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I have done a number of videos on this channel talking about this topic or maybe I should say maybe talking around it. There was a recent article in the Bangkok Post I thought really drove home a lot of the way I think or my thinking on this and how we all need to maybe have a paradigm shift about our current response to dealing with this pandemic situation. 

A recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Time to Accept we can't Beat COVID-19. This is from an author, a writer I really do like to read. Primarily he seems to write a lot on economics and I find his opinions very insightful, Chartchai Parasuk, again: Time to Accept we can't Beat COVID-19, bangkokpost.com, quoting directly: "If the Government does not wish to see a collapse of society, it must rethink its COVID-19 strategy. First it must admit that the COVID-19 outbreak is not controllable after the outbreak has changed from the cluster level (individual based), to the community level (activity based)." Quoting further: "But when the virus spread into communities where no patient zero can be identified and isolated, shutting down communities (businesses) like construction sites, markets and restaurants has profound effects on the economy because communities will lose substantial economic value. There is an estimate showing that prohibiting in-restaurant dining is costing the economy 1 billion baht per day." Quoting further: "One local example is Malaysia which has imposed four rounds of national lockdown known locally as MCO, Movement Control Order. So far they have not been able to curb the spread of the disease. Each time an MCO order is eased, a new round of outbreak occurs. It is estimated that each day of lockdown costs the Malaysian economy 1 billion ringgit about 7.7 billion Baht. Because of the current lockdown the World Bank lowered Malaysia's economic growth forecast for this year from 6 to 4.5%." Quoting further: "Even with such economic sacrifices, the outbreak is not easing enough and a two week curfew which started on July 3rd was imposed in the richest state of Selangor and the capital Kuala Lumpur. Could you imagine the impacts of the curfew on the already difficult economy? Many Malaysians are now begging for help by hanging white flags in front of their houses."   

I really can't agree more with his analysis in here. I urge those who are watching this video to go check that out as it is very insightful. There is way more in there. Yeah to just sum it up and I have been discussing this too, we did we have done a couple of videos quoting Ministers down in Singapore who were talking about look we are going to have to start treating this like an endemic disease rather than a pandemic disease. I have used the term multiple times, 'the horse has bolted.’ The horse has left the barn. We are trying to close the barn door after the horse has gone. Unfortunately, the community spread phase of this appears to have long been underway and it looks to me like we are still trying to approach this as if that hasn't occurred yet. We are trying to forestall that. As I talked about in another video, containment for example may be not the best way to do things. The best Paradigm to have, this notion of containment as opposed to saying look we have got to deal with this, let's figure out how to deal with it, and also we have got to have an economy. 

I mean the thing that really scares me in this latest, whatever you want to call it lock down non-lockdown, more stringent measures, restrictions whatever euphemism you want to use for it, the thing that really scares me and the thing that makes me really sad for Thailand for Bangkok and for everybody involved is it is devastating economically. I mean I did a video a couple months back where I said we could see the economy decimated. I don't think we are going to be too far off from that coming off of this going into August and let's say the greatest thing happens and COVID vanishes, where are we going to be if COVID vanishes and we are standing here on August 1, no more COVID but what would we be at? 16 months at that point of really harsh lockdowns. I just can't imagine the recovery is going to be anything but difficult and the more that we do this stuff, the more difficult that presumptive recovery is going to be. 

The point of this video and the reason for making it is hopefully as with this being in the Bangkok Post, maybe some sort of paradigm shift is forthcoming and we can start to look at this in a different way and hopefully in a way where we can incorporate concerns for the economy as well as concerns for public health.