Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "the Definition of Insanity", and I have heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think that that sums up where we are at here in Thailand at the moment especially with respect to these ongoing tightening of restrictions; some call it a lockdown others don't, but this just constant ratcheting up of restrictions especially here in Bangkok and other provinces surrounding Bangkok or thereabouts as well as down south.

Just basically the purpose of this video, obviously it is kind of an opinion piece, a lot of people have asked me in the context of some of these videos I have done, whether or not I am trying to be provocative. No, that is actually not my intention at all. If anything, I am far from that and more they have asked me if I am trying to be contrarian. Again that is not actually really my purpose at all. I would prefer everyone was on the same page, it is just that page was a little bit more reasonable page. My purpose actually in this is I am probably the least contrarian, if you want to call farang or person of foreign origin in Thailand insofar as I was perfectly content with everything as of quarter one, 2020. I was frankly not unhappy up until about April of 2021 in a personal sense. Even now I wouldn't necessarily say I am particularly again looking to be contrarian. It is more that it just seems like people are getting into a very rigid mindset. They have got blinders on at least at a policy level in certain instances and there seems to be a lot of for lack of a better term "doubling down" on things that in my opinion I think we need to really seriously reassess at this point especially what are we going in to 17 months on, 16 months on of being under these lockdown measures, this Emergency Decree regarding COVID-19 and really a reassessment; we have discussed this further in other videos. Should we looking at this from a containment standpoint? Should we continue to be repeating the same courses of action when thus far it doesn't seem like it has particularly worked? 

So just as a for example, let me just go ahead and quote from the Bangkok Post, that is the bangkokpost.com,, the article is titled: 13 Provinces to be under Curfew, Lockdown until August 2nd. Quoting directly: "The Government is to extend the existing curfew and other tight restrictions in greater Bangkok and four Southern border provinces to at least August 2nd and add three more provinces to the list on Tuesday. The curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. and other restrictions have been enforced since last Monday. (I want to get back to that; just keep that in mind, last Monday) in Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakarn, Samut Sakhon, Pathum Thani and Nakhon Pathom as well as the southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Sonkhla and Yala." Quoting further: "The restrictions include the closure of all stores and shopping malls at 8:00 p.m. except for retailers deemed essential such as supermarkets, chemists and those selling medical and communications equipment. A ban on dine-in eateries continues, (again continues, I'll get back to that minute) while restaurants, wet markets and convenience stores must close from 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. No public transport is available from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m."

The reason, "last Monday", so a week ago approximately, we were already dealing with these ratcheted up lockdowns and the reason I think that that is noticeable is that cases have gone up. As the ratcheting down of folks' ability to do their business and get on with their lives, as all these restrictions are put in place, where is the benefit? That to me is the fundamental issue at play here. We have now done this, what would one say? At least for here in Bangkok we have gone through four iterations at this point of this whole thing. So it started off back over a year ago, April, May, June we went into a very hard lockdown where everything just basically closed up. I at the time and I think others felt that okay we don't know what this is. It is an unforeseen threat. Let's go ahead and take some pretty stringent precautions and I think reasonable people could say that that was a good idea, not knowing what the situation was. Then again we had to deal with this back in December, that started at the end of December going through January and February depending on where you were but if you were in Bangkok it basically it went into March. Then things opened back up for a few weeks and then at Songkran, in the middle of April things clamped back down and to say that we haven't been under anything other than what you would call a "lockdown" I think is pretty disingenuous from Songkran until now. Now the degree of lockdown that it has been in Bangkok, there were "shades of gray", there were varying degrees of lockdown during that time period but yes we have been under a lockdown here in Bangkok basically that entire time. What has it accomplished? That to me, I am not a medical doctor, I am not claiming I have, but we have talked about it in other videos on this channel, there is now literature peer-reviewed and otherwise in the West that is coming out of places that went under these harsh lockdowns that are seriously questioning whether or not they have had maybe a negative impact in certain instances but one major thing that seems to be quite pervasive is that maybe it does nothing at all. It doesn't really have a major impact on overall cases. Two things that are different from last summer to now. One is we now have some data and I think there is a lot of data out there to suggest at best lockdowns don't really have any fundamentally beneficial impact in terms of dropping case numbers in and of themselves. I think there is serious cause to question that; I think that is a very good question. The other thing is we actually do know how deadly this is as a percentage. In terms of case fatality rates that is proven people to have had it and this is not MERS for example which to my understanding killed 15 to 30% of people that got it. Well that is terrible. At the same time it is something to be concerned about but it does not have the fatality rates that we were scared about a year ago. Now that we know where this thing is at, yes it is very sad to see but when you take a bird's eye view of all of this and look at the overall numbers, I am not going to get into all of that, that is not the purpose of this video, but just when doing a cost benefit analysis, the benefit we were trying to get out of this is that the case numbers go down. Well we have been through a number of these lockdowns already and as time has progressed, it just keeps going up. Meanwhile what is it costing? It is costing the economy virtually everything. The economy is in a bad way to say the least. I just see it out there and it really breaks my heart. 

The purpose of this video again, when you continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, I don't know what result is expected at this point. As I said a moment ago, we have already ratcheted down for a week here in Bangkok and the numbers are still going up. I don't know when and where that ends. At what point do we say "well we need to maybe rethink this". As we have discussed in other videos, Singapore has come out, their Health Ministry has said we need to maybe treat this as an endemic disease. As we have talked about in other videos maybe stop looking at it from the standpoint of a containment because the containment phase has long past. Yeah mitigation is certainly important. Isolate those who are most vulnerable to this. Hopefully get folks who are most vulnerable to this inoculated as soon as possible so that we can get past it but again I am not trying to be provocative or contrarian in these videos, in fact quite the opposite. I am hoping things go back to the status quo ante COVID sooner rather than later and we can all get on with our lives but I just think maybe looking at the possibility that we just have to live with this thing and live with it as best we can, sort of “keep calm and carry on” if you will, I think it may be a good idea for us to look at that kind of scenario at this point in time.