Bangkok prisoner tests positive for Covid-19… first local transmission in 100 days
A 37 year old prisoner has tested positive for Covid-19 on the same day Thailand reached 100 days since a local coronavirus infection. The male inmate has already been moved from the Bangkok prison to a Corrections Department hospital and the other 34 inmates who had contact with him have been tested.
The infected man is reported to have worked in and around Bangkok as a DJ and at a coffee shop on Khao San Road. At this stage no one else, who had been in recent contact with the man, has tested positive for Covid-19, but they are being monitored. People who had no direct contact with the man have been considered in a “low risk” group for now.
The Department of Corrections added that the inmate hadn’t travelled abroad or been in close contact with any known positive cases. The man was serving time in prison on drugs charges.
Dr. Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, spoke earlier today announcing that the prisoner’s 1st test for the coronavirus returned a positive result after undergoing a routine weekly Covid-19 test. The man was imprisoned at the Central Special Correctional Institution on August 26 on drug charges and was being housed with 34 other prisoners, according to the Disease Control Department. The Central Special Correctional Institution is part of the Klong Prem Central prison complex, the notorious maximum security prison in Bangkok’s Chatuchak District.
A test conducted by Mahidol University yesterday found that the inmate was infected with Covid-19 and was immediately transferred to the hospital.
All of Thailand’s cases in the past three months have been imported and detected in quarantine. Questions will be asked as to where the man could have been infected as the government is in the middle of figuring out a sequence for re-opening the borders to some limited form of tourism.
SOURCE: Reuters | Bangkok Post
