OPINION

Bizarre, not funny

Re: "Impossible dream", (PostBag, Jan 2).

This letter is the perfect script for a hilarious sitcom.

Yet for anyone planning to visit Thailand or indeed those who are afraid to leave lest they not be allowed back, this is more than real and definitely not funny.

Various officials have been predicting many millions of visitors in 2021. I hope they are aware of the Kafkaesque ordeal any potential visitor faces upon embarking on the Sisyphian task of getting their Thai visa.

The writer politely dodges the huge final cost of the quarantine and the Covid testing, which have been designed to scare off the hardy souls who refuse to listen to common sense and insist on traveling to the Land of Smiles.

But most frustrating is the letter's last line that seems to suggest that a Moderna vaccine would change any of the hellish visa process.

Thai politicians and health authorities have been clear on this: you can get the vaccine, but that is your problem.

The quarantine policy will not change.

One report suggests this will continue until every Thai will be vaccinated.

That is at least five years away, probably longer, given the 70 million-strong population and local reluctance to order massive numbers of vaccines needed.

The economy and the struggling workforce will stand to lose the most from this absurd situation.

Re: "Long-overdue end of O-Net Exams", (BP, Jan 2).

Our education problems have been well-known before PM Prayut grabbed power, but his failure to start solving them is but one glaring example of his lack of vision. Yet like Mr Trump, he retains extensive public support. So, after four months of extensive public hearings nationwide, he should present our House of Representatives with clear, measurable, specific goals for Thailand in various fields by end-2025, backed by cost -benefit analysis, for review and approval.

Each minister will set out milestones for his area, with strategies, budgets and key performance indicators (KPIs) that are clear, transparent, objective-related and measurable. In education, for example, how will rural teacher quality be vastly improved, and by when? How will we foster the creative thinking and welcome the probing, challenging attitudes that we now treat as anathema but so sorely need?

With these KPIs, voters can decide whether to keep or dispose of Prayut and Co.

According to a study of almost 10 million people in Wuhan, China, asymptomatic spread of Covid-19 did not occur at all. In other words, people displaying no symptoms did not spread the disease.

This undermines the need for lockdowns, which are declared on the premise of the virus being unwittingly spread by people who tested positive but who had no symptoms.

Out of the nearly 10 million people in the study, "300 asymptomatic cases" were found. Contact tracing was then carried out on all those who tested positive and all the people contacted. At the end of their two-week lockdown, no cases of covid-19 were detected in the asymptomatic people or in their contacts and none of the contacts tested positive for the virus.

The study was published in November in the scientific journal Nature Communications.