Bangkok Hospital in Pattaya announces vaccines for foreigners

Bangkok Hospital just announced a new scheme to offer Covid-19 vaccines to foreigners in Pattaya meeting certain qualifications. The hospital chain posted on their social media announcements a plan to offer free Covid-19 vaccines on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. After months of outcry, Thailand has finally begun to make vaccines more available to foreigners.

The plan is a bit strange in that what vaccine you get depends on what day of the week you make an appointment. On Tuesdays, patients will receive the first of 2 doses of AstraZeneca, while on Wednesdays people will be given the first of 2 doses of Sinovac. Every Thursday, they will give people with appointments a Sinovac vaccine and schedule their second vaccine to be a dose of AstraZeneca, mixing the 2 vaccines.

Before everyone rushes to the hospital, the vaccines are only available to a select few foreigners that meet the narrow demographics they outlined in their press release. To qualify, a person must be a foreign resident living in Thailand and must be either old, pregnant, or chronically ill. The primary target of vaccines is for those foreigners who are over 60 years old.

For those under 60, it is possible to get a vaccine if you are at least 12 weeks pregnant, or if you have paperwork confirming you are afflicted with one of the 7 chronic diseases deemed high-risk for Covid-19.

Those diseases are…Cancer patients being treated with chemotherapy, cerebrovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, coronary artery diseases, diabetes, severe chronic respiratory diseases, and obesity of over 100 kilograms or a body mass index of over 35 kilograms per square metre.

Registration for the vaccines for foreigners is open next week from August 16 to August 20 and is done through the once decommission ThailandIntervac.com website by choosing the Bangkok Hospital Pattaya option, which is not currently available on the website. The vaccines will be administered on the 6th floor of Central Festival Pattaya Beach between September 1 and September 9.

Remember that the day of the week you register will determine if you get Sinovac, AstraZeneca or both.

SOURCE: The Pattaya News