Transcript of the above video:

A major topic that has been on the lips of many, expats, locals here in Thailand, especially from the tourism sector is when is Thailand going to reopen. By Thailand we are talking interchangeably with Bangkok here or perhaps more accurately or more specifically the "red zone", "dark red zones" however you want to look at this. There has been a significant amount of discussion regarding when, if and how and under what circumstances Bangkok especially and thereby opening up really the whole country in a very real sense; when this is going to happen for vaccinated tourists without substantial quarantine.

We have done a number of videos on this thus far but this video, I want to be clear, I think there are those that may think I am making this video in an effort to intentionally be controversial. That isn't the intent here actually. I am genuinely asking the question: "why is this the case?" and I will get to this as we get into this. So just to provide a little backdrop here, back in June 2021 the Prime Minister came out and said "look 120 days and we are going to get things reopened" and that was the road map and that is what we have been operating off of here. Now we are sitting here, mid to late September 2021 and there seems to be to be a lot of confusion regarding reopening. So, to start with a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com. I have been keeping track of this a lot throughout a bunch of different parts of the press. The Bangkok Post seems to have basically on a continuous basis provided to my mind the best string if you will on the narrative as to what is going on here. So again, from bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Bangkok hurries for more jabs. Quoting directly: "A political tug of war may be the key factor determining when Bangkok is allowed to reopen to fully vaccinated tourists." Quoting further: "On Wednesday, the Tourism and Sports Minister and the Tourism Authority of Thailand held a meeting with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and Bangkok Governor Police General Aswin Kwanmuang. Directly after this meeting, Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Rachakitprakarn insisted the Bangkok reopening date be set for October 15." Quoting further: "However, on Friday the Bangkok Governor asserted the city should not be reopened until residents have a 70% vaccination rate in order to ensure sufficient immunity." I keep wondering where these numbers come from, these percentages and numbers. I haven't been able to find, especially in a lot of the Thai press the sources for how they come up with these numbers; exactly where these numbers are coming from. So suffice it to say, I am just going to go ahead and quote and folks can look into it further on their own. 

 From another article: October 1 Reopening up in the Air, again from Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, quoting directly: "The Public Health Ministry on Thursday addressed concerns raised by academics over the Government's plan to reopen the country to vaccinated foreign tourists starting next month. The plan is in line with the pledge which Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha made in June to welcome vaccinated tourists within 120 days. (as we noted previously) However, some critics including academics, had said the Government may be acting too early." Again, they just say "academics". I couldn't find anything where specifically we were looking at "who". Quoting further: "Commenting on issues surrounding the plan, Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul yesterday said medical experts in the Department of Disease Control must decide whether the country is ready to re-open." Okay, so a couple of things. First of all, and I don't want to get in too deep with respect to the history of the current government; we all know the history with respect to the current government. That said, in 2019 an election was held and the current government was formed as a result in a coalition that has basically been governing to one degree or another basically the same although some personnel shifted around, basically governed since that time. So Prime Minister Prayut and Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin are both part of the elected government. It seems that they are moving towards getting things reopened. As noted, in the previously quoted information in the previously quoted articles, the Bangkok Governor Aswin Kwanmuang, has different views on this I guess. Just to put a fine point on that, quoting directly from a recent article again from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com article is titled: Re-open with Caution. Quoting directly: "Still, Bangkok Governor Aswin Kwanmuang insisted he never set a deadline for opening on either October 1 or October 15th. The city, he said, is likely to reach the target of 70% vaccinated by October 22." Quoting further: "The Governor insisted it is he who has the authority to decide when and how the capital will reopen." Now I am really confused by this because first of all understand, generally speaking for those who are unaware, the Bangkok Governorship is an elected position and it has been up until a few years ago when Police General Aswin was appointed into that position. So that was an appointed position at that time and that is what happened there. Now to the best of my knowledge there has been no election held in the interim so this is an unelected person that is, quoting directly from the Bangkok Post: "he never set a deadline for opening on either October 1 or October 15.” Well as we noted previously, the Prime Minister made those statements back in June of 2021 citing to 120 days which culminated with October 1 of this year. Then quoting further, again from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com: "The Governor insisted it is he who has the authority to decide when and how the capital will reopen." Well it was our understanding and we did video on this going back into the summer, that is that all the powers invested in this had essentially been voted over to or had been delegated if you will or conferred upon the Prime Minister. That ultimately the Prime Minister, who again in 2019 became Prime Minister in a coalition government which came about as a result of that election, that he was ultimately the one who made these decisions. So again, I am not asking this to be controversial. It is simply from our recent research, it just begs the question. Further on that note, again from the Bangkok Post bangkokpost.com article is titled: Reopening of Capital must be "safe". Quoting directly, and this is a quote within the article: "People’s safety comes first in reopening plans,” Doctor Apisamai told a daily press briefing on the Coronavirus situation. Again, Doctor Apisamai, and we have talked about this in other videos is the Assistant Spokesperson for the CCSA; again I never remember there being any sort of elections associated with this. Now we have been hearing this word "safe" constantly and yes everybody wants to try and mitigate as much danger as possible but you know I keep thinking of that, for those out there who watch this channel who are Game of Thrones fans, there is an exchange between the Hound and Brienne of Tarth where they are talking about Arya Stark and Brienne of Tarth says” “I have to get her to safety.” and the hound says "safety, where is that?" - I am redacting, I am definitely paraphrasing here, there are a lot of expletives in there but the point of the quote is "where is safety?" There is never going to be 100% safety with respect to anything or anywhere or anyone for that matter. Now of course, reasonable measures need to be taken but as I have stated at length on this channel, we have been locked down here since April of 2021 and business is fully shut down. The economy just really is in a bad way; this notion of an almost for lack of a better term, an obsession over safety seems to me to be a bit counterproductive, okay? One man's opinion, maybe reasonable people can disagree on that.

Again just to reiterate the point of the video, I just can't figure out, to me it seems from clearly an outsider's observation that the elected Government is moving in a certain direction and then there seems to be this countercurrent if you want to call it that, that seems to be running in another direction. It begs the question: "why is that happening?" The Prime Minister and it seems the Cabinet seem to be trying to move things a certain way. It appears to me that it is kind of moved towards reopening and then there is this pushback and it seems to all be coming from unelected sectors within the apparatus, within the Government apparatus and it really does beg the question: "Why is that occurring?"