OPINION

Vaccine altruism?

The National Vaccine Institute (NVI) will sign a 182-billion-baht contract with AstraZeneca for 26 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, sufficient for 13 million people (BP, Nov 27). This equates to 7,000 baht per jab.

International media report AstraZeneca's cost per dose as being 90-120 baht. The company has pledged to make its vaccine available at cost until July, 2021 and to poor countries in perpetuity.

Twenty six million doses at 120 baht per dose will cost 3.12 billion baht.

Perhaps the NVI has in mind a farsighted and altruistic plan to gift vaccinations to our three poorer neighbours. According to current advice we need to vaccinate 60-70% of the population to stop the spread of the virus. Assuming 70%, that will mean vaccinating another 36 million in Thailand and about 55 million altogether in Myanmar, Lao PDR and Cambodia. So another 182 million doses at 120 baht will be just under 22 billion baht, leaving us with 156.88 billion baht for additional altruistic endeavours.

Re: "Vaccine no panacea", (BP, Nov 24).

Michael Setter makes a good point when he states that many people will get adverse reactions to a Covid-19 vaccine and will on average miss at least six days of work.

The proponents of widespread vaccination never tell us these things. They just tell us how great a coronavirus vaccine will be. However, what is needed is a more balanced approach.

Both citizens and governments alike need to be told the truth about what vaccines can do to the body, so that all parties concerned can make an informed decision when deciding which, if any, Covid-19 vaccine they will be using.

The bottom line is that no single Covid-19 vaccine will defeat the virus. Rather, there are a variety of vaccines out there, each of which is effective in its own way.

Pornchai Sereemongkonpol's hairlarious (sic) send-up of deputy permanent secretary for education Veera Khaengkasikarn's defence of student hair length and dress rules (Guru, Nov 27) was enough to make your hair stand on end.

It is a bald fact that grey-haired antediluvian thinking permeates so much of the Thai education system and seems determined to force students into a mould, incapable and unable to think for themselves. Like an ingrowing hair, this problem will not go away until it is addressed with commonsense.

If students want to wear their hair long, they could always be asked to wear hairbands. Or are they banned too?

I was about to say this is a curly issue, but then realised that as most Thais have straight hair, it requires a straightforward answer.

Maybe Khun Veera should be condemned to wear a hair shirt and made to contemplate the inappropriateness of his remarks.

Re: "Reform the military", (PostBag, Nov 25).

WhizBang was right in saying that the Thai military needs very much to be reformed. In fact, there has been at least one attempt at this monumental task. During his time as Thailand's prime minister (1992-1995 and 1997-2001) Chuan Leekpai also assumed the position of defence minister.

This went on unopposed by the military, partly because Mr Chuan is a good and honest politician.

As defence minister, Mr Chuan vowed to separate soldiers from politics. He kept his word and worked very hard at it. After his tenure, most Thais were quite positive that military coups would never happen again in Thailand.

However, things changed for the worse and the ugly cycle of democracy-coup-democracy came back to haunt us again ... after Thaksin Shinawatra assumed power in 2001.

Re: "US boats face Russian aggression near Alaska", (BP, Nov 22).

In the article written by Mike Baker, a US commercial vessel had to leave a fishing area deep within international waters hundreds of miles away from the US coastline because Russian military ships that conducted drills in the zone, which the relevant US authorities were officially notified about in advance, asked it to do so out of safety, in accordance with the international maritime law and despite the failure of the US federal officials to alert commercial fishing operators to the planned exercise.

For those who found this sentence too verbose to comprehend let me reiterate with some excerpts from the article. 1) The Russian government officially and in due process notified the US government about its planned military exercises, including their location. 2) The US officials have acknowledged that the Russians have a right to transit the waters. 3) For reasons that we will never know, the US federal officials who had this information failed to communicate it and issue relevant warnings to commercial fishing ships that operate in the area ahead of the scheduled military exercises. 4) Unaware of this, a US fishing vessel had to follow the warnings from the Russian ships as well as the advice from the US coastguard that recommended to do as said and leave the harvesting area to give way to the Russian navy. 5) Mike Baker writes a story about Russian aggression (sic!) that apparently cost the featured US fishing company $1 million in lost revenue peppered by the quotes of the US officials indicating the incompetency and miscommunication of their own border and coastal authorities. 6) The author also quotes the director of operations at NORAD saying that the encounters with Russian military so far "were professional" and Russian planes "never crossed into US airspace". 7) Everyone is outraged by the "Russian aggression".

This piece along with the decision to publish it clearly demonstrates what is wrong with journalism today. The story is attempting to be sensationalist at best. Instead, it is weak, incoherent, self-contradictory and unconvincing. And I did not even mention facts about increased US and Nato activity along Russian borders in the recent years.

The Nov 15 Bangkok Post editorial "France's failings a lesson for Thailand" misquoted President Emmanuel Macron of France, suggesting that he accused the country's largest minority population of "separatism".

In his interview with Al Jazeera TV on the Oct 31, as well as in his speech after the horrible killing and decapitation of Samuel Paty, the schoolteacher, the French president always and clearly targeted "radical Islamism", emphasising that radical Islamism was a "separatist" project. The French president stigmatised firmly "radical Islamism and Islamists", never the French Muslim community, because "radical Islamism and Islamist" are solely responsible for the heinous terrorists acts that France has faced for over five years now.

Since 2015, a wave of attacks perpetrated by terrorists in the name of an Islam that they have distorted has assassinated 263 people -- police officers, soldiers, teachers, journalists, cartoonists, ordinary citizens -- in our homeland.

In front of this terrible reality, it is important to remind your readers of some simple facts, and explain the situation of our country and the challenges it has to face. Our country has a history and the history of our country involves the construction of the res publica as being removed from religion. We created our laws, which stemmed from the ideas of the Enlightenment. Our laws are an emanation of the people of France itself, of this sovereign people. And in our laws, our principles, our rights, individual freedoms are enshrined; religious freedom is exercised freely in our country, but also the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression. France guarantees to every citizen of the country the freedom to believe or not to believe. It makes France a country in which everyone feels equally a citizen, regardless of one's religion, and where everybody enjoys the same political and civic rights irrespective of their faith and where society, in some ways, encompasses all of the religions practised therein, and where, importantly, transcendence has its place in society, but where the guarantor of this right, for one and all, is the state.

France -- and we are often attacked for this -- is as secular for Muslims as for Christians, Jews, Buddhists and all believers. The neutrality of the state, which never intervenes in religious affairs, is a guarantee of freedom of worship. France's motto -- "freedom, equality, fraternity" -- is a commitment made to every French citizen, irrespective of their faith, without exception. Our country will always defend the freedom to practise Islam or any religion in France. What France is at war with is radical Islamism. With the utmost determination, France will always be fighting extremism and terrorism, in all its forms.

In my younger years, before retiring to Thailand some 20-plus years ago, I was, (still am), a qualified, licensed speech pathologist-audiologist. I remember a study conducted by the New York City Department of Health which found that most New Yorkers, by the time they were 21 years old, suffered a 10 to 15 decibel hearing loss across the board. This was attributed to the daily noise levels in the city. I am wondering: if a study were to be conducted among upcountry Thais who spend uncounted hours in front of blasting concert speakers, extra large TVs turned on almost all day at high volume, would the results be nearly the same? I've spent years watching inebriated people sit in front of high-volume concert speakers so loud they do not even feel the pain, much less being able to hear each other in conversation. These speakers emit close to 140 decibels, which is exactly the level for the threshold of pain. When your neighbour talks to you, if you are standing next to each other, and the person is talking quite loudly, you can bet on hearing loss.

Re: "Victim of policy", (PostBag, Nov 24).

Bill Cymbalsky is not making "unsubstantiated remarks" or creating "myths" about requirements for foreign retirees to have health insurance coverage provided by Thai insurance companies, nor is he confusing requirements of hospitals with those of the Immigration Bureau, as some subsequent letter writers have speculated. Indeed, the requirement for specified retirees to show proof of health insurance coverage provided by Thai insurance companies was put in place in late 2019.

The confusion stems from the fact that there are currently different requirements for different types of retirement visa holders. Retirees issued non-immigrant "O" visas are not currently required to have proof of insurance from a Thai insurance provider, while those holding "O-A" visas are so required.

There are thousands of "O-A" visa holders who have been victimised by this ill-conceived health insurance requirement and Mr Cymbalsky is absolutely correct in pointing out the folly of the requirement -- especially considering that, for now at least, the obligation is selectively applied to only one type of visa holder.

It is particularly unfortunate that many foreign retirees, like Mr Cymbalsky, are being discouraged from continuing their retirements in Thailand at a time when the kingdom is in great need of the cash that such retirees regularly spend in the course of living here.