Bangkok Life Update + COVID-19 Update #16
The good news is that the government's brilliant Phuket Sandbox idea is going really well! I think it's a great way to safely open up the country to tourism while not forcing people to quarantine. It's great! Unfortunately, in the rest of the country, numbers are on the rise.
Without a real first wave of COVID, and with only 60 deaths all of last year, this is the first time that the kingdom has been really and truly affected by the virus. Without a natural immunity which came with the first wave, and without much access to vaccines, the cases and deaths are booming in Thailand.
Without a real first wave of COVID, and with only 60 deaths all of last year, this is the first time that the kingdom has been really and truly affected by the virus. Without a natural immunity which came with the first wave, and without much access to vaccines, the cases and deaths are booming in Thailand.
Today, there were a record 16,533 new cases and 133 deaths (compared to 60 deaths total in 2020). It's bad. Hospitals are out of beds, and the government just built an emergency field hospital with 1800 beds to handle new cases.
A new lockdown began the other week along with a mandated 8pm closure of taxi service and public transport and a 9pm curfew. Even 7-11 is closing at 8pm now. There are stay-at-home orders for nearly all workers. There's even been talk of a much stricter lockdown if things don't get better fast.
All in all, it's the best time in the past two years to visit the US. Now that numbers are more under control and that vaccines are readily available, my fiancée and I have made the pretty big decision to travel to Texas in August. We've got some family things to take care of, and it's the first time we've felt that it's been safe or a good idea to travel since the pandemic began.
Travel is possible right now, it's just not fast or easy. Here's part 1 of our journey home:
48 hours until departure, we found ourselves rushing around Bangkok trying to find a hospital to give us a PCR COVID-19 test. It's not easy nowadays. Many hospitals have stopped administering the test because they are out of beds. Eventually, we were able to get an appointment at the excellent Ramkhamhaeng Hospital.
Ramkhamhaeng Hospital was super efficient. They had set up a portable testing center outdoors. We just had to register for the test with our flight tickets and passports, pay the 5000 baht fee, and get that horrible swab jammed up our noses. It's not fun. The PCR test stings and makes your nose feel really weird for an hour or so afterwards. But it's quick, and we were soon on our way back home to get packed.
In the afternoon we got texts from the hospital. Negative!!!!! That means we were good to go!
We had to go back out to the hospital in the evening to pick up our test results and to meet with a doctor so that she could issue us our fit to fly certificates.
With our test results negative and with the fit to fly certificate in hand, we next had to print out and fill in the CDC immigration form for the United States and the Qatar Airlines Passenger Consent Form, which you need to submit to the airline at check-in along with your PCR test results and fit to fly certificate.
It seemed really confusing, but we made sure that we had every bit of paperwork in order, and there was no trouble. After that, all we had to do was get to the airport and fly out!
Super glad to be coming home to America for the first time since 2019. It's been too long.
No comments:
Post a Comment