No matter where you stand on the covid debate about if people should stay home or if economies should be opened back up, I would be willing to bet that you have some level of sympathy towards the despair that brings someone to the level where they would kill themselves and this is what we are seeing in Thailand at an increasing level.
You don't have to be in this country for very long to realize that there is a stark division between the haves and have-nots in Thailand. For every Mercedes you see driving down the road there are several thousand people who can barely make enough money to pay rent and get food.
Unlike wealthy nations in the west, of which I am one of, the government here simply doesn't have the resources to just give everyone a handout and whenever "free money" starts to get introduced there are always going to be heartless goons that pilfer the fund for their own ends and people who take the money that don't actually need it.
The handout was meant to be for Thailand's poorest people and it was a mere 5,000 Baht for the month (around $170) per family. This earmarked fund was gone in a flash and didn't even come close to helping as many people as it was meant to.
Temples that were giving away donated food for the poor in Bangkok were shut down because they were violating social distancing and when that happens you have to ask... do the elites in this country even care that the poor are suffering?
Does the Royal Family, who as far as I can see had donated some equipment and provisions but not a meaningful amount when you consider their $60 billion net worth, care about the people of Thailand at all? The King stays out of Thailand during this and briefly returned only for a lavish ceremony in his honor and upon its conclusion he quickly fucked back off to Germany.
Now we have extremely tragic stories of people killing themselves because of the economic shutdown. I don't want to speculate on the specific reasoning behind this, but the uptick is a bit alarming. In one particularly tragic story a man jumped off a bridge only to be followed shortly thereafter by his crying 5-year old daughter.
I'm not trying to say that I have a solution and I am not going to be one of those folks that says we have to open the country up and get the economy going again! I'm also not one of those people that thinks we should keep everyone at home forever until there is either a magic cure or the virus magically goes away (it wont.)
But when the number of suicides directly related to Covid-19 is around the same number of people that have died from the actual virus (which is the case now in Thailand) perhaps you should look at what is being done and realize that it might not be the correct path.
I've been surprised that the people have tolerated this shutdown for as long as they have. You may recall that the national sport of Thailand is having coups. It wouldn't surprise me if we see an uprising very soon.
It's so sad 😢 that this is happening
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