Vaccine passports approved to cut quarantine time in Thailand

[TotallyOz]

The cut in quarantine from 14 days to 7 is a great sign of things to come. Reading this, it seems the committee has approved this but I don't see where this is official yet. Has this been set into place?

https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30403453?fbclid=IwAR0vU7swkEacRdPZP652KtSj9MO4eXG4vo9S2-adlKT5QNGfldPyBhp6a1s

[paulsf]

Doesn’t work for me.  In April I’ll be 3 months out already.    What’s the sense of getting vaccinated and testing negative then having to quarantine.   I’m over it.     Brazil is starting to look good.   

[spoon]

While it is moving in the right direction, any amount of quarantine still deter normal tourist to come. 7 days is definitely a lot less than 14 days, but 3 month requirement is over the top. With current vaccine wait and shortage, anyone who had the vaccine early cant possibly go for another vaccine shot within 3 month. I dont even know if that is safe. How they decide on 3 month vaccine expiry date, im not sure. But perhaps they are again being overly cautious and want to see if this is doable and will revisit further relaxation afterward. One can only hope

[Riobard]

One fly in the ointment is that the article implies that Thailand is expecting the World Health Organization to establish standard criteria for vaccination certificates. Yet the WHO has pronounced being currently absolutely opposed to vaccine ‘passports’ for international travel. Its mandate is infection control, not jumpstarting non-essential travel. It appears that countries, or nation clusters such as the EU, will need to establish their own criteria and protocols. At best, they may be unofficially standardized.

[Riobard]

The one sensible thing about Thailand is their not supplanting other CoV status criteria with insistence on artificial immunity through vaccination. That said, what is glaringly missing is the opportunity for proof of natural immunity, ie, antibodies, in conjunction with a negative viral test.

The rates of re-infection among the recovered are currently less than breakthrough infection among the vaccinated. Additionally, the recently recovered should defer vaccination. However, imposing a longer quarantine for them, as their only recourse is the negative viral test, seems unreasonable if they can contemporaneously produce easily attainable serology that delineates immunity. 

[Guest]

The vaccines don't eliminate transmission, so cutting quarantine to 7 days rather than zero could well make sense at present.    I presume eliminating quarantine comes when Thailand has vaccinated all it's high risk people.  Or the VIPs.  

I see no sense at all in the 3 month limit for the vaccine passport.   There's already evidence of immunity lasting longer than that.    I would assume that policy gets amended.

 

Since 14 days quarantine actually is 15 nights, I presume 7 days is 8 nights.    

For any board members who are allowed out of their own countries and can spend at least 6 weeks on holiday, preferably longer, I would have thought this is well worth considering.   

I'm not planning to take any long holidays until next winter.   By then, I presume there will have been various changes in Thailand and other countries.   In the unlikely event my only option is 8 nights quarantine and I qualify, I'd have no hesitation in taking it.  

However, Thailand needs to be compared with the alternatives.  If by December, I could go to places like (for example) The Philippines & a couple of other countries with no quarantine, I'd be much less likely to quarantine in Thailand.

[spoon]

Thailand today halt the use of Astrazeneca vaccine over fear of blood clot.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-suspended-in-some-countries-over-blood-clot-fears.html

[Riobard]

Hmmm ... Meanwhile, ‘success story’ Israel has single-dose vaccinated the entire population with Pfizer/BioNTech, and many are fully inoculated on the recommended 21-day cycle. Yet the rolling new case COVID case incidence there is 26th in a global field of 197, with a rolling mortality alone 2.4 times the new case incidence in Thailand. This is what artificial herd immunity looks like in Israel with a vaccine touted as about the most effective on the market. Far from perfect. 

Thailand has some wiggle room to pause AstraZeneca while re-reviews take place, likely coagulation association not causality. But many nations are deferring the follow-up injection of mRNA and other approved formats to trade off analyzed efficacy for volume. That is deliberative. The happenstance of AstraZeneca is a convenient deflection.

[Riobard]

6 minutes ago, Riobard said:

Error -delete

[richincali]

This is a step in the right direction and not really surprising given how Thailand has cautiously managed Covid. While it would be great to see Thailand open up again and go back to the glory days of free and easy travel, I expect it will take some time.  The particulars of this proposal are somewhat strange - why is someone who has been vaccinated required a 7 day quarantine while an unvaccinated foreigner from the same country is required only 3 extra days quarantine? They both are still required to have a negative covid test (although there was an interesting article on an American who recently received a false negative test while visiting Thailand before flying home).

Personally, I would be willing to do a short quarantine of say 2-3 days with vaccination and negative covid test but hard for me to justify the time and cost of a longer quarantine. 

https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/american-has-false-negative-covid-19-test-result-in-thailand-positive-result-after-return-to-the-us

[Riobard]

When juggling three variables: national status, viral infection potentially missable, and imperfect vaccination ... yet without the added variable of natural immunity, there will inevitably be arbitrary decisions that do not seem entirely logical. 

[Patanawet]

On 3/11/2021 at 8:00 AM, spoon said:

 if this is doable and will revisit further relaxation afterward. One can only hope

And the compulsory 7K-17K Baht Covid insurance for $100,000 cover will put some off.

[Guest]

1  Many millions of older people have had covid vaccines.   When one or two issues like blood clots appear, I think the first bit of analysis should look at the incidence rate for such complications in older people in normal times.  

Compare the complication rate normally v in vaccinated people.   Newspapers and the media tend not to look at the "base rate".

Then compare the vaccine risk with the risk of no vaccine.  

 

2  I absolutely do not like the 7500 baht for $100k covid scam insurance.  

However, when Thailand is one of the very few countries accepting tourists, then given the choice between paying that and not having a holiday, I bought the insurance.   An easy decision.

However, next winter, if there is a wider choice of holiday destinations, Thailand will need to make sure it has competitive terms.   In the unlikely event I'm presented with the same limited choices, I'll be going to Thailand again (for a longer trip).

As for 7500 baht, anyone staying in Bangkok, visiting a few gogo bars and offing a lad is going to go through that kind of money in one day.  Also, even with all the extra expenses, my winter holiday actually cost less than normal, due to savings on hotels, flights etc.   By far the biggest downside was spending 15 nights in quarantine. 

 

 

[stijntje]

I'll come back when number of days in quarantaine has been reduced to .... 0.

On average, I stay for one week, so 7 days of quarantaine is not an option at all for me.

[Patanawet]

7 hours ago, z909 said:

 

As for 7500 baht,

A friend on retirement visa came back from UK and had to pay 17,000 for the Covid insurance.

[Boy69]

7 days quarantine is not logical at all what's the point  of getting vaccinated and still have to be in a quarantine this won't work for me at all and turn off most of potential tourism to Thailand.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Boy69 said:

7 days quarantine is not logical at all what's the point  of getting vaccinated and still have to be in a quarantine this won't work for me at all and turn off most of potential tourism to Thailand.

The point of getting vaccinated is primarily to reduce your risk of getting severe disease and possibly dying.   Which is quite useful.

It's not 100% effective at preventing transmission.   

Since it's not 100% effective at preventing transmission, why would you expect Thailand to delete the quarantine before vaccinating the majority of the Thai population ?    Any reason why they should ?

[Riobard]

By rights, Thailand might do well to maintain a visitor quarantine in perpetuity, notwithstanding the coronavirus pandemic. It might help control influenza incidence and mortality to the extent that a proportion of cases are brought in by travellers. 

You could receive training and testing for swimming skills while waiting to be let loose. Kidding aside, Thailand values its health and life. They would prefer to draw the line at their 85 COVID deaths to date, with a case fatality of less than 1 in 300. 

In the meantime, here in Montreal today thousands of protestors marching against mitigation measures ... cringeworthy. The restrictions are actually really helping to control spread and overrun of hospital resources. 

Thailand’s causes of death past year ... 55 seconds animation.

[daydreamer]

8 hours ago, stijntje said:

I'll come back when number of days in quarantaine has been reduced to .... 0.

Same here, I'll patiently wait until the quarantine ends before visiting again. 

[vinapu]

10 hours ago, stijntje said:

I'll come back when number of days in quarantaine has been reduced to .... 0.

 

# Me Too

[vinapu]

5 hours ago, z909 said:

The point of getting vaccinated is primarily to reduce your risk of getting severe disease and possibly dying.   Which is quite useful.

 

not sure beneficiaries of his Will agree

[Boy69]

8 hours ago, z909 said:

The point of getting vaccinated is primarily to reduce your risk of getting severe disease and possibly dying.   Which is quite useful.

It's not 100% effective at preventing transmission.   

Since it's not 100% effective at preventing transmission, why would you expect Thailand to delete the quarantine before vaccinating the majority of the Thai population ?    Any reason why they should ?

I don't agree Thai auotiroties can ask for negative Covid test prove for vaccinated tourists and cancel the quarentine for them completely. I won't visit Thailand till the quarantine cancelled.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Boy69 said:

I don't agree Thai auotiroties can ask for negative Covid test prove for vaccinated tourists and cancel the quarentine for them completely.

Could you explain how that protects Thailand from covid infection ?

[Boy69]

If I am vaccinated  and caught the virus quarantine of one week won't be enough to prevent me to infect other people so what's the logic behind this descion it's beyond me. Anyway most of the potential tourists as me coming to Thailand are visiting for short time between two to four weeks and won't do a quarantine not for 2 weeks and not for one week , This odd descion certtenly not going to revive the tourism industry in Thailand .

 

[Riobard]

2 hours ago, Boy69 said:

If I am vaccinated  and caught the virus quarantine of one week won't be enough to prevent me to infect other people so what's the logic behind this descion it's beyond me. Anyway most of the potential tourists as me coming to Thailand are visiting for short time between two to four weeks and won't do a quarantine not for 2 weeks and not for one week , This odd descion certtenly not going to revive the tourism industry in Thailand .

 

You make a very good point. CoV infections among the vaccinated, whether while mounting immunity or well past injections (as there have been breakthrough infections  in trial vaccine assignment arms weeks past final dose), have not been systematically studied. There is no evidence that a vaccinated foreigner clears a breakthrough infection more quickly than the pre-vaxx norm. 

Therefore, a cut to 7 days for foreigners does not make total sense unless the decision was aligned with relaxing what might have been thought to be 10-day overkill, or intermittent quarantine testing satisfies the goal. 

Moreover, remove national privilege, and the 7-days for Thais without a negative viral test makes even less sense. After all, they may be returning from a high incidence place. That said, that foreigners too from a high incidence location are more likely to have infection in spite of vaccination suggests background source CoV incidence be entered into the algorithm driving restrictions. Many regions have at least 10, even 20 multiples of rolling case incidence compared to Thailand. That itself nullifies the protection conferred by vaccination in those places relative even to pre-inoculation in Thailand, let alone population vaccination in Thailand. 

The benefits of relaxing measures may better outweigh the residual risk of fully vaccinated incoming people having and transmitting CoV infection when greater swathes of people are inoculated and new case incidence/prevalence drops dramatically to Thailand levels. 

What is also poorly understood, given that exposure risk is predicated on cumulative number of random social contacts, is that the increase in risk is not directly proportional to the background case incidence. The risk metric, the probability of minimally one infected person in any aggregate, increases exponentially with rolling incidence of the population segment that are contagious at any point in time. This exponential relationship holds true when you adjust for presumed natural immunity and product-specific vaccination immunity for the populace.