Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the notion that Thailand could "lock out" travelers from Thailand again. I am making this video kind of on the anniversary of, a year ago here in Thailand, we saw really the entire country go in to a really serious lockdown in the sense that basically no one could get in. So going back a year, going back into May 2020; even Thai nationals could not easily get into Thailand, if at all. They instituted some of these rules regarding Certificates of Entry and things and shook up the Immigration regime at least presumably in the short term. Hopefully the short term is shorter rather than longer but they changed the game if you will. They kind of shook things up. 

A question that a couple of people have asked me, and it has always interesting the way that people, it is like their antenna are all on the same frequency. I will get a question and I will get another question very similar and sometimes almost exactly the same regarding certain aspects of Immigration to Thailand, regarding certain policies and things of this nature. The basic question is "Would Thailand ever "lock us out" again?" And we are talking about this broadly; this is everybody, you can even include Thai nationals. The answer to that is "Well if they determine circumstances are similar to May 2020, perhaps.” I think it is pretty unlikely especially now that Thailand has a pretty good handle on how they are going to deal with things if a pandemic ever comes up again, so I am hesitant to believe that they would do the type of lockout if you will that they did back in 2020. They could and by the way the lockout we are talking about is at one point just no one could get in and then sometime midsummer 2020 they came out and said "Well if you have a Work Permit or you are married to a Thai you may be able to get in." They did this in phases. It started off only Work Permit holders and then they did take pity on people that were married to Thais. That didn't happen immediately by the way or had Thai children and then as time went on, they also started making arrangements for retirees. Retirees were kind of the last category that was allowed in broadly before they started allowing tourists to come back to the Kingdom. 

So yeah they could do it again. I think it is unlikely, again because I think they have a pretty good handle on how they would handle something like this in the future not to be redundant there but they I think they have a good idea of how they would deal with this down the road. So I think something frankly as broad as just "locking everybody out" might not happen again, but again in true quarantine fashion that is how you quarantine you don't let anyone in. So maybe perhaps it could happen again although I kind of doubt it at least in the relatively near foreseeable future.