The Pattaya News to stop daily Covid-19 reports as of May 1

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Editorial: As Test and Go goes away, it’s time for our daily Covid-19 reporting to go as well

By Adam Judd

23 April, 2022

Hello Pattaya news readers and welcome to the weekend.

We are sure many of you are excited about the news that Test and Go is basically gone as of May First, ending the major travel deterrent of a fear of testing positive on arrival and being sent to quarantine even if fully vaccinated and asymptomatic, ending a holiday.

Yes, Thailand Pass remains (for now) and some other restrictions like the nightlife pretending to be restaurants without food continues. There are also still some restrictions on unvaccinated people. Regardless, things have improved dramatically.

Which brings me to my next point.

We have been given lavish praise (thank you) for our coverage of Covid-19 since 2020 and delivering factual, neutral, timely information without hitting the panic button. Part of this has been our daily data drill down of Covid-19 in Thailand and Chonburi. During the height of the pandemic these reports were read and monitored by thousands a day and used as a major source of information.

However, recently, the views on these articles has fallen dramatically and the overall interest from the foreign audience is low. Articles about local events, the upcoming election, crime, community, and more have done much better. Our regular polls conducted about if we should continue to publish the reports went from a majority yes to roughly even as of a month ago and has fallen since.

We stopped publishing the reports on our social media accounts last month and only published them directly to the website and daily newspaper, after reader feedback. However, after yesterday’s announcement of the removal of Test and Go, we feel it is time to take the next step.

Therefore, effective May 1st, 2022, the same day Test and Go ends, we will cease the daily publishing of local and national Covid-19 statistics and reports. We will of course communicate any major Covid-19 developments or breaking news and may occasionally publish an update about the situation, but the daily reporting will cease. Thailand has decided to treat the virus as endemic by July (estimated) and we must do so as well in the media.

We understand not all of our readers may agree with this decision but as stated we will provide occasional updates and keep readers informed of breaking news or developments. We feel it is important to support our local and regional area and as many tourists return to Thailand focus on events and local news.

We sincerely thank all our readers for following our daily Covid-19 coverage since early 2020 and hope you will continue to follow our regular, neutral, fact checked, unbiased, self-written and filmed, non aggregated, local and regional news.

Thank you so much for your support.

Adam Judd, Co owner, TPN media.

https://thepattayanews.com/2022/04/23/e ... o-as-well/