Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking "Why, Obviously?" Well let's just get into it. I decided to make this video after reading a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Future Insurance Requirements for Foreigners Entering Thailand Still Muddled. Yeah that headline sure captures the state of play. 

The reason for the video actually pertained to a specific excerpt in here. Quoting directly: "There is growing speculation that Thailand may abolish the Thailand Pass pre-registration system for foreigners within the next 3 months, following a trial period with Thai nationals. This does not necessarily mean that international entrants will revert to the Pre-COVID system of boarding a plane armed only with a passport and, if necessary a Visa." As a side note, I don't really understand why it wouldn't. I mean if this is determined to be endemic, which they are talking about that more and more as the case, and we get rid of Thailand Pass and it is endemic and the Emergency Decrees gone, then yeah we are status quo ante COVID; we are back to before all this happened back in March 2020. Frankly that is where we probably ought to be because we have gotten through this. Quoting further and this is more to the point on this particular video: "Obviously," (and that is where I got the quote from) "they will have to produce at Thai Immigration, their Vaccination Certification which according to the Ministry of Health will be two jabs plus at least one Booster. At present full vaccination eligibility requires only the first two injections." Well that's what I thought the definition of it was, so, you know! Leaving that aside, yeah why "obviously"? The reason I ask that question is because we have done another video on this. We made a video I don't know a couple weeks back or 10 days ago, 7 days ago roughly, regarding unvaccinated travellers and we were taking information from the tatnews.org website, TAT being the Tourism Authority of Thailand. I will go ahead and put this back up on screen.

Planning a trip to Thailand during COVID-19: Important things Travellers need to know. Then under "unvaccinated" so this is:

Unvaccinated/ not fully vaccinated travellers must have the following documents for entering Thailand: 

• A valid passport, and a Thailand Pass or a Border Pass for arrivals via border checkpoints. 
• Insurance policy with coverage no less than US$10,000. And foreign expatriates under Thailand's National Health care coverage are exempt from this requirement. (We have discussed that in other videos) and finally, 
• A proof of prepayment for 5-night quarantine at government approved hotel/s such as SHA Extra Plus (SHA ++) hotel or AQ Accommodation/s plus proof of prepayment for one RT-PCR COVID-19 test. Thais are not required to prepay for the test. 

As we discussed in the prior video, quoting again this is from tatnews.org: "The quarantine is exempt for unvaccinated, not fully vaccinated travellers who are able to upload proof of a negative RT-PCR test within 72 hours of travel via the Thailand Pass System. The exemption also extends to travellers under 6 years of age travelling with parents." So when it stated that "obviously they will have to produce at Thai Immigration their Vaccination Certification", that is not obvious at all. In fact, the present instructions, the present guidelines, the present rules if you will are clear on that as tatnews.org points out as we have thrown up here on screen. So, as we have discussed this before, I think this is generally a good thing overall because the more tourists the merrier. Also as we have moved into the phase of this thing where we are basically it looks to me like we are coming to the end of it; it is endemic, it just is what it is, we are all going to have to live with this. I think CDC in the United States came out the other day and said exactly that. It is time to move on and if people choose to be vaccinated that's their decision; if people choose not to that is theirs. Okay, there is an extra testing requirement presently, so long as this thing is still considered pandemic but hopefully once it's considered endemic and all of this is put behind us we will just move back to the way it was. I don't know why it seems, I am not pointing anyone out; Pattaya Mail, Bangkok Post seems to be like this, or at least when I read things but just media in general around the world it seems like there is this conscious effort to kind of continue to hold on to these really difficult and onerous requirements associated with basic travel rights. Okay, yeah in an international context yes we have discussed this. Sovereign Nations can make certain rules and that, nobody is disputing that but at this point is it reasonable to do this anymore? We are two years and 2 months out from this. There is no real mystery anymore about the nature of this thing. We discussed in another video recently, I think it would be earlier today from the time this video goes out, the fact that they have changed the criteria in which they are counting deaths and things, I mean at this point I think it is really time to start having the paradigm of “this is moving behind us”, not of trying to make this part of our overall routine. No, no more. Need to get back on track. Thailand needs to get tourism back and I think and let me be clear on this, I think Thailand is doing a great job. They have balanced things as well as they possibly could I think under the circumstances. Would I have done some things differently? Sure and I am on record where I have said so. That being said, overall I think things have moved along fine and it is time to just honestly to put this behind us.