of the last couple of compressor systems can be used to refill SCBA kit.

Back in India, it looks like hoarding of bottles is the main issue with the hospital-grade ones being scarcer than hen's teeth. This is causing locals to use regular gas bottles where inner cleanliness and basic testing is probably less of an issue.

IMCA IAGC tam

[sometimewoodworker]

One of the things I do on vessel safety audits is to check the status, maintenance and service records for the dedicated compressor for refilling the firefighting team's SCBA bottles. I also check the ship's workshop compressors and the source airgun compressors. Although the hardware fittings mostly allow it, neither of the last couple of compressor systems can be used to refill SCBA kit.

Mobile compressors don’t produce O2 and as I’m sure you know SCBA never or virtually never uses pure oxygen SCUBA unless your doing technical diving also doesn’t use pure 02 and never under 6 metres. Some shops may mix in O2 to provide nitrox as a compressor that concentrates the O2% isn’t cheap and bottled O2 is.

The reason that workshop and air gun compressors aren’t used to fill SCUBA tanks is that they don’t go up to the 3,000 ~ 5,500 psi required for SCBA/SCUBA. Also a little oil or trace gases make no difference to the tools but is quite capable of killing a person breathing it.

[Drunk Monkey]

Travel Heads up.. not that many will wish to go there at the moment but ...

My Bizz partner in bkk just called me to confirm FROM TODAY entry into Bkk is now banned for anyone without the correct documentation issued at the local Tessaban office from which province you are traveling from. Not sure how this will be policed but road blocks are set up on Motorway 9 which is in effect the main BKK Ring rd... Travel also banned between BKK and Patts.

DM

[tamada]

Here's a breakdown of who's shooting up with what and where.

Just noticed that the graphic is truncated and the last 2 (possibly 3) are omitted.

Good interactive map here though.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... tw-nytimes

[leterry60614]

Good morning, there are two recommendations from the American Embassy in Bangkok

Estate Planning is important. The U.S. Embassy maintains a list of lawyers who can ensure your final wishes are respected.

https://twitter.com/acsbkk/status/13702 ... 47360?s=21

Do you need a Power of Attorney but do not want to hire a lawyer? You can make a notary appointment in American Citizen Services and execute your Power of Attorney today!

https://twitter.com/acsbkk/status/13688 ... 66464?s=21

And this is about closing a bank account following the death of a family member.

https://twitter.com/acsbkk/status/13851 ... 61632?s=21