Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so called vaccine passports and "travel bubbles" in Thailand. For those who are unaware, "travel bubbles" have been talked about for like a year. They are basically a bilateral corridor between countries wherein there would be decreased travel restrictions, quarantine restrictions associated with nationals and folks coming from different countries into Thailand, dealt with on a bilateral basis. This was discussed up until basically the end of the third quarter of 2020 and then it seemed to be, I think at one point they said it was put on ice or I heard something to that effect and we didn't really hear about it for a few months. It has kind of bobbed to the surface, no pun intended, for the last few months. They have kind of talked about it and then it goes away but I think I am seeing a trend where the situation is evolving and maybe the term travel bubble is not quite the right term but it now seems to be “vaccine passports” are going to do what travel bubbles were designed to do.

In a recent article we found on Thai Visa, that is thaivisa.com, the article was written by Paphamon Arayasukawat, again thaivisa.com but they are quoting National News Bureau of Thailand, but we found it via thaivisa.com so we are going to credit them with that. Again originally written by National News Bureau of Thailand. The article is titled: Thailand Plans to Sign Vaccine Passport Deals Next Month. Quoting directly: "Thailand is expected to begin signing passport deals with low incidence countries which had begun vaccinating their people against COVID-19." Quoting further: "Thailand was planning to enter bilateral agreements on vaccine passports with other countries and the vaccine passport scheme will take shape within 3 months." 

So the reason for this video and what I thought was quite interesting is this notion of bilateral agreements. Well that was the underpinning of travel bubbles. It was all going to be done on a bilateral basis and here we are, again travel bubbles never really went anywhere, but now they are talking about it in the context of vaccine passports. So the purpose of this video, the title of the video: Are Vaccine Passports Becoming Travel Bubbles? Well they are merging conceptually and so this is what we are probably looking at. Some sort of bilateral arrangement with respect to different countries regarding those who have received vaccinations prior to travel to Thailand.

That said, a lot of this remains speculation. We are still unclear of the exact nuts and bolts of how this is going to play out. We will keep you updated on this channel as the situation progresses.