Thailand Road Carnage: Targets announced for the reduction in road death toll..... - Thai Visa

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Thailand Road Carnage: Targets announced for the reduction in road death toll

 

Picture: 77kaoded

 

It has been revealed what the Thai authorities are aiming for in attempting to reduce the appalling death toll on the roads, recognized as some of the most deadly on earth.

 

A meeting was held that was chaired by the interior minister General Anupong Paojinda and his deputy Nippon Bunyamanee.

 

It was a coming together of minds and authorities under the auspices of the Road Safety Operation Center and essentially was looking at ways to improve road safety at the upcoming Songkran festival next month.

 

Nippon was quoted as saying that everyone had to pull together to "jointly consider and find ways to enhance efficiency in reducing accidents". 

 

Picture: 77kaoded

 

Almost no concrete measures were reported by 77kaoded in a flimsy report.

 

But there were some intriguing targets announced for limiting the carnage on the roads that has been admitted by DPM Prawit Wongsuwan to be in excess of 20,000 and perhaps as high as 24,000 to 26,000 deaths anually. 

 

The meeting last week heard that an accident reduction plan from 2022 to 2027 had the following targets for road death:

 

To reduce it to 22.68 per 100,000 in the population by 2022 and 12 per 100,000 by 2027.

 

Thaivisa has done the math based on a population of 70 million people.

 

This would mean that the target for 2022 is 15,876 dead.

 

And for 2027 8,400 dead. 

 

Source: 77kaoded

 

 

The labour union of Thai Airways International (THAI) is protesting changes to the ailing flag carrier's employment contracts, which its employees were asked to agree to as part of its financial rehabilitation programme. - Bangkok Post

Union rips THAI move to cut leave days

The labour union of Thai Airways International (THAI) is protesting changes to the ailing flag carrier's employment contracts, which its employees were asked to agree to as part of its financial rehabilitation programme.

The contracts, the union's representatives said, are unfair to THAI employees as they entitle them to fewer leave days and shorter holidays, so a formal complaint has been filed with the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare (DLPW).

As part of THAI's attempts to reduce operating costs as it undergoes debt rehabilitation supervised by the Central Bankruptcy Court, the airline rolled out an early retirement programme for its executives.

Last month, the flag carrier said it had cut some 240 positions from its 21,000-strong workforce.

The airline's rehab scheme -- which includes a plan to offer new employment contracts to staff who continue to work with the company -- is set to be presented to the CBC later today.

An adviser to THAI's labour union, Nares Puengyam, said those who elect to remain and/or were asked to stay in their positions will be asked to forfeit the contracts they signed before the company went into debt rehab.

However, the new contracts trim the number of public holidays the staff are entitled to receive and slash leave days.

For example, those employed for 20-30 years will see their public holidays reduced from 17 days a year under the old contracts to 13 days. Their leave days will also be cut from 24 days a year to just six.

The company argued that the old contracts were governed by the State Enterprise Relations Act (2000) and since THAI is no longer a state enterprise, the act is no longer binding on the airline.

THAI lost its status as a state-owned enterprise last year when the Finance Ministry reduced its stake in the airline to under 50% to facilitate the rehab process.

Mr Nares stressed that under the Labour Protection Act (1998), a company must hold talks with its employees before changing the terms of employment.



Thailand poised to adopt vaccine passports to kick-start tourism - The Nation

Thailand poised to adopt vaccine passports to kick-start tourism

National

Mar 01. 2021

By The Nation

The tourism minister has asked the Public Health Ministry for approval to launch a vaccine passport system in a bid to kick-start the tourism industry this year.

Tourism and Sports Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn said on Monday that the government was waiting for a World Health Organisation announcement on vaccine passports before issuing the measure.

He said that adopting a vaccine passport or a similar method of enabling foreign tourists to skip quarantine would guarantee at least 5 million foreign visitors to Thailand this year.

The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) was also discussing a 14-day quarantine that would allow foreign tourists to leave their hotel rooms after just three days of self-isolation, he added. Russian tourists in Phuket will likely be the first to experience the eased quarantine restrictions. Tour agents in Russia say demand is high enough for regular Phuket flights of 300-400 Russian tourists.

The Tourism Ministry has also submitted a plan to deliver vaccines to five tourism-dependent provinces – Phuket, Surat Thani, Chon Buri, Chiang Mai and Krabi. The vaccines will be administered to staff at alternative quarantine hotels. The five provinces have a total of 58 alternative quarantine hotels, with more than 6,700 rooms and 13,000 staff.



More Covid-19 vaccine makers eye Thailand, Johnson&Johnson files papers for FDA consideration - The Nation

More Covid-19 vaccine makers eye Thailand, Johnson&Johnson files papers for FDA consideration

Dr Paisan Dankhum 

Johnson&Johnson has submitted all the documents required for the Thai Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider its adenovirus vaccine, FDA's secretary-general Dr Paisan Dankhum said on Monday.

He added that Bharat Biotech, which produces inactivated vaccines, has also asked to submit registration documents, while Moderna may file for registration in the second week of March. Modern produces an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. 

Russians and Indian high spenders in the plans as Thai tourism minister HALVES 2021 assessment - Thai Visa

Russians and Indian high spenders in the plans as Thai tourism minister HALVES 2021 assessment

 

Picture: Thai Rath

 

Thailand's minister for tourism and sports Pipat Ratchakitprakan said that he expects no less than five million foreign tourists to visit the country this year.

 

This is half previous assessments from the TAT in recent weeks. Their chief Yutthasak Suphasorn suggested 10 million would come. 

 

Billionaire Pipat was upbeat talking to Thai Rath about who these tourists might be, promoting the new idea of "Area Quarantine" while a ministerial aide said that 5 million doses of vaccine are being sought to inspire confidence in main tourism hotspots like Pattaya and Phuket.

 

It is felt that vaccination of locals is better than waiting for WHO's vaccination passport ideas to materialize.

 

Pipat said that no fewer than 5 million tourists would come in 2021. For now he was busy working on improving the Certificate of Entry website.

 

He was keen to hype up his "Area Quarantine" (AQ) plans saying it was much better than the "Villa Quarantine" that has already started in Phuket.

 

Under AQ tourists would still quarantine for 14 days but they would only be under lockdown in their rooms for three days. Then they would be free to use the grounds of participtaing hotels for the remaining 11. 

 

He claimed that as soon as AQ gets the nod from the CCSA Covid-19 authorities the tourists would flood in as this is just what they have been waiting for.

 

Thaivisa notes that this may be wide of the mark. Many online are saying that what tourists are waiting for is an end to quarantine entirely in Thailand.

 

So who are these tourists waiting to come to Thailand? No mention was made of British people - hyped up last week by the TAT in a much ridiculed 6 million person assessment of visitors. 

 

No, said Pipat, it was the Russians who would be leading the way. Tour companies had already been following the news and are planning 2 charter flights a day carrying 300-400 people on each flight to Phuket for AQ.

 

Apart from this Pipat said that high spending Indians who wanted to get married in Thailand would be the other group. 

 

He claimed that resorts with a total of 6,500 rooms across five provinces - Phuket, Chonburi (Pattaya in reality), Surat Thani (Koh Samui), Chiang Mai and Krabi were interested in providing AQ.

 

Ministerial aide Phinthorn Srisanphang said that 50,000 doses of the initial lot of vaccine received on February 24th would be mainly used to vaccinate hotel workers to facillitate AQ first. 

 

He revealed that the ministry has applied for 5 million doses of vaccine for the five tourism provinces to be delivered in the third quarter of this year.

 

That would inspire confidence in foreign tourists to visit and get tourism off the ground in the fourth and final quarter of 2021.

 

Waiting for the WHO vaccine passport plan could see the recovery delayed until the second quarter of next year, he noted. 

 

He did however intimate that the aim was to stop quarantine altogether as soon as was possible. 

 

Source: Thai Rath

 

 

People in Thailand urged to continue wearing masks, despite fall in new COVID-19 cases - Thai Visa

People in Thailand urged to continue wearing masks, despite fall in new COVID-19 cases

 

PIcture: Daily News

 

Dr Opas Kankawinwong - a key figure and spokesman in Thailand's fight against Covid-19 - has warned Thais not to lower their guard and put their faith too much in vaccine ending the pandemic. 

 

He urged people not to gether in large groups and to continue wearing masks.

 

He noted at the weekend that there were between 300,000  to 400,000 daily cases worldwide which was still not good. In addition Malaysia had 2,000 to 3,000 new cases a day and infections in Japan and South Korea were still in the hundreds. 

 

In Thailand he said that there was now a tendency for people to "return to normal" when things were anything but normal. 

 

Prior to the second wave of the pandemic last year they used the term "new normal" - now it appears the newer normal is still not good and should not become the newer normal.

 

If this is confusing the bottom line from Dr Opas was that phone calls about dangerous gatherings and less mask wearing were on the rise.

 

Yes, he conceded things are looking up in Thailand but it's still not normal. The vaccine brings hope but mask wearing should still be the way to go.

 

He urged people to report gatherings where people were not wearing masks to the authorities so that warnings could be issued. 

 

On the plus side he said that measures to stop the spread of the virus in Samut Sakhon - the epicenter of the second wave - were bearing fruit and he hinted at further relaxation of restrictions there. 

 

Picture: Daily News

 

Meanwhile Dr Yong Phuworawan of the Chula virology department cautioned that the vaccine rollout would take a year to see the greatest effects.

 

He urged people to get vaccinated when they could and said vaccines were safe.

 

Regarding Sinovac from China he said it was right that the Thai PM Prayut Chan-ocha should not take it as clinical studies were still limited regarding efficacy for the over 60s.

 

This didn't mean that it wouldn't be effective, just that more studies were needed.

 

PM Prayut was due to be jabbed with the AstraZenaca vaccine yesterday, Sunday, but this was delayed after a technical issue. 

 

Source: Daily News

 

 

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Covid vaccine acceptance rises in some countries. The survey also covered Germany, Japan and Sweden where a similar trend was clear, it said. - Bangkok Post

Covid vaccine acceptance rises in some countries

Getting more popular, or at least less unpopular.

PARIS: Willingness to get a Covid-19 vaccine is on the rise compared to last year, a survey of six industrialised countries published on Monday showed.

More people in the United Kingdom, the United States and even vaccine-sceptical France now accept the idea of getting a coronavirus jab, KekstCNC, an international consultancy, said in the survey conducted in February.

The survey also covered Germany, Japan and Sweden where a similar trend was clear, it said.

"As vaccine rollouts commence, higher numbers of people in all countries say they would take the vaccine," the study said.

The highest percentage was found in the UK with 89% of those questioned in favour of taking a vaccine, up from 70% in December.

In Sweden, the rate was 76% against 53 in December, in the US 64% against 58, in Germany 73 against 63 and in Japan 64 against 50.

France was the country in the study with the least enthusiasm at 59%, but favourable opinions about vaccines were still sharply up from the 40% level seen in December.

Some people were, meanwhile, highly critical of the vaccine rollout in their country.

While 76% of Britons surveyed felt their government had gotten the rollout speed "about right", that percentage fell to 32% in the US, 28% in Germany and Japan, 22 in France and only 20% in Sweden.

People in the six countries judged that Israel and Britain had done the world's best jobs with their vaccine rollout.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,526,075 people since it emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on Sunday.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 511,998 deaths. 

Thailand starts COVID-19 vaccination campaign - Reuters

 Thailand starts COVID-19 vaccination campaign

 

A woman receives the Sinovac coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at the Samut Sakhon hospital in Samut Sakhon province, Thailand, February 28, 2021. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand kicked off its COVID-19 inoculation campaign on Sunday, with cabinet ministers, health officials and medical professionals among the first in the queue to receive vaccinations.

 

The first doses of vaccine, developed by China's Sinovac Biotech, were given to Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who is also the health minister, among others at an infectious diseases institute on the outskirts of Bangkok.

 

"I hope that the vaccination will result in people being safe from the spread of COVID-19 and it allows Thailand to return to normalcy as soon as possible," Anutin told reporters afterwards.

 

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, 66, attended the event, although his age falls outside the range of 18 to 59 suitable to receive SinoVac's CoronaVac vaccine, so he did not get it.

 

Thailand received its first 200,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine from China and 117,00 imported doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine this week.

 

CoronaVac has been distributed to 13 high-risk provinces, which will start injecting front-line health professionals and volunteers on Sunday, the health ministry has said.

 

AstraZeneca's vaccine will be ready for use by the second week of March, after going through quality control tests, the company said in a statement.

 

Thailand is expected to take delivery of a further 1.8 million doses of CoronaVac in March and April.

 

A mass campaign to administer 10 million doses a month is set to begin in June, with 61 million shots of AstraZeneca vaccines produced by local firm Siam Bioscience.

 

With a tally of just over 25,000 infections, Thailand has escaped the kind of fallout suffered by some other countries since the pandemic began last year.

 

(Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps)

 

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-03-01

Thailand’s Phuket aims to become ‘immunity island’ for tourists as it seeks post-coronavirus bounce-back - SCMP

Thailand's Phuket aims to become 'immunity island' for tourists as it seeks post-coronavirus bounce-back

 

• With 80 per cent of tourism businesses on the island having gone bust, the island's tourism authorities have hatched a plan to fully reopen by October 1

 

• But the plan depends on whether Phuket can bypass the national government's vaccine roll-out schedule and obtain its own jabs earlier

 

Vijitra Duangdee

 

Anchored unused tour boats at Phuket's Chalong pier. Photo: Vijitra Duangdee

 

At Phuket's Chalong pier, boat driver Mang is in rare, high spirits: he has just had his first paying guests in two months. But for other tour boat operators in the area, surviving until the Thai borders fully reopen to tourists is another question.

 

"Some owners without savings have sold the boats, some have laid off workers," Mang says as he surveys the lines of idling tour boats around the pier, where in pre-pandemic times they would quickly whisk off the waiting tourists to sea, zipping them through hidden coves among the many offshore islands.

 

"My boss is trying to ride it out for a little while longer, just to help his staff. But who knows for how long?" With foreign and domestic tourists staying home and Thailand imposing a two-week quarantine for those braving travel, Phuket is facing an economic wipeout, with the inventory of closed hotels, bars and tour businesses growing longer each week.

 

Full story: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3123317/thailands-phuket-aims-become-immunity-island-tourists-it-seeks