Originally Posted by
escape4
I realize you are not justifying the measures but simply pointing out the differences between countries, which I agree with you. That said, regarding the justification, there are lots of opinions out there, but personally I think the measures in Thailand are a significant overkill relative to Malaysia and Singapore at this point in time. Unlike those two, in Thailand more than half of days recently there are no cases of community transmission at all (I do not count cases going straight to quarantine at immigration centers upon arrival). And yet they are already talking about extending the emergency decree to end of June? Wow. Many people in the country were aligned with the emergency decree in April, but there are many hints that people are no longer scared and many are less inclined to follow the rules religiously when they know the odds are very remote that it will change anything. Those behaviors are not going to get better in another 6 weeks if cases continue to be few and far between, if at all.
Right, it's not like the military is in the streets harassing people, but the emergency decree is about giving special powers to the government, the problem is there is nothing even remotely "emergency" about the situation as of today so the optics is that they just want to retain powers.
On another matter, when you rely mostly on doctors and health experts, you end up with solutions which are geared towards covid ZERO tolerance and you put aside the needs of people hugely hurt by the lack of economic activity. Reopening the borders with conditions will become a necessity sooner rather than later, there are already almost as many suicides related to covid than the number of deaths related to covid.
Anyway I do not pretend to have all the answers and it might turn out that I am wrong when it's all said and done, but right now I think the measures in Thailand are out of line with the reality. Many people feared a second wave after Songkran and it did not happen, many people feared a second wave after relaxed measures in early May and it did not happen. If covid is no longer running in the country, relaxation will not lead to a second wave.
None of this is making it easier for customers to pull the trigger on gift cards, hence not helping hotels much. The government needs to send signals that they want to open the country at some point, like many other countries have done recently (Iceland, Greece, etc.). I have not read anything from Thailand to that effect yet.
Thais and people in the region knows there are alot more cases out there who are not showing symptom but also not tested at the same time. Official number for sure is low, but they did not test aggressively and that's why they need to be careful about opening it up. The fact that the locals can go to shopping malls now is consider a privilege in this region outside of Vietnam.
I give u an example right in Singapore. Numbers are high because the foreign workers dormitories are rigorously tested. But because most of them are young and fit workers who are also not showing symptoms, the number of fatality or icu patients are very low. The risk from asymptomatic people is real because its contagious.
In fact my personal opinion is that Singapore had been overly conservative now but Thailand is quite the opposite.
I personally bought the Renaissance voucher which had an expiry till April next Yr.
But for the deal listed here, if the expiry is up to only this year, I will not take the risk unless you are a local resident.