It was the best of times and the worst of times; we had everything before us and nothing before us. In Bangkok sat a well-intentioned dictator who, having worn out his welcome with an anemic economy and an engineered electoral win, faced an emerging student-led protest movement. In Washington sat an incompetent, ill-intentioned, puffed up orange buffoon riding a superficially booming economy towards likely re-election.
Then the virus hit.
The first case of Covid detected outside China was in Thailand; at the airport, in January, as Thailand started screening everyone coming in from China. We took it seriously, and the protests eased off as staying alive took precedence. In the US, “It’ll go away. Like a miracle,” the Buffoon said. And People hit the streets protesting life-saving measures, protesting life itself, it would seem.
Months later, the US passed the 270,000 deaths mark on the same day that Thailand suffered the 4000th case, while holding steady at 60 deaths. Taking into account that Thailand has only 70 million people, the per capita difference… oh, never mind. We went 100 days, through early September, without a known community transmission and have now passed the 4200 case mark (still 60 deaths) while the US just broached 300,000 deaths. Defeated by the virus, Puffed-up Buffoon has been defeated in elections, and America nourishes hopes of a competent, compassionate, well-intentioned President; Well-intentioned Dictator is facing a resurgence of (masked) protests that may lead to actual democracy on this side of the pond.
The head of the WHO has pointed to Thailand as an example for the world in fighting this and future pandemics (www.marketwatch.com/... ). A developing country lacking in first-world level resources, Thailand thrives on huge influxes of tourists, particularly from China, and tens of millions of people are packed tightly into a few large cities rubbing shoulders and sharing polluted air with each other and with those tourists. How did we do it? Tedros noted our robust national healthcare system (hint, hint, USA), millions of community healthcare volunteers, the cooperation of the populace and the government’s willingness to evaluate and reevaluate its responses. Allow me to offer a bit more detail.
Identifying that first case is a clue: again, we took it seriously when it was only a threat. When the surge finally hit full force in March, the mayor of Bangkok ordered the city on lockdown. The Dictator harrumphed that the mayor had no such authority, but within a couple of days was convinced and declared a state of emergency putting the whole country on lockdown. Everything non-essential was shut down and inter-provincial travel prohibited. Masking, distancing, washing, already increasingly practiced, were mandated and quickly became universal. Masks available everywhere, bottles of hand sanitizer on every flat surface, young people jumping out of the woodwork to take your temp.
The borders were sealed. Thai nationals were allowed to come home, but only in numbers that could be accommodated in supervised quarantine. That’s right, supervised quarantine, in what I understand were rather cushy quarters.
Even before the lockdown, the health department scrambled to test and trace with limited resources, identifying likely super-spreading events and venues (a major early one was a boxing arena), testing likely contacts as well as those with symptoms and alerting the public to risk. I was in Bangkok for the Dems Abroad primary before the lockdown, and there were already warnings such as: anyone who rode a certain bus at a certain time may have been exposed. Holidays were cancelled.
Songkran! The Thai New Year, sort of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. It’s an internationally famous, week-long party involving throwing buckets of water on each other (it’s in the midst of the Hot, Hot, Hot Season) when people return to their familial homes to party, dance in the streets and to honor and seek the blessings of their elders. Cancelled! They even banned alcohol sales for the duration. Bummer really. The hot season, when it’s too hot and dry to farm or do much of anything, is the season of festivals, music, dancing and drinking. At my age, every lost party is seriously lost opportunity.
But we’re alive & healthy. We all wore our masks and distanced and washed, didn’t complain much and wondered at the news of an apparent American death wish.
Masking, washing and distancing were promoted as patriotic acts. Celebrities helped get out the word and music videos over Facebook promoted safe behavior. Here’s one promoting the lockdown and praising healthcare workers (jump forward to 0:19):
The sign the nurse (fashion model?) is holding reads, “We’re here for you; Please stay at home for us.”
And here’s a pop-piece promoting safe practices.
And one in my style of county, romantizing the loneliness of having to stay at home even when you’re not sick.
She’s grieving that she can’t go home and hug her mom and dad, and her lover— in the opening she’s asking him to take care of the parents. The song leaves the feel, not of protest or of “bear with it,” but of commiseration; it’s okay, even honorable to grieve.
The point is that it hasn’t been a matter of guilting people into compliance or making harsh, serious demands of duty or morality, but of making healthy behavior attractive, fashionable, romantic something we do together even when alone: participation in helping each other and the country.
I also want to say that compliance is not, as some might suppose, a matter of “oriental” submissiveness: Thailand is a country where mass movements routinely force governments out of power, even in the face of bullets. The protests I mentioned are a genuine threat to the dictator’s authority. It’s rather a matter of priorities: survival over immediately throwing the bums out (at least our bums were trying to save lives rather than whatever it is that Trump fellow has been doing).
Meanwhile, Buddhist monks nationwide chant protective incantations. Now, of course, the virus doesn’t fear incantations, but the chanting keeps us aware and cautious.
The curve flattened quickly and by May the only new cases were Thais returning from abroad detected in quarantine and transferred to treatment. The health system was never overwhelmed. Restrictions were eased through June and July, though the state of emergency was extended, and we can now travel freely throughout the country. Domestic tourism is promoted and they started letting in more returnees and a few tourists under very restrictive conditions. Since early September there have been a few cases, I’m guessing at most 100, of local transmission. Still, though we’ve gotten more relaxed about it, we wear masks and distance and wash and that may save us from a major resurgence of the sort Vietnam suffered when they let down their guard (www.dailykos.com/...). Meanwhile, the health department frantically works to track down possible new cases. (e.g. www.usnews.com/...)
All this has been economically disastrous, of course, given that 15 or 20% of the Thai economy is tied to international tourism. The impact is mitigated somewhat by the fact that a large portion of the population is still involved in agriculture and those out of work could return to homes where there is food and shelter. But the poor whose only homes are in the cities suffered badly, even with a stipend payments from the government.
In any cae, they can’t keep the borders sealed forever, and we’ll need to be guarded as they open up.
Another downside is that the state of emergency has been used to suppress political dissent. At first, the students gamely cooperated with bans on large gatherings, but as the virus went into retreat and political repression continued, their frustration broke out into massive flash-rallies facing off tear-gas-laced water cannon with giant rubber duckies. But that’s a story for another day!
To close with the Tale of Two Covids theme: There is no greater love than this: to wear a mask for a friend.
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Personal note: We just got word that my son, daughter in law and grandson in Des Moines all have Covid, due to a coworker who insisted he only had seasonal allergies and refused to mask up. It looks to be fairly minor so far, but dammit! That’s the motivation for finally publishing this piece. Be safe y’all. Don’t let down your guard!