Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not we can please tone down the "fear porn" which is the only real word I have for it at this point. The reason I am making this video is based on a number of different things but one as we have discussed especially here recently, I don't know why but there just seems to be a group of people that wants to continue being hysterical just about public health sort of generally and to do just radically unprecedented things. Granted they are precedented insofar as we have done it over the past 2 years, but prior to 2 years ago two and a half years ago at this point, we didn't do anything like lockdowns, mandates etc., but okay we have done it. I think that the data is pretty clear at this point, the mandates were not particularly useful; the lockdowns what we do know they did is destroyed economies; what we don't particularly know that they did, in fact it seems the data is being borne out quite to the opposite end of the spectrum is they seemed to have not done very much good with respect to helping anything with respect to the overall situation. 

Leaving that aside, the reason for the video is I was reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Government on high monkeypox alert. Quoting directly: “Thailand is considering raising further its health alert for monkeypox by listing it as a so-called “serious communicable disease”, after the viral disease was classified as a new public health emergency worthy of international concern.” Quoting further: “World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday declared monkeypox as “A Public Health Emergency of International Concern” and urged member countries to find effective methods that do not stigmatize target groups.” Now the reason for the video, I am going to get into further analysis here in a minute, yeah there is no question there is a disease here, but we are not looking at the same scenario we were looking at two and a half years ago to the best of my understanding. This isn’t an unknown disease. It is also not to my understanding a disease that is particularly respiratory spread and it is not spread without symptoms, it is not spread asymptomatically. So again, the hysteria that seems to be cropping up seems to be not only unwarranted but as we will get into here in a little bit, I mean I am usually not prone to this type of speculation but I am starting to wonder if there might be some ulterior motives here. As the Bangkok Post noted, WHO declared this “A Public Health Emergency of International Concern”. Going to another website with the article: WHO Declares Global Public Health Emergency over Monkeypox Virus Outbreak. This was in healthpolicy-watch.news. Quoting directly: “WHO has declared a new global public health emergency over the Monkeypox outbreak which has now spread to more than 16,000 people in over 75 countries and territories - in what some Public Health experts described as a “bold decision” by Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Chebreyesus, overriding a divided group of expert advisors.” And this is really key here, I'll get into this further. “The WHO Director General announced his decision after a two-day meeting by a 15-member International Health Emergency committee failed to come up with a consensus recommendation.” So this committee was put together of presumably some of the top experts in the world and no consensus could be raised about whether or not this can be deemed “a public health emergency of international concern.” Quoting further from this second article: "Speaking at an extraordinary WHO press conference convened on Saturday, Dr. Tedros said that took the decision in line with his authority to do so, deciding that the outbreak meets the criteria for a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” (PHEIC) under the terms of WHO’s binding International Health Regulations. He said that he took the decision despite the fact that currently, WHO’s determination is that the global risk of Monkeypox to public health remains "moderate" except for in the European region where risks are “high”. Quoting further and quoting directly: “There was no consensus by them. We believe that it's time to declare PHEIC, considering their advice and considering how it has spread since the last meeting of the Emergency Committee in late June, at a time when the infection was only being seen in 37 countries.” Quoting further and quoting directly: “We believe this will mobilize the world to act together, it needs coordination, solidarity especially (for) the use of vaccines and treatments.” said Tedros.” So, I don’t really know, this is very  seems odd to me that Thailand is sort of getting all wound up about considering this a Public Health Emergency of International Concern because WHO is saying it but it's not really a WHO panel, it is just one person seemingly that is making this determination. 

Finally, I want to go ahead and provide a little background on Tedros. This comes from the Daily Mail, dailymail.co.uk, and the article is titled: Tedros is re-elected as head of WHO for a second five-year term after becoming a household name during Covid crisis. Quoting directly from a couple of excerpts in that article; I urge folks who are watching this video, go check out all of these articles, it is all very interesting stuff. Quoting directly: “Dr. Tedros – who has never practiced as a medical doctor – is a career politician who was born in what is now Eritrea, began work under the Communist Derg junta, and came to study in the UK in 1991. According to the BBC, Dr. Tedros then joined the hard-left TPLF - which started life as a Communist party and played a major role in overthrowing Mariam in 1991. It later became part of the EPRDF, a coalition left-wing parties that ruled Ethiopia until last year." So there is a lot going on here but a big reason and as you can tell, we have go air-condition problems and I am sweating a little more than usual, but the thing that really bothered me overall about all of this is that, and one thing I have always really loved about the history of Thailand is the fact that Thailand never got colonized. It went through a lot of really difficult times during the colonial era and there was a lot of heavy foreign influence but colonization never occurred and also communism never really took hold in Thailand. Thailand acted as a bulwark against communism. I do understand Public Health is Public Health, I am not trying to politicize something that shouldn't be politicized but it really is something that I hope public policy makers here in Thailand, Public Health policy makers in Thailand, will look at, rather than just sort of doing a knee jerk reaction to, I hesitate to call it hype but just sort of a knee jerk reaction to what the WHO does. Instead, let's analyze what is going on here. Did the WHO come to a unanimous decision that this is necessary, that we need to start making arrangements for things that have proven to have really detrimental impacts on the economy here in Thailand, on the overall social structure herein Thailand, just sort of the social fabric if you will. Meanwhile, we have also got a situation where you have got somebody who is a member of the Communist party and is unilaterally making decisions seemingly I should say, but based on what I am reading, seemingly unilaterally making decisions within the WHO and then those decisions are having real impact here in Thailand over something that again unlike what we were dealing with two and a half years ago, yes we know what it is, it doesn't have nearly the spread; it doesn't have near the lethality or the tendency to spread as quickly as other diseases will spread and there are treatments available, already. So again, I mean can we just turn the "Fear Porn" down a notch and really look at this under a more analytical framework.