OPINION

Jabs? Look to India

We should seriously consider the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India. The Serum Institute of India (SII) is the world's largest vaccine producer by volume, makes Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine under licence, and already has 40 million doses ready.

The SII plans to make about 850 million doses annually of this vaccine, about half of which will be exported. Its candidate has been found to be 70% effective on average, and can be up to 90% effective, depending on how the doses are given. India's drug regulator has given the green light to Covishield (India's name for the vaccine). India is a vaccine powerhouse, making 60% of the world's vaccines, and has already exported some of them. Their manufacturing volumes are many times what we plan, so their costs should be much cheaper than ours -- and they have a long track record, unlike us. Also, India has a free trade agreement with Thailand.

We plan to sell our vaccine to Asean neighbours to get some economies of scale -- but why should they wait for ours, when India's is available now, and should be cheaper?

Re: "Southern border becomes key in Covid fight", (BP, Jan 23).

The so-called illegal immigrants who entered the country through the Thai-Malaysian border of Narathiwat are actually not migrant labourers who wanted to come to Thailand to find jobs. They are from various nationalities: 408 from Myanmar, 64 Cambodians, 76 Lao people, 45 Vietnamese and so on. Why would these nationalities from countries in the North want to enter Thailand from the Narathiwat border with Malaysia?

Actually these people are not migrant workers but foreign nationals that were stranded in Malaysia for more than a year and are desperate to return home to their respective countries. Since all communications between Malaysia and their countries are closed, they tried this way.

I suggest, for the sake of humanity, that the government help them instead of arresting them. We should find some ways to get them back to their countries through Thailand, since this is the only way possible for them at this time. Maybe the government could work with Malaysia in this matter. Maybe the immigration officials at the border could fetch them from the Malaysian side like what we are doing now with the stranded Thai nationals in Malaysia who want to return home.

Re: "Read the mask studies", (PostBag, Jan 24).

Apparently Covid is non-lethal, easily treated and, anyway, here in Thailand we have herd immunity! On the opposite page was an in-depth look at the huge problems in UK hospitals coping with a wave of cases and deaths. So far we have managed to avoid a large outbreak here and perhaps mask wearing and painful shutdowns have helped. Vaccination will give herd immunity, so bring it on, as quickly as possible!

Given Larry Mohican's definition of a virus that has killed at least 2.1 million people, and counting it as "non-lethal", I was wondering if he could tell us how many people a virus has to kill before he would describe it as "lethal"?