Thailand's struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic is instructive for two main reasons. First, the country's public health response rapidly developed from a seemingly quite successful to a very disappointing one which was marked by serious failures. Second, the pandemic experience had sustaining negative effects on the Thai society at large that both catalyzed and revealed pre-existing patterns and dynamics of society, economy and (geo)politics. Most importantly, the pandemic's severe economic fallout adds to an already deeply stressed socio-political condition that might reach a boiling point if near term recovery fails to materialize.

• Language
  Englisch