Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the calls for Thailand to get back to business. There was an interesting article, I thought it was a very eye-opening article in Thai Visa, that is thaivisa.com, the article is titled: Vast Majority of Thais Want Country to Open to Foreign Tourists, Poll. Vast majority is an understatement in this case. Quoting directly: "A poll has revealed that the vast majority of Thai people want the country to open to foreign tourism in 120 days. The "super poll" conducted last week came after Thai PM Prayuth Chan-o-cha stated his aim to open the country up by the end of the year. 91%, 91.4% of people polled nationwide agreed with the re-opening plan." and I have got to say I am one of those 91%. They didn't poll me but I would definitely be, if they had it would probably be up around 92% of the people polled because yes, we need to get re-opened. I can't stress enough, it is just really difficult to watch the number of businesses that are currently at best in a state of dormancy and at worst, never to re-open again. It has definitely hard to watch folks I have known for years really, really struggle. We all want to get on with our lives and we want to get back to work.

To that end, another interesting article. Again from Thai Visa, thaivisa.com, the article is titled: Pattaya - let us Re-open and Serve Alcohol again, Entertainment Industry Leader Echoes Calls for Reopening. Quoting directly: "The Head of the Pattaya Entertainment and Tourism Association has appealed to the Government to re-open the resort saying there was no COVID there. Damrongkiat Phinitkan threw his support behind wider moves made with the presentation of a letter by Democrat Party Deputy Leader Prin Panichphak to House Leader Chuan Leekpai earlier. Damrongkirt said that operators in Pattaya had been suffering for 200 days and with no COVID-19 cases there, it was time to reopen the industry, allow alcohol to be served again." So clearly there is a lot of real push here. I have done a number of videos especially on the notion of alcohol ban. I just don't really see the logic behind the alcohol ban. Masks on trains, I get it; on the Sky Train, people are pushed together, huddled together, that makes sense. I can understand certain aspects of this. I understood it a lot more 15 months ago and I think in doing the cost-benefit analysis now when you are looking at the numbers with respect to possible fatalities associated with this disease and things, frankly I think that the current policies are really quite an overreaction based on the actual threat.

That being stated I don't get to make the rules but it is clear to me that a lot of people really want to get on with doing some business because a bigger problem we are going to run into now and we have been running into, it is not so much with COVID, it is the economic ramifications of the aftermath of this. Not only just getting the local economy going again but we need to get things moving again so we can start attracting tourists. I mean the notion that we can flip a switch and folks are just going to come back, it is not going to work that way. The economy has to be going; people have to come here and want to do things before tourists are going to want to talk back. Yes, there are natural attractions: the beaches: the beautiful sights of Thailand, I get all of that but things like the Night Life area as pointed out by this person down at Pattaya who heads the Entertainment Association down there, they need to get going again. They have been shut down for I think 200 days in total at this point so hopefully things will move in a positive direction on that score sooner rather than later.