Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing vaccination in the context of Thai Visa Extension. Now we have talked about this before going back some months now and we are kind of revisiting it because there has been some news on this front and I am going to go ahead and get to that immediately here. 

So I recently came across a posting by Richard Barrow, sorry just pull this out here, by Richard Barrow on his Facebook page, Richard Barrow in Thailand. Somebody sent this to us and tip of the hat to Mr. Barrow. He is definitely out there providing good information to folks all the time. Frankly in some cases I wonder how he keeps up with some of these things. He went ahead and posted this, we are going to go ahead and put this up just reading it: "A heads up for people going to Immigration at Chaengwattana. They are now asking for proof of vaccination. The sign says (in Thai) left for unvaccinated and right for fully vaccinated. If you cannot show proof then you need to fill out a form." Yeah we were seeing this last week. My staff brought this up to me and we are going to go ahead and make a video on it. I went ahead and put this up just to provide the photos that Mr. Barrow put up on there. 

Yeah it is clear that there is this requirement associated with disclosing your vaccination status which I have got some personal issues with and for those who know me on this channel, I will probably go ahead and make videos at some point discussing that a little bit but that is not really the purpose of this video. The purpose of this video is to provide information on Immigration Policy. Note, okay, to be clear they are not asking for proof of vaccination with respect to Visa issuance or as part of the package for a Visa Extension. That is not happening right now. This is simply some protocol being undertaken in order to gain access to the building; gain access to Immigration. I will go through a little bit of analysis on possible long-term ramifications there. 

Meanwhile I have actually gotten a lot of correspondence with a lot of links to these things and I have gone and looked at them and I see why it causes people some consternation. They are worried. Do they need to worry about this being a requirement if they don't have it or they are in the middle of getting their protocol done? Where does that put them? It is causing people a lot of alarm and I am hoping this video will assuage some of that alarm. 

This actually came, again another viewer sent me this. This was a link. This came from Twitter. I will go ahead and put this up too and it is @Arthuristheboy and the byline is: A Ball of Confusion. This post, again I will go ahead and put it up says: "Koh Phangan Immigration is now asking (this morning) for proof of vaccination for 90 day reports and 60 day COVID extensions. If no proof, no 60 day COVID extension...Still unclear what they intend to do if on a valid 1 year extension of stay for retirement, marriage but not vaccinated." 

So from that first tweet, I was kind of concerned. Again we are based up here in Bangkok. A lot of different Immigration Offices in Thailand. As we have discussed many times even in videos talking specifically about local Immigration Offices, they have different protocols and they have different administrative protocols associated with how they run their Offices so different places may do things slightly differently. Long story short, we went a little further down into that and just within this own Twitter thread it provided its own nuance and I thought this was notable. Going further from the original poster, quoting directly: "Apparently different Immigration Offices can set their own rules. I should have mentioned that Koh Phangan Immigration is asking for a COVID test or proof of vaccine. Still either way this will be fun. Imagine getting a positive test but asymptomatic and have to go into temple quarantine." So yeah, that certainly brings up a good point. Again, this policy is either/or. It is vaccination or a negative test. Now I have my issues with that on a personal level. To me there is a lot of legal analysis going into that in and of itself; that is not really the scope of this video.

Long story short, there may be certain disclosures or documentation requirements associated with being able to gain access to Immigration Offices. This is a different thing from documentation associated with actually getting a Visa extended. So at least for the time being, it is not currently a requirement to have vaccination documentation with respect to Visa Extension. That could change in the future, it may not. Long story short, the thing to take away from this video is currently it is not a requirement now although there are some extra steps associated with gaining access to Thai Immigration Offices so we will certainly keep folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.