Transcript of the above video:

As we are kind of following the thread of the imminent possibly or at least the hopeful reopening at some point, there seems to be light emanating from the end of what appears to be a tunnel in this constant close down. First off, good news. February 1, "Test and Go" is coming back, at least it appears so as of the time of this video. So hopefully, that is going to pry the doors ajar pretty heavily with respect to seeing a certain level of normality return to the tourist situation here in Thailand. 

The reason for this video, I was reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post bangkokpost.com, the article was titled: Hoping for a return to normalcy. Quoting further, and this is the byline: "While the WHO urges caution, the Public Health sector is eager to turn the page" (and this I thought was strange) but politics is clouding the outlook. Then quoting from the inside of the article: "The Government then announced to plan to loosen all curbs and declare an ambitious goal to make COVID-19 endemic based on its own academically acceptable criteria by the end of this year." (Laudable, I couldn't agree more.) Quoting further: "The World Health Organization stated it is too early to play down the COVID-19 threat by tagging it as endemic this year but the Department of Disease Control insisted different countries have varying road maps." Yeah okay, cool great!  Quoting further: "The Department said Thailand is ahead of WHO guidelines and other countries in certain respects", and then this is kind of where I thought it got kind of strange, "Playing in the background of the endemic debate is yet another political brouhaha following the expulsion of 21 MPs from the ruling camp -- the Palang Pracharat Party". I am always sorry, weirdly Thai when I see it, I kind of see it and I can pronounce it. English obviously when I see that I can pronounce it. When I am reading transliterated Thai I always seem to stumble so my apologies there. It just seemed kind of almost a weird sort of juxtaposition or I don't really know how these two fit together. 

When I was reading this article my immediate response was "what does that have to do with anything?" I mean and I am not getting political here, I don't want to go into any kind of politics, that is not the bailiwick of this channel. What we have been talking about is the possible and hopefully sooner rather than later, full reopening of Thailand and then to read this article and then they are saying "well but politics may play a role". Well why? Why is that even involved in this? I thought this was a Public Health issue! Let's deal with it for what it is and move on with it because I don't see how the two even have anything to do with one another, would be how I look at it. 

Now exactly what this means I don't know but I do think it is really good news and I do think hopefully we are seeing some momentum building behind this notion of okay we are going to call this in my opinion what it is, an endemic disease, and move on with our lives and stop dealing with things in frankly these Draconian and in many ways in my opinion, hysterical ways. Now exactly how this plays out remains to be seen. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel as a situation evolves.