OPINION

Dire effect of words

Re: "Brain 'impact'", (PostBag, Oct 9).

I agree with Mr Martin and his disaffection with the word "impact", beloved by NGOs, private and government entities in sometimes questionable environmental impact assessments and otherwise used ad nauseam. In the same vein we have the overworked and dreaded "sustainability" which is bandied about willy-nilly; one suspects that many users haven't a clue what it really means. For their information here is a concise description: "Sustainability can simply be defined as development that lasts".

In the latter context I wonder what the increasingly labyrinthine Bangkok will look like in 50 years' time when I'm pushing up daisies.

Re: "Brain impact" and "Laughing at Lotus's", (PostBag, Oct 9).

It's nice to know that I'm not the only old goat who monitors the long, slow slide of the English language (the language of Milton and Shakespeare!) into anarchy, chaos, and despair.

But hold! The Bangkok Post, hitherto a bastion of chaste usage, facilitates this tragedy by permitting the ghastly neologism "themself" in the latest offering by Jason Jellison: "Any interested reader can pull the raw data themself", in "Bigoted over blood", (PostBag, Oct 9).

Re: "Understand the risk", (PostBag, Oct 9).

James Debentures says: "In the event inoculated children are infected, the worst case may be like catching the flu which will fade away in a few days."

James, the worst case may be that those unvaccinated but infected children will pass the virus on to many others who will end up severely ill or die.

One of the arguments for vaccination is that it helps protect society at large and reduces the pressure on already over stretched healthcare systems and healthcare staff around the world.

A rather strange thing happened as I was researching the costs of returning to Bangkok in December. While I hope that the Certificate of Entry (COE) and it's cumbersome and expensive qualifying procedures are eliminated by then, I did need to prepare for the possibility that I would need Covid insurance.

As an expat I would need about seven months coverage to meet the "end of visa" requirement given in the COE.

During my quest for quotations I was twice taken aback by the fact that my birth year of 1945 was not offered in the drop-down selection online.

The last year offered was 1946. This seemed to indicate that these insurance companies were not offering coverage to anyone over the age of 75.

I also noted the following in an article in a local publication: "The whole insurance issue for foreign arrivals in Thailand is confusing at present. All airline passengers must have Covid insurance to the value of US$100,000 (about 3.3 million baht) for the period of the initial visa, but extensions of stay at immigration do not require it.

However, some arrivals -- with retirement-backed visas or via the Special Tourist Visa recently given a new lease of life -- additionally require general medical cover worth at least 400,000 baht (inpatient) and 40,000 baht (outpatient)."

It is worrisome for expats who are over 70 and cannot get insurance here.

It would be nice if there was clarity to this insurance fiasco but, as usual, clarity is rarely a consideration in Thailand.