A doomed atmosphere, characterised by mixed feelings of despair, disappointment, anger, and frustration among many of us, seems to have engulfed society as Covid-19 infections and deaths from the virulent virus are rising by the day.
Blame the Delta variant coronavirus for turning Thailand upside down? Remember how proud we were just a year ago when the country was hailed by the World Health Organization (WHO), especially our medical community and the "unsung heroes and heroines", the public health volunteers, for their outstanding success in containing the first wave of the pandemic.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was all smiles. We were too. Then, Thailand was ranked below 240 in the world in terms of total infections.
That was yesteryear's sweet memory. Today is a painful reality.
The sight of people spending the night in the compound of a temple in Bang Khen district to get a ticket for a Covid test is heartbreaking.
These poor souls want to know whether they are infected but cannot afford the high fees charged by private hospitals for a test (I spent 3,000 baht for a test with a 24-hour turnaround for the result at Kasemrad hospital about a month ago).
Private hospitals in Bangkok and across the country have stopped providing the service, fearing they will have to accept those who test positive for treatment and the hospitals have no spare beds for them.
Testing facilities in Bangkok are provided by the City Administration. But they are not widespread and each has set a limit of only 900 tests.
Only a few days ago the Public Health Ministry introduced a rapid antigen test that shows results in less than half an hour to help solve the problem of congestion at testing facilities. Those who test positive are then given an RT-PCR test.
Now, everyone who is not inoculated is scrambling for a vaccination, both free and paid. But there are no decent vaccines, especially the much-coveted mRNA Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna formulas; people are left with the Chinese-made Sinovac currently being administered by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), which is widely seen as inferior.
The Mor Mai Thon group of doctors and other medical personnel have demanded a third jab of mRNA vaccine as a precaution, claiming several colleagues who were fully inoculated with Sinovac have contracted the disease, resulting in a general hesitance to receive Sinovac jabs despite their abundance.
Somehow in wake of the mRNA vaccine shortage and public confusion about the efficacy of Sinovac, some businesspeople with an eye for a moneyspinner have begun procuring supplies of Moderna through the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO), as vaccine makers will only deal with governments or governmental organisations.
But the deals are now an issue after the GPO was lambasted by a business group for being slow and ineffective in importing alternative vaccines; some of these investors even alleged foul play by the government.
Indeed, sluggish progress in the deal was the outcome of private sector reluctance to hand out any money upfront as a guarantee for GPO vaccine procurement -- a prerequisite for all vaccine deals. The deal failed to materialise.
There is opportunity in every crisis, as the popular saying goes. But during this particular crisis, when Thailand and its people are suffering, anyone who tries to exploit it for their own benefit are shameful indeed.
Meanwhile, demand for full disclosure of all vaccine procurement deals by the Mor Mai Thon and others will be futile because this problem of non-transparency in vaccine trials and secrecy over deals between governments and drug companies is a worldwide problem. Transparency International and Toronto University have even conducted a research study titled "For Whose Benefit?" on this issue.
Released on May 25, they conducted an in-depth study of 200 contracts and data from clinical trials and the sale of the world's top 20 Covid-19 vaccines, including popular brands such as AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Sinopharm, Sinovac, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
They found a pattern of "poor transparency" and a "disturbing trend" of governments censoring key details of their orders from drug companies, opening the window for the selective reporting of results or manipulation of data.
The research analysed registered clinical trials for the top vaccines and found that just 45% of these trials had been announced.
Of this figure, 41% had provided only top-level results via a press release or press conference, with the full data not made available for media scrutiny or academic review.
After all, Covid vaccines are a buyers' market and it's generally a "take it or leave it" scenario.
Meanwhile, the death toll is climbing by the day. Sadly, most are anonymous, faceless poor souls. Many have died at home because they could not be admitted due to hospital bed shortages.
The saddest cases is those family members who have no chance to be at the victim's bedside of their loved ones before they are cremated. The absence of a single wreath from the government to express its sorrow over the deaths is heartless.
For those who are still alive and not infected yet, what does the future hold in store for us? There will be no mRNA vaccines until the fourth quarter of the year which could be too late. And there is still a lot of confusion about the efficacy of Sinovac vaccine. What should we do?
How come the country has reached such a low point? Don't blame the Delta variant; mutations are the virus's means of survival and should have been expected.
In the meantime, forget about the prime minister's fantasy of reopening Thailand in 120 days. He is living in a dreamland. If crisis creates a leader, as people say, then this one has proved he is NOT among those to prove the maxim true.
Veera Prateepchaikul is former editor, Bangkok Post.