Reader Talkback Results: Is living with Covid-19 the right strategy for Thailand?

Wednesday, 1 September 2021, 23:16

The following is our exclusive weekly feature in which we ask our readers a news topical question and then give you a week to answer it on our various channels, compiling a diverse range of answers and opinions to present to you, our valued readers. Here are the results from our last question…

Last week, we asked you the following:

Is living with Covid-19 the right strategy for Thailand?

Is this the right move? Is it too early? Should lockdowns be extended instead? Should the government dig deep and find more money for businesses and people out of work and keep the restrictions going? Even if they say they would, do you actually think they will?

Here is what you, our readers, had to say as our editors selected some of the most diverse responses to highlight different points of view. Let’s see what everyone had to say:

Pete S-Living with Covid-19 is the only endgame for any country. Vaccinations do not prevent people from getting infected or from spreading it, so the only strategy is to vaccinate people as quickly as possible until a target percentage (typically 70%) are fully vaccinated and then to remove all restrictions and allow businesses to open a couple of weeks later. What other choice is there?

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Peter S-70% vaccination then live with the virus. Protect the sick and the elderly. Covid is a package. On one side the deaths from Covid. On the other side, mental health including suicide, cancellation of elective surgery, unemployment and loss of businesses and children’s classroom education, and social contact loss.

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Stephen S-There is no choice. Covid cannot be eradicated and thus we have to live with it. Have to vaccinate as many people as possible and keep topped up with booster jabs. Then we can get back to the new normal. Covid will continue to mutate and we will have to continue to find new/better vaccines.

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Knut J-It is quite obvious that the country has to end the lockdown. They can not do anything about the cases of infection anyway. People need to make money now. Thousands are homeless and have no money for food. Potential tourists, if they are fully vaccinated, should also be allowed to arrive in the country without any kind of quarantine. Some chances they just have to take.

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Grant R-This is going to be an unpopular answer, but there is no “Living” with Covid-19. It’s impossible from a mathematical standpoint. People are stating this while ignoring long covid, which is real and likely has incredible long-term side-effects. Yes, so do lockdowns. However, the government did a partial half-assed lockdown for four months, and only a less half-assed one for a monthish before basically giving up. Yeah, I know they aren’t giving people jack &&&& in money or aid and people are struggling on the streets. The government has the money to aid their people and save lives but has refused to take this option. A short, strict, hard, total lockdown of 4-6 weeks, borrowing the money (that they have) to provide decent aid to all workers, including those off the books, putting a rent moratorium in place, suspending utilities and licenses, tax, etc should have been done to protect the people and to stop the virus. Instead, you had homeless everywhere, and now they are going to “live with covid” (I hate this phrase) and watch it take tens of thousands of more lives while still struggling to run their economy with restrictions that make it difficult to manage things. It’s a total &%%show.

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Bart E-

It’s the strategy the whole world should have taken from the get-go.

The weight of evidence is that lockdowns have never worked anywhere and in actuality have ended up causing greater excess mortality than places that didn’t lock down.

Either the vaccines work….. or they don’t.

Either way, lockdowns are redundant now.

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Russ F-Obviously because it’s dying from covid. Not the virus but the lockdown. When the dust settles and someone does a study on actual covid deaths (not ones died in the last 30 days) v deaths due to the lockdowns. All those people banging on about vaccines and lockdowns will be quiet. But any study like that will be professional suicide. The full effect hasn’t been felt yet. Suicide will go up when people have tried and failed to resurrect businesses and cope with the extra debt of the lockdowns.

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Markus Z-It’s the right strategy for the whole world. Vaccinate people at warp speed and open everything. Better today than tomorrow! Those who reject the vaccine should stay in their bunkers and sulk …

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Andrew J-

We don’t have a choice, but to live surrounded by the Covid virus. The government won’t focus on booster shots. Fraudulent Covid vaccine passport holders will sneak past Thai immigration.

Thailand’s porous land borders used by illegal migrants will keep the Covid variants active in Thai communities.

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Clarence I-There is still too many people in hospitals on ventilators, too many in serious condition, and too few vaccinated, especially outside of Bangkok. It’s too early to be lifting restrictions. Instead, we should be finding better ways to help those hurting just as much from lack of work but not “give up” and say we are living with Covid, which is what they are doing.

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John-It is not only the right strategy, it is the only strategy. The 1918 flu never went away. We and it evolved, and we continue to live with it. The coronavirus is not going away. Just as we get our annual flu shot, we’ll get our annual coronavirus shot. In fact, they’ll probably be merged into a single shot. Just as most of us have had the flu, most of us will get COVID and it will be no big deal. Destroying the economy in the name of fighting infectious disease is like shooting yourself in the head because you have a headache.

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