Vaccinated foreigners still have to go through quarantine

This doesn't really surprise me a great deal because Thailand is notoriously untrusting of outsiders. I don't mean this in any sort of mean way but I can guarantee that if the vaccine was developed in Thailand that Europe and America would have the same policy.

src

Thailand has their own Center for Disease Control and the head of that is Dr. Opas Karnkawinpong, one of the most highly respected doctors in all of South East Asia (so I have been told, by a Thai person so I can't really vouch for the truthfulness of this statement.)

He brings up some topics that you don't really need to have a doctorate diploma to understand such as the fact the vaccine is too new for people to really know whether or not it actually works. Furthermore, there are other concerns such as certain side effects or mutations that could actually be caused by the vaccine.

He is a much smarter man than most of us are that is for sure but herein lies the irony of the entire situation as far as this vaccine is concerned for the near or perhaps even distant future: At what point will it be convincing enough to allow travel? What sort of vigorous testing needs to be accomplished before it will be ok for people to travel.

Also, it is kind of surprising to me that Thailand hasn't jumped on the vaccine bandwagon because there was a story a few weeks ago about how they had already ordered millions upon millions of the vaccine but a different one, one that originated in Russia.

src

For now I would imagine that there are political motivations to not have a vaccine introduced into Thailand because the Prime Minister has a wonderful excuse to not allow mass gatherings and thus he has a much better chance of squashing the protest uprising that has been going on in Bangkok for quite some time now.

He could also be repressing the release of the vaccine until an opportune moment where he can make himself appear like some sort of savior in order to sway public opinion in his direction. I dont' know much about the guy, but I do know that he is a politician and therefore cannot be trusted.

For the time being and I would guess many more months into the future we can plan on the international terminal at all airports in Thailand to continue to look like the above picture because there are not very many people that are going to be interested in performing a 14 day quarantine just to visit this country. I know a few people that have property here that live here and were willing to go through with that but I don't think the economy is going to get a chance to recover until there is much more progress as far as medicine is concerned.

When the vaccine is approved by Thailand, my money would be on it becoming mandatory for all citizens as well as anyone that wants to travel here. It remains to be seen what would be necessary for those of us that are living here like myself.