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Could "Test and Go" Come Back?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the "Test and Go" scheme here in Thailand as we discussed back in December and here now in early January of 2022. "Test and Go" which was quite a popular method of getting into Thailand with just a one-night quarantine is currently suspended. A question that has been coming up from a lot of people: "Do I think it is going to come back?"

Going ahead and quoting from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Sandbox grows as "Test and Go" Halted Indefinitely. Quoting directly: "The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) has halted applications for the "Test and Go" entry program for air travelers." Quoting further: "CCSA spokesman Dr. Taweesilp Visanuyothin said the suspension had been proposed by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports after a number of travelers under the scheme tested positive recently." To which I would say "Well didn't it work?" If they tested positive in the program then it did its job, it was working. Quoting further: "The "Test and Go" entry program is a loophole where the Omicron variant can evade screening so we decided to further suspend the scheme." I am going to make another video on that in more detail but going ahead with this video. For now, it does not lend, this is really unfortunate, I think this is a bad move. I think this is a bad direction to head in as I have discussed in other videos most notably because I don't think the "threat" warrants these levels of response. Based more and more on what we are seeing from the data and a bunch of different professionals worldwide and in Thailand; I have done a video from Doctor Manoon who talked about this, who by the way unlike the doctor quoted here who is a psychiatrist, Dr. Manoon is a pulmonary specialist, respiratory specialist which would seem to be more pertinent for matters involving a respiratory disease than a psychiatrist, but what do I know? 

The long story short, where they have said look this thing is probably going to spread quite rapidly but it is far, far, far less deadly which would seem to indicate a positive turn of events and something we want to see. Everybody gets it; develops immunity; we move on with our lives and we don't see the numbers associated with this. Not getting into that too deeply any further, long story short for purposes of this video it looks like "Test and Go" is not going to be back any time in the relatively near future. That said as we have seen over the past 21 months, these folks, the folks that are tasked with this you know they are nothing if not in love with new names for programs that are largely the same thing from the past so maybe we will see some new thing, "Test and Run" or something in a month and a half, I don't know.

For now, yeah unfortunately it is not possible to enter Thailand the way that it was possible to do prior to 21st of December. As we noted in other videos they still sort of grandfathered in those who had gotten their Thailand Pass under the "Test and Go" scheme and we are still seeing for lack of a better term, a few stragglers coming in who were locked in under that protocol. Moving forward, it does not appear at least for the forthcoming few weeks that we are going to see this kind of protocol, this kind of "Test and Go" protocol being undertaken.