ThLT

You'll need to leave the country, like others have said. I visa-exemption stamp would be an option (depending on which country you are from). Still have to leave the country, but no need for hotel, etc. Check the COVID requirements to enter the country you will be going to, as well as to re-enter Thailand. @sunfruitdan You'll need to fork the cash to a school (and actually attend most lessons). Will take between 1-3 months just to prepare the documents to present at an embassy out of Thailand (and maybe more, since the MOE might be overburdened already, from everything going on). Might get refused at the embassy, not that likely if you don't have too many visas/stamps in your passport, and all the needed documents, but we never know with COVID (make sure the school you choose has a refund policy though, because you could end up losing the full deposit/amount if they don't offer a refund if refused the visa, which a lot of schools do this).

Extremely effective pandemic measures and levels of compliance (probably difficult to replicable in any other countries other than South Korea and Japan), and lockdown measures. Wasn't a 100% "lock-yourself-in-your-house" lockdown, but definitely not 0%.

If you exclude San Marino and Andorra (not representative, due to being tiny populations of 34,000 and 77,000), UK and Sweden are both in the top 5 countries with the most deaths per 1M citizens—2/5.

The UK did a lockdown wayyy too late for it to have any desired positive effect (past the point where a lockdown actually works). They were initially aiming for herd immunity, then changed their mind. They're one of the countries with the highest deaths in the world, at 585 deaths/1M (and so is Sweden, at 450 deaths/1M). If anything, the two countries indicate the dangers of zero lockdown measures.

So lockdowns and pandemic measures work, when implemented correctly? That's exactly the comparison we have to make—countries that did these correctly (such as South Korea) and countries that didn't (such as the US and the UK).

For sure. But the dead can't present their case. Lockdown was also implemented way too late, since UK was initially aiming for herd immunity. We'll never know for sure, but maybe there would have been 10,000, instead of 40,000 deaths (585/1M) if their lockdown would have been implemented correctly. South Korea has 273 deaths total—5 deaths/1M citizens in comparison...

It's clear for many countries, the lockdowns were poorly conducted (especially implemented too late). I also fully agree that the negative effects must be taken into consideration, making a lockdown devastating up to a certain point. Still, it's far from the truth that "It's proven.... lockdown does not work!" (like this thread was titled). A lockdown, well implemented (as early as possible) and for not too long of a duration is different from say a lockdown implemented months after (like the disastrous results of the US or the UK at the moment).

It was botched (no country was correctly prepared for this). Some countries were far too lax about it, other countries too excessive (the US/Trump did both). Still, zero lockdown would have been completely stupid (which is what the author of the paper is partly suggesting).

Credentials don't make something to be true. Speculating that a worldwide event would have turned out the same in 12 months is just pure non-sense, even more so for a scientist.

There were lockdowns. You can't predict what would have happened if there hadn't been any lockdowns. You're just making stuff up. So you're an expert epidemiologist, and you can predict the outcome of events that never happened? ...is what I'm saying.

Without a lockdown, health systems would probably have been overburdened (some countries were overburdened even with a lockdown), which would have resulted in a higher number of deaths. The US and the UK are good examples of this (and they both eventually did do a lockdown, with the UK initially aiming for herd immunity and the US because Trump, now with 109,000 deaths). Also, health procedures, the manufacturing of equipment (such as ventilators), medications (and after some time a vaccine), can be put into effect, which reduces the number of deaths. And just stating that the deaths would be the same in the end is complete speculation on the part of the author. Not even a group of the world's best experts could predict that. If anything, it just proves how incompetent the author is as a scientist.

Yeah, for sure. I'm not for an indefinite lockdown. I'm simply refuting 100% anti-lockdowners/lockdown-deniers. Once you do lift the lockdown, you still need to lift it gradually, since with a second wave, the number of deaths will increase (even if the health systems aren't overloaded).

Well, if there are lockdowns, this helps to not have health systems be overburdened. Had there been no lockdowns at all, many countries would probably have had overburdened hospitals/systems. You can't ask me to prove something based on something that didn't happen.

I said no islands (isolated and basically a lockdown) or countries with a poor health system, and you name two islands and a country with a poor health system.

This is false. Any epidemiologist, doctor or nurse can tell you an overburdened health system results in more deaths. No one is suggesting lockdowns to stop the virus (which makes no sense), it's to slow the virus, which the author of the study verbatim says that lockdowns work for this.