Transcript of the above video:

The title of this video if you can't tell, is a little bit satirical, I guess you could say; maybe you could even say sarcastic. My purpose isn't sarcasm, it is honestly a genuine question. The reason I pose the question because a recent article from ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com, the article is titled: No "Omicron" found in hundreds of Africans traced by Thai Immigration. Now bear in mind this from December 6th, we are making this video on the 13th so it is a little bit dated but I still think it is worthy of note for the rest of this video. Unlike most the time, I am going to quote most of this article. Again it is ASEAN NOW, aseannow.com. I urge folks to go over and check that out, read it for yourself. Quoting directly: "A pro-active search by Thai Immigration for African people who might have had the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has come up empty. Deputy Commander of the Immigration Bureau Police Major General Achayan Kraithong told Thai PBS yesterday that 150 out of 248 Africans from 8 countries on the now restricted list have been traced and tested negative." I will get to that in a minute. Quoting further: "A further approximately 100 are being sought. These people were in Thailand for family and tourism purposes. A further 500 who came from the continent from low risk countries have also tested negative. Achayan assured the Thai public that all travelers coming into Thailand are being carefully screened." I have seen other stuff. Apparently the first confirmed Omicron case, or "Omnicron" if you listen to the American President; apparently he has called it Omnicron quite a bit, but the first Omicron variant that was confirmed in Thailand came from an American who apparently came out of Spain, at least that is what was reported. I have read other articles I am not going to delve into them all here but they have been tracing people around; going to people's houses; making them take tests and these kinds of things. I really have to say "why?" We have now seen this thing is not overly deadly. As you have seen in my prior videos I really question the need for these really overarching protocols and this is not me sticking it directly to Thailand either. Other countries in my opinion are doing far worse. I would put Thailand somewhere in the middle of the spectrum when you compare stuff going on here to stuff going on in other places. So all things considered, Thailand is taking a more middle of the road approach. That said, when the road is terrible, it doesn't matter how close to the middle you are, it is probably a good idea to just get off the road. 

The point I am trying to make with this video is one, if every time we have some variant that without any real data to show that it's a super threat to anyone, Authorities are going to run out and just bother a bunch of tourists, shouldn't we really be rethinking that just as a policy especially as a country that wants to welcome tourists. On top of that, and I know nobody really likes talking about this, but I really have to question the exigent need if you will for any of this. We have become in the past roughly two years, getting on to two years now, but at least 20 months, we have become kind of a nerd to the notion that all of this is just business as usual, the "New Normal". Well I will be the first to say I don't really like the "New normal". I don't like the notion that if I get off a plane in Thailand and I am just wandering around because I bumped into somebody at an airport; I was on the same plane with somebody, now just de facto I can just be rounded up and tested and poked around on just by dint of the fact that I was in a certain location or was on a certain conveyance. I have real issues with that and I think anybody that does any analysis of the overall situation I think they are going to have issues with that as well. On top of that, again we have crunched the numbers on this channel multiple times, for something that kills a percentage of a percentage of the people that get it, I really question the need for this level of Draconian response. Now again, I mean Thailand has not been the worst culprit for this by a long shot frankly in my opinion but anywhere. I think we need to start really asking the question: "Is this really what we want to be doing? and "Is this what we want to be doing to people that want to come to Thailand for tourism purposes?" Again just one of my opinion pieces, one of my rants if you will. I don't really blame anybody in the Government apparatus. These policies are in place, but isn't it time to really start rethinking the policies?