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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Visas processed through Thai Embassies and Consulates abroad.

For those who are keeping abreast of the news here in Thailand, it has not been good with respect to business closures and various measures being imposed throughout both Bangkok directly and different provinces of Thailand in response to what is being perceived to be an outbreak of COVID-19.

I am not going to get into the details and all that, there is plenty of news out there. I have gotten a lot of correspondence from folks asking me what I think will happen with respect to Thai Visas processed through Thai Embassies and Consulates abroad. Well let's state first of all, changes remain to be seen. As of now, things are what they were at the end of 2020. We are still seeing a large number of visa applications able to be processed as well as Certificates of Entry associated therewith. Moreover tourism remains a major concern. A number of Government Agencies are trying, including Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to stoke as much tourism as they can under these really unfortunate circumstances. So basically, the state of play is, as of now there is effectively no change. That said, we have not yet gotten into the first work week of 2021 so it remains to be seen if this will change in the future. 

Now if you are looking for any insight with respect to what I think may happen, I am always hesitant to speculate on this stuff because then people get really mad at me down the line. "Oh you were wrong about this." Well you know, yes I can be wrong. I am trying to predict something. I am not going to be right all the time. But if I was guessing I would say probably not. The state of the Immigration system as it is at the moment is pretty stringent. Folks coming in are heavily screened for COVID and they are put through quite a bit of rigmarole with respect to being able to get into the Kingdom. For this reason, I think at least the perception I think will likely be in government circles that there are enough checks and balances here to make certain that folks don't enter and bring in any further instances of the virus. Now that stated, again it all remains to be seen but I think for now things will probably stay as they were with respect to Visa processing coming into Thailand. 

What may shift the balance or what may change things in a factual way is whether or not the circumstances in a given host country radically change and it results in perhaps that Embassy having to close or substantially reduce the number of cases that they can process. So again it is going to be country specific. Countries like the UK and the US where it appears that there are issues associated with further outbreaks, numbers going up, we might see issues with processing. Other countries that have not seen these same issues in recent weeks, I could see situations where they continue to process as normal. That stated we will keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.