Coronavirus survives on skin for nine hours: Study

The study backs World Health Organisation guidance for regular and thorough hand washing to limit transmission of the virus.

PHOTO: EPA-EFE

PUBLISHED OCT 19, 2020,

TOKYO • The coronavirus remains active on human skin for nine hours, Japanese researchers have found, in a discovery they said showed the need for frequent hand washing to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

By comparison, the pathogen that causes the flu survives on human skin for about 1.8 hours, according to the study published this month in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.

"The nine-hour survival of Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) on human skin may increase the risk of contact transmission in comparison with IAV (influenza A virus), thus accelerating the pandemic," said the study.

The research team tested skin collected from autopsy specimens, about one day after death.

Both the coronavirus and the flu virus are inactivated within 15 seconds by applying ethanol, which is used in hand sanitiser.

"The longer survival of Sars-CoV-2 on the skin increases contact-transmission risk; however, hand hygiene can reduce this risk," said the study, which backs World Health Organisation guidance for regular and thorough hand washing to limit Covid-19's transmission.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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DOCTOR WHO?
Whatever happened to Deborah Birx?

BY BRETT SAMUELS - 10/18/20 

Deborah Birx is nowhere to be found at the White House these days.

Though she retains the title of coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, Birx has not attended any of President Trump's press briefings on the pandemic since he started them anew in late July, nor was she at a recent event to tout the administration's advances in testing.

Instead, Birx has been on the road, visiting 36 states and 27 different colleges and universities since the end of June to meet with state, local and university leaders to advise on best practices for containing the coronavirus and to gather information on what's been working in each place.

Olivia Troye, a former coronavirus task force adviser who worked with Birx and is now a Trump critic, said White House officials grew irritated by Birx's detailed and data-heavy presentations in the early summer that showed emerging hot spots and difficulties getting the virus under control. Some officials rolled their eyes as Birx delivered a message that clashed with the administration's preferred narrative that things were improving, Troye said.

The frustration preceded a push to get Birx out on the road to meet with state and local leaders, multiple officials familiar with the discussions said. She last appeared publicly alongside Trump in an early August Oval Office meeting with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R).

"It’s convenient because they don’t want her at the White House and don’t want her at the podium,” Troye said. “But in many ways it probably ended up being better for her."

Administration officials and those who have met with Birx recently say she remains a vital resource and argue that she may be more comfortable being away from Washington, D.C., where she had to navigate the politics of the White House. She often drew criticism for praising Trump publicly while attempting privately to impress upon others the seriousness of the situation.

But her absence is a sign of how Trump has spurned the same doctors who were the face of the coronavirus response in the early months of the pandemic in favor of advisers who align with his views.

She has joined the likes of Anthony Fauci, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams as fixtures of White House briefings from February to April who have since been relegated to the background, while Scott Atlas, who is not an epidemiologist and has pushed the controversial herd immunity theory, has gained the president's ear.


Unlike Fauci, Birx no longer appears on Sunday morning shows or cable news. Those appearances proved problematic at times for Birx, as she would often be pressed to contradict or call out the president's latest misleading or questionable comments about the pandemic.

“She navigates the political atmosphere much better than a lot of the doctors at times, but it’s exhausting, and I’ve certainly seen it firsthand, and I’ve certainly seen it weigh on her,” said Troye, who left the White House in July.

The White House coronavirus task force provides tailored recommendations to governors and health commissioners, and Birx’s travel has been a key component of understanding their problems and offering guidance, an administration official said.

“Dr. Birx continues to lead the Task Force and travel the country working hand-in-hand with Governors and local health officials to ensure we are defeating this virus at the local level with federal support,” White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews said in a statement.

Birx did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Vice President Pence tapped Birx in late February to coordinate the White House coronavirus response when there were just 60 known COVID-19 cases in the United States. Birx was appointed by former President Obama in 2014 as an ambassador-at-large to lead the country’s global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.

She became a fixture at press briefings early in the coronavirus pandemic. Her scarves spawned parody Instagram accounts, and she and Fauci emerged as authoritative voices at the White House. But as Trump and others in the building pushed for states to lift restrictions and insisted the country was rounding the turn on the pandemic, Birx appeared less frequently.

Since then, cases have spiked around the United States. The country recorded more than 60,000 new infections on Thursday. Officials in Wisconsin, Montana and other states have raised concerns that their hospital systems could soon be overwhelmed.

Those who know Birx or who have met with her in recent weeks have universally praised her professionalism and helpfulness. They say she is simply looking for ways to be most effective in an administration where the president has repeatedly contradicted and ridiculed his own top health officials.

"It is really, I would say, close to impossible to do anything reasonable with this White House. And she tried initially inside, and now what I think she's trying is she's trying outside," said Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University who has worked with Birx through her role in the State Department.

"I think she’s trying to figure out how can she do the best in, quite frankly, a very complicated environment," he added.

Birx has recently visited states such as Alabama, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas. Birx told one university president she met with that she’d traveled more than 16,000 miles over the last few months.


Birx typically meets with college and university leadership during those stops and occasionally with governors and local officials. Each visit tends to include press briefings with local media. She discusses the importance of masks and physical distancing, and she has urged students to be mindful of the risks when they return home for Thanksgiving and interact with family.

“It was a very buttoned-up visit, I would say,” said Max Reiss, communications director for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D). “It had a very clear public health focus the entire visit. She met with the governor one-on-one. She met with the heads of the [University of Connecticut] system one-on-one.”

Birx last week visited Stony Brook University in New York to meet with school leaders, researchers and students. She also met with leaders of the university’s hospital, which was inundated in the early months of the pandemic.

Stony Brook President Maurie McInnis said Birx was interested in how the school had maintained such a low case load during the fall semester and had gotten widespread compliance from students to wear masks.

“We were all really just both enormously appreciative and learned so much from her visit, and I think it sharpened our thinking about winter and the important messaging that we are going to need to follow,” McInnis said.

Scott Atlas: Fauci 'just one person on the task force'

Even hundreds of miles away, though, it’s impossible for Birx to completely separate herself from the latest White House controversies.

During a recent trip to New Jersey, Birx danced around a question about the president attending a fundraiser the same day he tested positive for COVID-19. In Connecticut, local media asked her about Trump’s claim that Americans shouldn’t be afraid of the virus. And during her stop at Stony Brook, reporters asked what Birx made of Trump’s treatment when he had the virus, McInnis said.

“At the press briefing, she got several questions from reporters [about Trump], and she very deftly did not answer them,” McInnis said. “She was very focused on her message, which is the public health message, what we all need to be doing to be safe and keep coronavirus at low levels.”

Trump Is Charging Ahead With Cataclysmic Deregulation in Case of Election Loss

Donald Trump holds an executive order on "Continuing the President's National Council for the American Worker and the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board" which he signed during an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2020.MANDEL NGAN / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

BYBrett Wilkins, Common Dreams PUBLISHED October 18, 2020

With President Donald Trump’s re-election very much in doubt, his administration is rushing to ram through regulatory rollbacks that could adversely affect millions of Americans, the environment, and the ability of Joe Biden — should he win — to pursue his agenda or even undo the damage done over the past four years.

Reporting by the New York Times details how the administration is cutting corners as it scrambles to enact as much of its agenda as possible before ceding power on January 20 if Trump loses the election. Required public comment periods and detailed analyses, according to the Times, are being eschewed in favor of streamlined approval processes that have left even staunch deregulation defenders sounding the alarm.

“Two main hallmarks of a good regulation is sound analysis to support the alternatives chosen and extensive public comment to get broader opinion,” Susan E. Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and formerly head of regulation in the George W. Bush White House, told the Times. “It is a concern if you are bypassing both of those.”

Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that the president has always “worked quickly… to grow the economy by removing the mountain of Obama-Biden job-killing regulations.”

Eric Lipton

@EricLiptonNYT

JUST POSTED: Facing the prospect that President Trump could lose his re-election bid, his cabinet is scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges

A Regulatory Rush by Federal Agencies to Secure Trump’s Legacy

With the president’s re-election in doubt, cabinet departments are scrambling to finish dozens of new rules affecting millions of Americans.

nytimes.com

10:56 AM · Oct 16, 20202K

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However, critics are warning that some of the proposed changes are being rushed through with insufficient regard to the harm they might cause. Some of the issues that are raising red flags include:

Refusing to lower limits on dangerous particulate and ozone pollution, which cause thousands of annual premature deaths.

Allowing so-called “bomb trains” that transport highly combustible liquefied natural gas on freight trains.

Determining when workers can be classified as employees or independent contractors.

Exempting certain commercial drivers from mandatory hour limits and rest periods.

Placing limits on how science is used in the air pollution rule-making process.

Expanding regulation of immigrants by requiring citizenship applicants to submit biometric data, by forcing sponsors of immigrants to stay off welfare and prove their financial independence.

In response to the reporting, critics of the administration like writer Matthew Kressel said that it helps make clear that if the Republicans in the White House cannot win reelection, they’ll “scorch the earth before they go.”

And Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, tweeted: “I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind.”

Many of the changes reflect the agendas of the powerful corporate and other business interests whose key players have donated generously to Trump, belying the president’s oft-repeated claim that he is “draining the swamp.” Other regulator rollbacks come despite warnings from career officials within federal agencies about the harm they could cause.

Alarmed by the administration’s rushed rate of regulatory rollbacks, a group of over 15 Democratic senators earlier this month sent a letter (pdf) to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia warning of “profound economic implications” for some 143 million U.S. workers that would result from curtailing public comment periods for the proposed rule change regarding independent contractors.

“Workers across the country deserve a chance to fully examine and properly respond to these potentially radical changes, and a 30-day comment period is not nearly enough,” the letter states.

Nurses Association’s refusal to denounce Trump angers members

BY TINA VASQUEZ, SENIOR REPORTER (PRISM REPORTS)

This story was originally published by Prism Reports

The American Nurses Association (ANA), one of the largest professional nursing organizations in the world representing the interests of 4.2 million registered nurses, recently rescinded its presidential endorsement policy, choosing 2020 as the first time in decades the powerful trade organization will not endorse a presidential candidate.

The timing is curious.

The 2020 election is one that “could break America,” The Atlantic recently reported, and Americans have lost more than 200,000 loved ones to the COVID-19 crisis, which the White House has largely treated as a partisan issue—pretending the highly contagious disease is not deadly.

The outright rejection of science and the lack of federal response and aid has meant that the coronavirus has firmly rooted in the United States, leaving healthcare workers on the frontlines ill-equipped to handle the overwhelming caseload and scrambling for basic resources like Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). These harsh and risky working conditions not only violate the rights of registered nurses, according to a damning report released in September by the National Nurses United, one of the largest nurses unions in the country, but have resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,718 healthcare workers.

During the pandemic, tensions have grown between longtime ANA members and the organization’s leadership, according to nurses who spoke to Prism. The ANA’s attempt to appear nonpartisan by refusing to speak out against President Donald Trump’s disregard for science and his defiance of public health officials has led longtime ANA members to break with the organization.

‘Gross malpractice’

In May, when the COVID-19 death toll surpassed the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined, the ANA’s president, Ernest J. Grant went to the White House for a National Nurses Day event in which Grant, President Trump, and other nurse leaders did not wear masks. (Just four months later, the president and other senior White House officials would test positive for the coronavirus just days after they refused to wear masks during a tightly-packed “super-spreader” event in the White House Rose Garden.)

Jerry Soucy, a Massachusetts registered nurse with more than 40 years of experience in serious illness and end-of-life care, called the National Nurses Day event “gross malpractice.”

“When all of those nurse leaders jammed into the Oval Office, shoulder-to-shoulder with no masks during a pandemic, it was egregious,” Soucy said. “Any nurse with a real commitment to this work would have said, ‘I can’t do it. If I can’t have my mask on, I’m not going to participate.’ But no one said that.”

The ANA appears to be making a concerted effort to toe the line during the 2020 election. In August, a West Virginia nurse named Amy Johnson Ford (also known as Amy Jolene Thorn and Amy Johnson) spoke at the Republican National Convention praising Trump’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. RN Action, the policy and advocacy arm of the ANA, tweeted that it was “great to see nurses featured in both conventions,” using the hashtags #ThankANurse, #NursesVote, and #RNC2020. The organization later deleted the tweet, saying on Twitter, “We recognize our posts highlighting nurses involvement in both national conventions may be construed as supporting the respective candidate.” (The West Virginia nurse was arrested and charged earlier this month with allegedly shooting another woman in the stomach.)

The ANA has also refrained from explicitly blaming the Trump administration for the federal government’s abject failure to provide resources and guidance during the pandemic.

Last month, the ANA released findings from its nationwide COVID-19 survey of more than 21,000 U.S. nurses, 42% of whom say they are still experiencing widespread or intermittent PPE shortages. Without mentioning Trump, the organization called on the “administration and Congress” to address the insufficient PPE supply; implement the full use of the Defense Production Act; pass the Medical Supply Chain Emergency Act of 2020; and expand investment in testing and public health infrastructure. Not only has the Trump administration outright refused some of these measures, but medical supply chains have experienced a “catastrophic collapse” under the Trump administration, a recent Associated Press and Frontline investigation found—and this collapse is one of the “most consequential failures to control the virus.”

In the midst of the pandemic, the Trump administration has also fought diligently to end the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is the only source of health care for more than half a million people who lost their health insurance amid the pandemic’s economic shutdown. This doesn’t even include the 135 million Americans with pre-existing conditions who would be stripped of health care if the Trump administration successfully strikes down the ACA.

“This is simply not the time to be neutral,” said Teri Mills, a nurse, educator, and advocate whose career spans more than four decades. Mills has been a member of the ANA for more than 30 years and she is a prominent member of Oregon’s nursing community who was named Oregon Nurse of the Year in 2019.

The ANA’s push to appear nonpartisan has actually made it appear as if the organization is signing off on the Trump administration’s deadly inaction, longtime ANA members told Prism, and some are beginning to wonder if the organization’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate has more to do with appeasing its membership base.
‘The ugly reality’

In 2019, the ANA’s membership assembly—the governing and official voting body of the ANA composed of 200 representatives—overwhelmingly voted to rescind the organization’s 1984 policy of endorsing a presidential candidate. According to a Sept. 14 email from the ANA, 87.7% of the membership assembly was in favor of ending the practice of endorsing a candidate, pushing the board to consider “whether it was in the best interest of the association’s mission, politically diverse membership, and long-term goals to endorse in the 2020 presidential election,” according to the email.

The decision to rescind the policy was ultimately upheld in a closed ANA board of directors meeting. In its place, the ANA adopted a “Presidential Engagement Policy” that encourages nurses to “get out and vote,” according to an open letter from Grant, who characterized the decision to rescind the policy as “one of the most important and toughest decisions” the board has ever made. Grant also acknowledged the nation is “in the middle of one, if not the most, divisive election in history.”

Mills told Prism she can still remember the day in 2019 when the membership assembly voted to rescind the policy. The nurse and educator said she was the only one at the meeting who spoke out against the decision. As an ANA member for over three decades, Mills said it’s “not easy” to speak out against the organization, but she felt “strongly compelled to” because the ANA is violating its own Code of Ethics by refusing to denounce Trump. The nurse is now an active member and supporter of Nurses For Biden, a coalition of nurses nationwide who are organizing to help elect Biden.

Mills expressed her concerns to the ANA leadership to no avail and she has since publicly broken away from the organization because of what she says is the organization’s “betrayal”—its betrayal to nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic, to the American public, and to the Code of Ethics for Nurses. The Trump administration’s racism, treatment of immigrant communities, and failure to respond to gun violence all fly in the face of the ANA’s Code of Ethics, Mills said.

Teri Mills

“The first provision [of the code] is practicing with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and personal attributes of every person without prejudice. Provision three says we are to promote, advocate for, and protect the rights, health, and safety of the patient. This includes our immigrant population,” Mills said. “It’s like the ANA is saying none of this seems to matter.”

The Oregon Nurse of the Year declined to share any presumptions she may have about why the ANA will not speak out against Trump, but Soucy had no such reservations.

“The ugly truth is the ANA likes to portray nurses as angels and heroes, but we’re not. We’re just people and like the larger American population that is abominably racist, that’s also true of nurses. Just like there are millions of Americans who are right wing white supremacists, the same is true for nurses,” Soucy said.

The nurse told Prism his read on the situation is that the ANA doesn’t want to alienate nurses who are Trump supporters or who subscribe to his worldview.

“They are trying to thread the needle very carefully because endorsing Biden would mean risking exposing the ugly reality that a lot of nurses think Trump is great,” Sousy said.

Demographics for the ANA’s membership are not publicly available, but what is certain is that over the years the organization has overwhelmingly contributed to Democratic candidates, according to data from FollowTheMoney. This includes contributions to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. Also notable: In June 2018 the ANA’s membership assembly elected Grant, the first ever Black man to serve as the organization’s president. During the summer when a nationwide uprising unfolded as part of the Movement for Black Lives, Grant issued a statement urging nurses to use their voices to “call for change.”

“The Code of Ethics obligates nurses to be allies and to advocate and speak up against racism, discrimination, and injustice,” Grant said in the statement.

Historically, Black nurses were denied membership to national professional organizations like the ANA. The National Black Nurses Association formed in 1971 in part, because Black nurses and the issues they faced were not represented by the ANA. Nursing continues to be a field dominated by white women: More than 60% of registered nurses in the United States are white and more than 88% are women.

Roberta Lavin, a professor of nursing and the PhD program director for the University of New Mexico’s College of Nursing, has been a member of the ANA since 1991. Back in August, she wrote a controversial blog post that outlined her issues with the ANA’s handling of the Trump administration. In it, she shared an exchange with a member of the ANA’s leadership who told her to “overlook” the organization’s refusal to denounce Trump because “they didn’t want to alienate Republican nurses.” After the blog began making the rounds in online nursing circles, Lavin, a longtime registered independent, told Prism a nurse reached out to share that she once tried to write an editorial critical of Republicans for a major nursing publication, but was told it would result in “huge pushback.”

“You need to understand that a good portion of nurses are white, and if you look at the majority of [the nurses], the majority of them are Republican, so it’s self-preservation,” Lavin said.

There is also a real risk is parting ways with the ANA. Academics who want to become fellows of the American Academy of Nursing must be an ANA member in order to be a fellow and a member of the Academy. This is a big deal for universities because when the U.S. News ranks universities, one of the criteria they rank nursing colleges on is how many faculty are fellows of the Academy. Lavin said that if a nurse chooses not to pay ANA dues, because they find the organization to be “immoral and unacceptable,” they could lose their status as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, which hurts their university ranking.

Coercive membership aside, the ANA’s refusal to denounce the Trump administration’s racist rhetoric and failed response to the COVID-19 crisis sends a clear message to communities of color hardest hit by the pandemic because of the health disparities they experience—and to Black nurses who encounter insurmountable barriers in the nursing field.

“Nursing as a whole has done a horrible job of increasing representation for all groups who aren’t Caucasian women. Only 6% of nursing doctoral graduates across the country and 6.2% of all registered nurses are African Americans. Nursing remains a field that is predominantly white women from predominantly middle class families and we see the world as middle class white women, which impacts who gets accepted into nursing schools, our definitions of health, and everything else we do,” Lavin said.

Maria Elena Diaz, the only registered nurse of color who spoke to Prism for this reporting, has been in the nursing field for over 30 years and said she can still remember her educators at California State University, Los Angeles urging her to join the ANA.

In the Los Angeles area where Elena Diaz grew up, the demographics of nursing were more diverse than in other parts of the country during the same time period. Elena Diaz was inspired to enter the field when she worked alongside a Black charge nurse at a county hospital where she was a volunteer. After graduating from nursing school, one of Elena Diaz’s first jobs was at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where she often translated for immigrant families. While working at the Children’s Hospital, she once accidentally opened up the wrong paycheck and saw that a white junior nurse she’d been training and who went to the same college as her was getting paid $2 an hour more than she was. Not long after, Elena Diaz left the hospital to work more directly in her community.

Maria Elena Diaz

The California nurse has been an ANA member for decades and she told Prism she chose not to renew her membership with the organization when the ANA confirmed it would not endorse a presidential candidate. It’s not that she believes nurses don’t have the right to be Republicans and conservatives, she said; it’s that compassion and trustworthiness are core values for nurses and the Trump administration is “the opposite.”

“For almost two decades, we have been voted as the most trustworthy profession. That comes with a responsibility to our patients. Where I work, a lot of our patients are low-income and undocumented. I know that health equity is a racial justice issue and that long standing systematic and social inequities have meant that people of color are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19,” Elena Diaz said. “This administration is anti-science and the [the ANA’s] decision not to speak out against Trump just felt like such a sucker punch.”

Nurses who decide to leave the ANA are making a sacrifice because being a member of the organization provides certain benefits. The ANA California chapter where Elena Diaz was a member granted her access to minute-by-minute information on issues that were important to her, including bills she personally lobbied for. Elena Diaz told Prism she will miss the larger community she was tapped into as an ANA California member, and that she is sad for the ANA: The organization is losing someone committed to racial justice in the medical field.

Elena Diaz said it’s important to note that the decision to rescind the 1984 policy for endorsing presidential candidates was not made by nurses like her—who are working in communities of color on the frontlines. The decision was made by nurses with more elite positions in the ANA, she said.

“Nurses like me had no influence on the decision,” Elena Diaz said. “I don’t think our opinions even matter.”

The ANA did not respond to Prism’s multiple requests for comment over the span of one month.

Thailand lifts emergency measures aimed at stopping protests

Pro-democracy protesters during a march from Victory Monument to Government House in Bangkok on Oct 21, 2020.PHOTO: NYTIMES

BANGKOK (REUTERS) - Thailand's government on Thursday (Oct 22) ordered the removal of emergency measures imposed a week earlier to try to end months of protests against Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the monarchy, a statement said.

The measures, which had prompted even bigger demonstrations, were lifted from 12pm (1pm Singapore time).

"The current violent situation that led to the announcement of the severe situation has eased and ended to a situation in which government officials and state agencies can enforce the regular laws," the statement published in the official Royal Gazette said.

The only specific incident given for the ban was one in which Queen Suthida’s convoy was jeered by protesters, but it came after protests that are the biggest challenge in years to Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Protesters who have given Prayuth a three day deadline to quit said that withdrawing the measures was not enough.

“He’s still seeking to stay in power while ignoring all the people’s demands. The emergency decree shouldn’t have been issued in the first place,” Sirawith “Ja New” Seritiwat, one of the leaders, said:
Dozens of protesters – including many of the most high profile protest leaders – were arrested during the crackdown.

Among them was Patsaravalee “Mind” Tanakitvibulpon, who was released on Thursday after being arrested a day earlier.

Patsaravalee, 25, told reporters after being freed that the court had deemed the charges were not serious and that she still needed to attend classes and exams, so bail was granted without having to submit any guarantees.

Protesters say Prayuth rigged an election last year to keep hold of power he seized in a 2014 coup. He says the election was fair.

Protesters accuse the monarchy of enabling years of military domination and want to curb the king’s powers. The palace has a policy of making no comment to media.

Tan Hui Yee

@Tan_Hui_Yee

Thai PM Prayut has just cancelled declaration of severe emergency in #Bangkok . Note that arrest of #protest leaders have taken place under various other legal clauses #WhatsHappeningInThailand

Tik_News

@Tik_News

ประกาศให้ยกเลิกประกาศสถานการณ์ฉุกเฉินที่มีความร้ายแรง ในเขตท้องที่กรุงเทพฯ

10:55 PM · Oct 21, 202010

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Thai protesters reject PM Prayut's olive branch, give him 3 days to resign

Thousands of demonstrators on Oct 21 broke through police barricades to march towards Mr Prayut's official office. PHOTO: EPA-EFE


BANGKOK (BLOOMBERG) - Thai protesters gave Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha three days to resign and meet other key demands that include reforming the monarchy, appearing to reject an olive branch he offered in a televised address.

Thousands of demonstrators on Wednesday (Oct 21) night broke through police barricades and barbed wire to march towards Mr Prayut's official office.

They gathered near the building, known as Government House, shortly after the Prime Minister said his government is prepared to withdraw emergency rules banning large gatherings in the capital if the protest remain peaceful.

"We submitted the letter for Prayut to resign, which is one of our three demands," Free Youth, one of the main protest organisations, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday night.

"If the government doesn't give an answer within three days, the people will return with higher demands than before."

Mr Prayut has struggled to stem the mounting street demonstrations, which have used Hong Kong-style pop-up rallies to avoid police and defy an emergency decree issued last week.

The government has shown no signs of meeting the protester's demands, which would upend the royalist elite that has maintained power throughout much of Thailand's history, but it has also sought to avoid bloodshed that could further roil the economy.

"I will make the first move to de-escalate this situation," Mr Prayut said in an address to the nation on Wednesday.

"I am currently preparing to lift the state of severe emergency in Bangkok and will do so promptly if there are no violent incidents."

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Thai protesters plan to surround PM's office, openly defy King

Thai royalists confront pro-democracy protesters in Bangkok

The protests are underpinned by years of sluggish growth now exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has put the Thai economy on course for its worst performance ever by derailing the two main drivers: tourism and trade. The benchmark SET Index of stocks has lost 23 per cent this year.

Thailand's financial markets will take a wait-and-see approach to the protests and the government's response, said Dr Tim Leelahaphan, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank Pcl in Bangkok.

"It remains to be seen if the emergency would hurt the government's plan to gradually reopen tourism to foreign visitors from this month," Dr Leelahaphan said.

"While the political situation has so far been under control, the lingering protests do not bode well for the Thai economic recovery."

The demonstrations have shown no signs of letting up, and have even started to spread to other parts of Thailand. They have broken long-held taboos about publicly criticising the royal family, with demands for the monarch to no longer endorse coups, provide transparency in how funds are spent, and get rid of laws that stifle discussion of the royal family.

Simultaneous rallies by pro-royalist groups in support of King Maha Vajiralongkorn also raised fears of clashes between the rival groups. Past protest movements in Thailand have ended in bloody crackdowns, most recently in 2010.

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Thai leaders have no easy options to end anti-monarchy protests

Thailand cracks down on protesters: A timeline of events

Mr Prayut, a former army chief who staged a coup in 2014, urged the protesters to trust the parliamentary process to address their grievances during a special session next week and said the government and the activists should "each take a step back" and "find solutions to the problems".

The king endorsed the session to be held from Oct 26, according to a Royal Gazette notification on Wednesday.

The youth-led protesters are also calling for the resignation of Mr Prayut's government and a rewriting of the constitution, which was drafted by a military-appointed panel after the 2014 coup. The activists say the charter was instrumental in helping Mr Prayut retain power after the 2019 elections.

The Prime Minister said it was time to break the cycle of government leaders having to face mobs of opposing groups to prevent the country from becoming ungovernable and descending into chaos.

"The only sure way to achieve a sustainable, enduring resolution to the problems is to speak to each other, respect the due process of law, and then let the will of the people be resolved in parliament," Mr Prayut said. "That is the only way."