1. #5776
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    CCSA worries that relaxed measures may cause 2nd wave of infection

    BANGKOK(NNT) - The Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration or CCSA has admitted that there are concerns about the possibility of a second wave of a COVID-19 viral outbreak. However the authority has resolved to do its best.


    Dr. Taweesin Visanuyothin, as CCSA spokesperson expressed the CCSA’s concerns about a further relaxation of measures that may lead to a second outbreak. The spokesperson said today the authority has been evaluating collected information and surveys since the first phase of relaxation, and assured the public that the CCSA will work with care to prevent renewed infections in the future.


    As for the second phase of relaxed measures, a misunderstanding has been identified concerning television program production that could be limited to five people in total. The spokesperson said it was only a draft that will need to be addressed. The public sector can send advice to CCSA.


    CCSA also appreciated the “SHARING PANTRIES” scheme initiated by members of the public sector to encourage sharing of commodities with other virus lockdown subjects. To maintain the benefits of such a good project, citizens should maintain social distancing and spaced queueing. And most importantly, take just enough and leave some for others.

    National News Bureau Of Thailand

  2. #5777
    In Uranus
    bsnub's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    30,429

    Cartels are scrambling: Coronavirus snarls global drug trade

    NEW YORK — The coronavirus is dealing a gut punch to the illegal drug trade, authorities say, paralyzing economies, closing borders and severing supply chains in China that traffickers rely on for the chemicals to make such profitable drugs as methamphetamine and the powerful opioid fentanyl.

    One of the main suppliers that shut down is in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the global outbreak.

    Interviews with nearly two dozen law enforcement officials and trafficking experts found that Mexican and Colombian cartels are still plying their trade, as evidenced by a bust last month in which nearly $30 million worth of street drugs was seized in a new smuggling tunnel connecting a warehouse in Tijuana to southern San Diego. But the stay-home orders that have turned cities into ghost towns are disrupting steps including production, transport and sales.

    Along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, through which the vast majority of illegal drugs cross, the normally bustling vehicle traffic that smugglers use for cover has slowed to a trickle. Bars, nightclubs and motels across the country that are ordinarily fertile marketplaces for drug dealers have shuttered. And prices for drugs in short supply have soared to gouging levels.

    “They are facing a supply problem and a demand problem,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former official with CISEN, the Mexican intelligence agency. “Once you get them to the market, who are you going to sell to?”

    But the COVID-19 pandemic also has limited law enforcement’s effectiveness, as departments cope with drug investigators working remotely, falling ill and navigating a new landscape in which their own activities have become more conspicuous. In Los Angeles County, half of the narcotics detectives have been put on patrol duty, potentially imperiling long-term investigations.

    For sellers, virtually every illicit drug has been affected, with supply-chain disruptions at both the wholesale and retail level. Traffickers are stockpiling narcotics and cash along the border, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration even reports a decrease in money-laundering and online drug sales on the so-called dark web.

    “The godfathers of the cartels are scrambling,” said Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center.

    Cocaine prices are up 20% or more in some cities. Heroin has become harder to find in Denver and Chicago, while supplies of fentanyl are falling in Houston and Philadelphia. In Los Angeles, the price of methamphetamine has more than doubled in recent weeks to $1,800 per pound.

    “You have shortages but also some greedy bastards who see an opportunity to make more money,” said Jack Riley, the former deputy administrator of the DEA. “The bad guys frequently use situations that affect the national conscience to raise prices.”

    Synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl have been among the most affected, in large part because they rely on precursor chemicals that Mexican cartels import from China, cook into drugs on an industrial scale and then ship to the U.S.

    “This is something we would use as a lesson learned for us,” the head of the DEA, Uttam Dhillon, told AP. “If the disruption is that significant, we need to continue to work with our global partners to ensure that, once we come out of the pandemic, those precursor chemicals are not available to these drug-trafficking organizations.”

    Cartels are increasingly shifting away from drugs that require planting and growing seasons, such as heroin and marijuana, in favor of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. These can be cooked continuously through the year, are up to 50 times more powerful than heroin and produce a greater profit margin.

    Though some clandestine labs that make fentanyl from scratch have popped up sporadically in Mexico, cartels are still very much reliant upon Chinese companies to get the precursor drugs.

    Huge amounts of these mail-order components can be traced to a single, state-subsidized company in Wuhan that shut down after the outbreak earlier this year, said Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University, which monitors Chinese websites selling fentanyl.

    “The quarantine of Wuhan and all the chaos there definitely affected the fentanyl trade, particularly between China and Mexico,” said Ben Westhoff, author of “Fentanyl, Inc.”

    “The main reason China has been the main supplier is the main reason China is the supplier of everything — it does it so cheaply,” Westhoff said. “There was really no cost incentive for the cartels to develop this themselves.”
    But costs have been rising and, as in many legitimate industries, the coronavirus is bringing about changes.

    Advertised prices across China for precursors of fentanyl, methamphetamine and cutting agents have risen between 25% and 400% since late February, said Logan Pauley, an analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a Washington-based security research nonprofit. So even as drug-precursor plants in China are slowly reopening after the worst of the coronavirus crisis there, some cartels have been taking steps to decrease their reliance on overseas suppliers by enlisting scientists to make their own precursor chemicals.

    Some Chinese companies that once pushed precursors are now advertising drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, which President Trump has promoted as potential treatment for COVID-19 despite a lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy, as well as personal protective gear such as face masks and hand sanitizers.

    Meanwhile, the gummed-up situation on the U.S.-Mexico border resembles a stalled chess match where nobody, especially the traffickers, wants to make a wrong move, said Kyle Williamson, special agent in charge of the DEA’s El Paso field division.

    “They’re in a pause right now,” Williamson said. “They don’t want to get sloppy and take a lot of risks.”

    Some Mexican drug rings are even holding back existing methamphetamine supplies to manipulate the market, recognizing that “no good crisis should be wasted,” said Joseph Brown, the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Texas.

    “Some cartels have given direct orders to members of their organization that anyone caught selling methamphetamine during this time will be killed,” said Brown, whose sprawling jurisdiction stretches from the suburbs of Dallas to Beaumont.

    To be sure, narcotics are still making their way into the U.S. Shelley said that the seizure of drugs in the newly discovered Tijuana-San Diego tunnel was notable in that only about two pounds of fentanyl was recovered, “much lower than usual shipments.”

    Trump announced earlier this month that Navy ships were being moved toward Venezuela as part of a bid to beef up counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean following a U.S. drug indictment against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

    Capt. Chris Sandoval, who oversees special investigations for the Houston-based Harris County Sheriff’s Office, said there’s a new saying among his detectives: “Not even the dope dealers can hide from the coronavirus.”

    Coronavirus effects on global drug traffic, Mexican cartels - Los Angeles Times



  3. #5778
    กงเกวียนกำเกวียน HuangLao's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    สุโขทัย
    Posts
    10,149
    ^ And what of the ongoing pharmaceutical mafia?

  4. #5779
    I'm in Jail

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Last Online
    25-02-2024 @ 11:45 PM
    Posts
    11,602

  5. #5780
    กงเกวียนกำเกวียน HuangLao's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    สุโขทัย
    Posts
    10,149
    Needs repeating.

    The virus ain't political.




    ....will always have the upper hand.
    [that wouldn't take too much to secure]

  6. #5781
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    Unreleased White House report shows coronavirus rates spiking in heartland communities


    Trump's claim that cases are falling everywhere is contradicted by his own task force's report, obtained by NBC News, showing the virus spreading far from the coasts.

    Unreleased White House report shows coronavirus rates spiking in heartland communities

  7. #5782
    R.I.P.
    crackerjack101's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Last Online
    15-11-2020 @ 07:58 PM
    Posts
    5,574

  8. #5783
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    Wuhan to test entire population of 11m as uptick in cases prompts alarm at possible second wave


    The city of 11 million people reported its first cluster of new infections over the weekend

    Wuhan to test entire population of 11m as uptick in cases prompts alarm at possible second wave

  9. #5784
    Thailand Expat
    Troy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Last Online
    Today @ 06:49 PM
    Location
    In the EU
    Posts
    12,213
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    The city of 11 million people reported its first cluster of new infections over the weekend
    What's the surprise, this is the reality of a lock down. You release the restrictions and infections will rise and so you have to apply them again. Rinse and repeat until a vaccine is found or you have ~80% infected.

    This is gonna be a hell of a year for us oldies and vulnerable...

  10. #5785
    En route
    Cujo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Last Online
    24-02-2024 @ 04:47 PM
    Location
    Reality.
    Posts
    32,939
    High school went back last week. Middle school is back this week.
    Primary next week.
    The kids have their temperatures taken at the gate and again in the classroom and aren't allowed to leave the grounds during the schoolday. (Usually come home for lunch).
    It was all starting to wind down and things getting back to normal.
    Though it was never really bad here in the sub tropical south China.
    “If we stop testing right now we’d have very few cases, if any.” Donald J Trump.

  11. #5786
    En route
    Cujo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Last Online
    24-02-2024 @ 04:47 PM
    Location
    Reality.
    Posts
    32,939
    Is it my imagination or does it seem less in the hotter regions? Hong Kong , Singapore, seem to have it under control and it doesn't seem to have taken off in Indonesia like you would think it would in a crowded disorganised place like that. place like that.

  12. #5787
    En route
    Cujo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Last Online
    24-02-2024 @ 04:47 PM
    Location
    Reality.
    Posts
    32,939

    Trump is making America an obstacle in the global fight against Covid-19

    The president’s deadly mishandling of the pandemic threatens to make the world’s most powerful country a pariah


    President Donald Trump’s incompetent handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is not only exacerbating the death and destruction caused by the virus in the US. It is also crippling the global response to the crisis, and the costs could be even deadlier.


    When global crises hit, American leadership is essential. Whether it was launching the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) or marshaling efforts to respond to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the US has played a central role in tackling many of the world’s deadliest health crises. American leadership is far from perfect, but it is necessary to tackle threats of a global magnitude.


    This pandemic is one of the greatest challenges the world has faced since the second world war. America has lost more people to Covid-19 than it has lost in all of its military conflicts since the beginning of the Vietnam war. The outbreak has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives around the world, and the crisis has just begun. As the death toll rises and the path out of the pandemic remains uncertain, the economic catastrophe will be enormous.


    A successful global effort to defeat the pandemic will require a robust American response. Instead, Trump is making it harder for the world to address the crisis.


    Trump does not seem to recognize that the only effective solution to the pandemic is to counter it everywhere. Without a universally administered vaccine, the virus could continue to cycle through country after country. And as desperate as the situation is in the US, other countries could fare far worse. The UN recently tripled its assessment of the immediate need for aid to the most vulnerable and said trillions of dollars in rescue packages would be necessary for developing economies. In addition to the unimaginable number of people who could die from the virus itself, the pandemic could cause famines of “biblical proportions”, according to the World Food Programme, and an economic collapse that could cost countless more lives.


    While the US would normally be leading calls for assistance to developing countries to help them deal with the pandemic, the Trump administration is barely noticing the desperate need around the world. In past crises, the US would gather allies and partners to develop common solutions; this time, the Trump administration blocked the G20 from taking action.


    Trump has stood in the way of efforts to aid those who could be devastated by the pandemic
    Trump has attacked the primary international governmental organization dedicated to responding to pandemics. Early in the outbreak, long before Trump claimed that the virus would “disappear”, the World Health Organization (WHO) was sounding the alarm and warning countries to prepare. But instead of working with the WHO, the Trump administration has turned the organization into a battleground with China and halted US funding.


    Trump has stood in the way of efforts to aid those who could be devastated by the pandemic. When the UN secretary general pushed for a global ceasefire during the pandemic – which numerous groups involved in armed conflicts indicated they would support – the US held up efforts because of squabbling with China over language referring to the WHO. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued to pressure Iran and Venezuela with sanctions despite how vulnerable their people are.


    Trump seems to view the race for a vaccine as a zero-sum game. In March, he reportedly tried to buy a German company that had made progress in developing a vaccine, with the intent of securing credit and access for the US. On 4 May, leaders from around the world convened to raise funds to find a vaccine and treatments and clear the way for mass production and distribution. But the US was missing in action – not only did Trump fail to attend, but the US didn’t even send an official or any funds.


    One of the threads running through all this is a deadly US-China blame game. Since the Chinese Communist party (CCP) initially responded to the outbreak by trying to censor those speaking out about it, many in the US blame China for allowing the pandemic to spread. Whatever culpability China deserves, no one gains right now from a US-China feud over the pandemic at the expense of collective efforts to beat the disease. Yet that’s exactly what the Trump administration and the CCP are doing.


    Trump’s deadly mishandling of the pandemic at home also threatens to make the world’s most powerful country an international pariah. With more cases and deaths than any other country, and with a president who seems uninterested in doing what it takes to safely reopen the economy, the rest of the world is unlikely to take American policies for addressing the pandemic seriously. Even worse, as other countries begin to safely reopen their economies, the US may become the target of travel bans, as China was early in the pandemic.


    In moments of global crisis, America is still the indispensable nation. But in today’s moment of need, Trump is making America an obstacle to success.
    Trump is making America an obstacle in the global fight against Covid-19 | Michael H Fuchs | Opinion | The Guardian

  13. #5788
    I am not a cat
    nidhogg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    18,317
    ^^ if you do not test, you do not have cases to report.

  14. #5789
    En route
    Cujo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Last Online
    24-02-2024 @ 04:47 PM
    Location
    Reality.
    Posts
    32,939
    Quote Originally Posted by nidhogg View Post
    ^^ if you do not test, you do not have cases to report.
    If people were dropping dead at the rate they are in the U.S. and they were in italy it would be pretty obvious.
    Remember the footage from the hospitals in italy.

  15. #5790
    I am not a cat
    nidhogg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    18,317
    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    If people were dropping dead at the rate they are in the U.S. and they were in italy it would be pretty obvious.
    Remember the footage from the hospitals in italy.
    Have you been to Indonesia? Seen the Jakarta slums? I have.

    Remember Zika a few years ago? Indonesia simply said fuck it, we are not going to test. I doubt the situation with covid is much different.

  16. #5791
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,552
    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    Is it my imagination or does it seem less in the hotter regions? Hong Kong , Singapore, seem to have it under control and it doesn't seem to have taken off in Indonesia like you would think it would in a crowded disorganised place like that. place like that.
    Do you consider Kuwait and Saudi hotter regions?

    Kuwait's just gone back into a 20 day lockdown.

  17. #5792
    Thailand Expat
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    12-11-2023 @ 04:38 PM
    Posts
    1,072
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Do you consider Kuwait and Saudi hotter regions?
    Haven't been to either but friends who have state that apart from the imported workers, people rarely venture out of their Air Con bubble.

    There is a suggestion that the virus is spreading through droplets in the air, which might give some credence to it being killed by the hot climate and sunlight. If that is the case locking people out, might be more sensible than locking them in.
    Blessed are the piss takers, for they shall inherit the mirth.

  18. #5793
    I'm in Jail

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Last Online
    25-02-2024 @ 11:45 PM
    Posts
    11,602

  19. #5794
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    17,214
    Quote Originally Posted by Warwick View Post
    Haven't been to either but friends who have state that apart from the imported workers, people rarely venture out of their Air Con bubble
    ...I've lived in both: even in the hottest, most humid weather (May-September), evening walks can be almost pleasant, particularly if a Corniche is available...in cooler months, the a/c bubble is greatly reduced. A greater threat is the tendency to clump together in people's homes to drink (mainly western foreigners) or sit, fiddle with prayer beads, smoke shisha, snack interminably, watch TV, gossip and worship in large groups (locals). How the imported help passes the time may be unknowable...
    Majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd

  20. #5795
    กงเกวียนกำเกวียน HuangLao's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    สุโขทัย
    Posts
    10,149
    The traditional collective of social and familiar extensions befuddles some cultures.
    The good of the commons translates as to the expected political theatre.

    Quite reflective, as those in question are falling behind considerably.
    Gonna be terribly difficult to recover when ya don't know what to recover from.

    Occidental has never been that developed.
    Nor much of a future.

  21. #5796
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,552
    Quote Originally Posted by HuangLao View Post
    The traditional collective of social and familiar extensions befuddles some cultures.
    The good of the commons translates as to the expected political theatre.

    Quite reflective, as those in question are falling behind considerably.
    Gonna be terribly difficult to recover when ya don't know what to recover from.

    Occidental has never been that developed.
    Nor much of a future.
    Occupational distemper.

    Collywobbles.

  22. #5797
    I'm in Jail

    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Last Online
    14-12-2023 @ 11:54 AM
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    13,986
    Why some people turn to conspiracy theories to explain the coronavirus

    Why some people turn to conspiracy theories to explain the coronavirus | SBS News

  23. #5798
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    Russian president’s spokesman hospitalized with coronavirus

    MOSCOW (AP) — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been hospitalized with the coronavirus, the latest in a series of setbacks for President Vladimir Putin as Russia struggles to contain the growing outbreak.


    “Yes, I’ve gotten sick. I’m being treated,” Peskov, a key Putin aide, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.


    Also infected was Peskov’s wife, Olympic ice dancing champion Tatyana Navka. She told reporters that Peskov’s condition was “satisfactory” and that the couple decided to enter the hospital so as not to expose the rest of their family.


    “He brought it (the virus) from work,” Navka was quoted as saying by the Daily Storm online outlet.

    MORE Russian president’s spokesman hospitalized with coronavirus – Thai PBS World

  24. #5799
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    For the first time since January 13th, when Thailand recorded its first COVID-19 case, no new infections or fatalities have been reported in the country today (Wednesday).

    Zero new COVID-19 deaths or infections reported in Thailand – Thai PBS World

  25. #5800
    Thailand Expat
    Troy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Last Online
    Today @ 06:49 PM
    Location
    In the EU
    Posts
    12,213
    ^ Now that's some good news. It makes my decision to be with the wife, instead of forcing her to be with me, more reasonable. With all the possible collapses and losses, unemployment and other restrictions...it's nice to have a bit of land to grow veg and raise some chickens and cows.

    Well done Thailand!

Page 232 of 553 FirstFirst ... 132182222224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240242282332 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 2 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 2 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •