Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the US State Department warning travelers off of Thailand. The reason I kind of say that with a little bit of sarcasm in my voice is I have seen a lot of rather sensational headlines from other media outlets here in Thailand that are making it sound like the Americans are saying "don't go to Thailand." Well that is not really how I read this.

The US State Department makes a lot of travel advisories and there are those that I view very seriously. Back last year, I think it was April or May, there was one that said "if you are staying in Thailand, plan to be there for the relatively foreseeable future". Well they don't say that very often. They viewed this pandemic at that time as pretty serious and I was glad that they did, but you have to have a little bit of an eye toward how to read these things; you can't just get completely overwrought. Like I said, a lot of the media here in Thailand has run with this as if it is the US is saying "don't travel to Thailand"; that is not really what they are saying. Quoting directly from travel.state.govcontent/travel/eninternationaltravel/international travel country information pages/Thailand. The title is: Thailand International Travel Information again travel.state.gov. Quoting directly: "Reconsider travel to Thailand due to COVID-19." and then quoting directly: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a level three Travel Health notice for Thailand due to COVID-19 indicating a high level of COVID-19 in the country." (I will get to that because high level I find kind of interesting but okay) "Your risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing severe symptoms may be lower if you are fully vaccinated with an FDA authorized vaccine. Before planning any international travel please review the CDC specific recommendations for vaccinated and unvaccinated travelers." So first things first, I just view this as them stating what they believe to be as obvious. There is a COVID situation, it is best to travel vaccinated. That is State Department's opinion on the matter.

Now I do find it a little interesting where they say "indicating a high level of COVID-19 in the country." I went over to Johns Hopkins University, that is coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality, and I went ahead and pulled up the numbers. So first of all deaths - per 100,000 in Thailand, 2.38 as opposed to the United States, 183.43. So high levels, okay. Infections - 221,306 United States 33,554,275 infections. Deaths in Thailand 1,658: deaths in America, 602, 092. Then rate of death amongst the infected is 0.7% in Thailand and 1.8% in the United States. Again and to me this is the number to really look at is deaths per 100,000. In Thailand it is 2.38, and in the United States it is 183.43. So when this thing says "indicating a high level of COVID-19 in the country", high compared to what? I mean we would love to have these numbers in the US so I find that a little bit odd. 

The long story short is no, I don't think the United States is telling people not to travel to Thailand. They are just providing a warning. In a sense, that is what they do. I am sure they probably issued a lot of these notices for a lot of other countries simultaneously with this one. The only part of it I find a little bit odd is to say again just quoting directly: "high level of COVID-19 in the country." Well high compared to what? Again when you are looking at the data from Johns Hopkins University, I think reasonable people can disagree with the phraseology "high level" but I will leave that for somebody else to have that debate. 

Long story short, I don't think there is any reason to for folks to get really bent out of shape about this. They make these kind of announcements rather frequently. Again it is not something to completely disregard but just take it, put it in your quiver of data that you are going to use to analyze travel in general to Thailand and just use it accordingly with all the other data available out there.