The editors have decided not to post reader submissions for the time being that address the question of whether or not the coronavirus is very dangerous and similar articles. We only make an exception for publications by doctors such as Maarten or from official and verifiable sources such as medical or scientific journals.
We have been receiving many reader submissions on this subject over the last few days. These are articles written by people who are not scientists or doctors, but who collect some information or pick up quotes here and there and send it to the editors, overloaded with their own opinion.
We have decided not to publish such articles. It is difficult to test such an article for accuracy and we do not want to spread misinformation about this difficult subject that is surrounded by a lot of emotion.
Violent reactions
In addition, there is a certain group of readers for whom this corona crisis evokes so much fear that they can no longer think rationally and end up in a kind of unstable state. They think they have to send extremely offensive messages to the editors. Or try to post this as a comment on Thailandblog.
That is undesirable and not pleasant for the moderator/editors, which is why we want to limit the discussion as much as possible. The moderator will also moderate more sharply: claims about the corona virus without proper acknowledgment of the source will be rejected.