Covid-19 train sends 1,490 infected from Bangkok to hometowns
Usually people are excited to head to the train station and pick up their friends, family, or other loved ones returning from the big city back to their hometowns. But for a special train journey tomorrow, this may not be the case. A train travelling from Bangkok to Northeastern provinces including Ubon Ratchathani tomorrow will be carrying 40 people who tested positively for Covid-19, returning home for treatment and isolation in their home province.
Ubon Ratchathani province’s health chief put out a statement urging the local residents to remain calm as the train is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. The train will depart Bangkok heading to the Northeastern provinces on a special mission. 1,490 passengers aboard will be travelling from the capital city, where hospital beds and staff are in short supply doing to swelling Covid-19 infections. The nearly 1,500 passengers on the train opted to return to their home provinces for treatment.
The idea is that provinces with far fewer Covid-19 infections have hospitals under fall less stress and overcrowding, so infected people can receive quality care without long waits and struggles to secure a hospital bed that has plagued Bangkok during the increasingly rampant third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Thailand.
While many may not be thrilled with Covid-19 infected people returning to areas that have luckily not seen the virus spreading as much, the health chief assured people that special arrangement has been made the infected passengers in order to protect locals and avoid the spread of the virus in their home province. Transportation has been arranged to meet the afflicted travellers at the train station and bring them directly to a community isolation facility or to their homes to self-isolate.
40 Covid-19 patients are expected to arrive at the Warin Chamrap district train station tomorrow, though 294 had initially expressed interest in the train ride but opted for alternate modes of transportation. Most of the passengers on the train will disembark at Buri Ram, Nakhon Ratchasima, Si Sa Ket, and Surin.
SOURCE: Thai PBS World
