Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the notion of "ditching" the COVID Pass here in Thailand. I bring this up because it recently came to my attention via BBC, that is bbc.com, the article is titled: England vaccine passport plans ditched, Sajid Javid says. To be clear and we have gone through this in other videos, I make a distinction between what has been referred to at least here in Thailand as a "vaccine passport" as opposed to this so-called "COVID Pass" they have been talking about. A Vaccine Passport as we have discussed, I look at that as inoculation documentation associated with international travel. As we have seen in certain countries, malaria inoculations things like yellow fever inoculations for certain countries; at least in the past they would require these inoculations before one would be allowed to enter a given country, part of the entry requirements. I view that as very, very different than this notion of this Pass that you have to carry around and present to businesses in your locality just to be able to get in and essentially live your life and enjoy going out into the world basically. 

Quoting directly from this article, again that is from bbc.com, the title is: England vaccine passport plans ditched, Sajid Javid says. Quoting directly: "Plans to introduce vaccine passports for access into night clubs and large events in England will not go ahead, the Health Secretary has said. Sajid Javid told the BBC: “We shouldn't be doing things for the sake of it." It was thought the plan which came under criticism from venues and some MPs would be introduced at the end of this month." Quoting further: "Just a week ago, the vaccines minister had defended the scheme as the "best way" to keep the night industry open." Quoting further: "Under the scheme, people who would have been required to show proof - whether a double vaccination, a negative COVID test or finishing self-isolating after a positive PCR test in order to gain entry the club's another vent and other crowded events. The night time industries association had said the plans could have crippled the industry and led to night clubs facing discrimination cases. The industry body welcome Sunday’s announcement saying it hoped businesses could now plan with some certainty and start to rebuild the sector." 

I thought that was really interesting and I have said this in another video, that notion of certainty. I really can't stress this enough. I have discussed this with clients and folks that are in the business community or were before they were effectively frozen out over the course of especially the last 4 months or so and are just trying to make ends meet basically and trying to get on with their lives. It is this notion of certainty. If moving forward we are going to have to constantly be worried about all of these different, vicissitudes if you will of regulations, just being foisted at the drop of a hat on businesses, that is a real problem and people are going to have a really hard time justifying at least to themselves, making any major kind of investment in an economy that frankly could be that fickle, that could just come up with things again just at the drop of a hat. I thought it was really interesting that this has been rolled back especially in the UK as it seemed like they were pretty, for lack of a better term and pretty gung ho about it moving forward but it does not appear that is now the case and clearly, as we have used this term before if cooler heads prevailed, the business community especially made their seriously valid concerns in my opinion known and folks, it looks like me reasonable people decided to go another way.  

My hope is the authorities in Thailand, policy makers will have a look at this and think to themselves “hey maybe this isn't the greatest thing to be doing”. In my opinion, I don't really see the overall need for it all things being considered. Moreover I don't really see that legitimately injecting a third party between two private individuals transacting is ever a particularly good thing and again based on the overwhelming data on this overall issue, I don't really see how it is justified in the first place. We are still waiting to see how this is going to play out. I personally am hoping, again we thought this might be implemented at the beginning of September. They have been talking and I haven't seen anything that leads me to be convinced yet that this is going to become policy. I have seen some discussion about it but I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe this is going to become hard and fast policy. Hopefully again maybe policy makers will have a look at this overall thing and say maybe we should go a different way.