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As the title of this video suggests, I am asking the question "When is enough enough?" The reason for the question comes from a recent article from the Pattaya News, that is thepattayanews.com, the article is titled: Chonburi Governor releases late night updated orders around COVID-19 and food and beverage establishments and getting to the heart of it and the thing that just threw me for a loop. Quoting directly: "2. All customers, regardless of the size of the venue in regardless of the customer's vaccination or recovery status, must take a COVID-19 antigen test within 72 hours of the current time period to dine in. The venue can arrange for on-site testing or accept qualified test results." Quoting further: "If a venue is unwilling or unable to meet the first two points they must shut immediately until/if restrictions are eased. There is NO, (and there is emphasis in the original on this) there is NO expiration date, the order is until further notice." Again, that is from the Pattaya News, that is thepattayanews.com. I don't have the words to express my disdain for where this has gone. I don't even understand why this is occurring and to cite why I don't even understand why this is occurring, quoting from another article from ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com, the article is titled: Chonburi Launches Proactive COVID-19 Case Finding Operations. This is just a small excerpt from a larger article, I urge those who are interested, go look at this article in detail. Quoting directly: "Officials insist however that the situation remains under control and there have so far been no severe cases caused by the new variant." I mean let me read that again: "Officials insist however that the situation remains under control and there have so far been no severe cases caused by the new variant." 

Well if everything is fine and dandy, why is there being this protocol implemented that is arguably been the most onerous one that I have seen thus far. I mean and for those, I don't know how many people watch this channel that aren't at least in the orbit of Thailand in their lives but for anybody that doesn't really get, and for all those people out there quite frankly who I find rather annoying that well "why are you upset about, it is just this little thing." or "If you don't like it, don't go out to eat!" Well no, I want to go out to eat; I like going out to eat. We have never had this before. This is ridiculous quite frankly. More to the point, think about the establishments and also what I was getting to with respect to folks that may not understand, just how big this is, the magnitude of how big this could be, I am really hoping cooler heads prevail and this just falls by the wayside. I have made it clear that I think the whole notion of "papers please" and you have to present some kind of documentation to just go about basic functions of your life is really just beyond the pale to me. Basic human rights needs to prevail at some point where we say "look, I need to live my life regardless of what is going on out there!" To top it off the data we have seen, I don't want to go that deep into this because quite frankly it is really not the bailiwick of this channel, but the data around this latest Greek letter that we now have and depending on what you read there have been multiple Greek letters and I don't even know what letter were exactly on but let's call it the latest one, the lethality is not anywhere near what we have seen in the past. Yeah, transmissibility is apparently higher but the question I would think everybody needs to ask is if this was the situation, this alone was the situation we were presented with March 20 of 2020, would we have done any of this? I mean this incrementally, this getting worse while apparently the threat seems to be diminishing, that seems illogical to me. More to the point, back to what I was saying, I mean foreign nationals may not understand this but meals in Thailand frequently, not just for tourists I mean for everybody, eating at home it is not unheard of, it is not uncommon, but it is very frequent, I would say there are many people in Thailand who eat all of their meals outside of their homes, or a vast majority of their meals outside of their home. So this is not some "oh, well if you don't like it, just don't go out to eat for a while!" No, this is going to have tremendous ramifications on the lives of day to day people. Then also basic where they say, "the venue can arrange for on-site testing", what is this? I mean, these aren't hospitals, these are small restaurants, small eateries; "or accept qualified test results", again "papers please" and why? Over something that is not as bad as it was before when we didn't have these types of restrictions, these types of protocols. That doesn't make any logical sense.

Truly at what point is enough, enough? Thailand has hurt economically, in many ways socially I think, and it is hurting with respect to its tourism industry. Folks have tried, myself included, many people, I have watched, tried to do what is right and tried to do what is best for all concerned but at a certain point there gets to be a point where things just become unreasonable and I think we are getting to that point if we haven't gotten there already. So seriously I pose the question again: "at what point is enough, enough?"