While vaccine tourism wasn’t my reason to travel, I walked across the street from my mother’s hospital in Pasadena, Calif., to a supermarket where a sign advertised free inoculations.
.
“Which vaccine do you want?” the woman wearing a rainbow-striped face mask for Pride Month asked. “The COVID-19 vaccine?” I offered gamely, wondering if she was expecting rabies or rubella.
She stared for a good five seconds. “What type?”
After months awaiting hope from any hospital in Thailand, I was a bit overwhelmed. “I want that Johnson,” I said.
Five minutes later, just over a week after writing about that “Totally left out” feeling, it was done.
At least four Thai travel agencies are currently arranging overseas tours for those who want to get vaccines abroad. The prices range from THB67,000 (US$2,150) to THB245,000 (US$7,850) on tours that include sightseeing to Beverly Hills, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.
Jakkrit said he paid only in the low-20,000s for the round-trip while he had to pay more than that, THB30,000-plus, for two weeks of state quarantine, despite being Pfizer-vaccinated.
Suwincha “Chacha” Singsuwan paid more for the trip. A lot more. For that reason, she thinks the United States has a good economic incentive to give free vaccinations to anyone, whoever they are, citizens or not.
Her “free” vaccine cost her roughly THB68,000 to start, and that was just for air travel and her state quarantine on return. Not to mention all the money she spent in between during three weeks in Arkansas and New York.
“America should give free vaccines, because America is getting a lot of money!” she said Thursday from a state quarantine hotel, just over a week after returning.