OPINION

Just avoid the 'circus'

I started my morning by reading your editorial on yet another police corruption situation and the supposed inability of the deputy prime minister to enforce the law with regard to Thailand's largest criminal network, the police. I was left just shaking my head at the admission that the government is unable or maybe unwilling to do its job.

Moving on to the more jovial aspects of life I had a look at my incoming posts on social media and found a very pertinent short statement. "There is no point complaining about a clown always acting like a clown, you must ask yourself why you keep returning to the circus". Isn't it amazing how answers just turn up when you need them.

Re: "Covid dishonesty", (PostBag, Jan 30).

I wish to inform the writer that Thailand never had a second national lockdown in the first place, as was implied in the letter. This country merely had a small lockdown in various sectors of a few parts of the nation, which has now been rolled back. Thus it is not just me who wants a rollback, but even the government wants one -- so that should tell you something, sir.

Borrowing from another writer who made the point that countries which do not have lockdowns actually have less Covid-19 affected individuals in many cases than in countries which do, I used South Korea and Sweden to bolster my case, and I added Taiwan. You criticised me for using such countries.

Now, while Sweden may not be faring all too well, it really is not doing any worse than most Western nations, while South Korea and Taiwan are doing amazingly well, having low corona-virus caseloads.

I am not at all opposed to full-scale lockdowns when warranted; I was just questioning the necessity of imposing wide-scale lockdowns on countries where only a few areas have substantial numbers of Covid-19 cases, given the economic and corresponding social disruptions that lockdowns impose on the citizenry of various nations. This country already went through a national lockdown in April last year, and clearly both the government and citizenry want to avoid that again.

However, when so many individuals are affected by the coronavirus, such as in Western nations such as the UK and the United States, then I feel that national lockdowns are warranted for as reasonable an amount of time as necessary in order to reduce the Covid-19 caseload to manageable numbers.

Re: "FDA ready for key role," (BP, Feb 1).

The article on the Food and Drug Administration's preparations does little to instil confidence that Thailand residents will be vaccinated against Covid-19 any time soon. FDA secretary-general Paisarn Dankum acknowledges Thailand delayed lining up vaccines during the peak of the pandemic because the country was "relatively free of the virus and under no pressure to cave in and agree to a high prices" for a vaccine. Such a short-sighted strategy has put Thailand behind scores of other countries that negotiated with various vaccine developers early on.

As for so-called "fast-track" approval of vaccines, one has to wonder at the definition of "fast". It is difficult to understand why the FDA hired 100 experts to review the safety and efficacy of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine when this vaccine had already undergone highly rigorous reviews and subsequent approval by British experts. It is also disconcerting the FDA approved Siam Bioscience's production of the Asta-Zeneca vaccine last year, but mass production will only begin in May this year.

I agree with the suggestions of Minor International Plc chairman, William Heinecke ("Govt told to rethink vaccines", BP, Feb 1), pointing out the need to expedite the entire inoculation programme, and urging consideration of more vaccines from other suppliers.

So Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, on behalf of the government, says "it's their internal affair" (entire statement) while the rest of the world condemns the coup in Myanmar.

Why? Guess it is because we need their illegal workers here to do the menial jobs that Thais do not want to do, or maybe it is because they can be paid less to do the same work. Or is it the thought that the military can do a better job of running a country? Sound familiar?

At any rate, with such an attitude, perhaps people in power here should receive sanctions from the rest of the world for their lack of concern. Any takers out there?