Covid UPDATE Saturday: 4,161 new infections, 51 deaths

For Saturday, the trend of new infections, and deaths, from Covid-related disease, remains on the rise. Today the public health department announced 51 deaths and 4,161 new infections of Covid-19. Only 72 were related to detections in Thai prisons, a further drop in prisoners testing positive for the coronavirus.

As the Thai government is faced with its worst week of community-related infections and deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Phuket Sandbox remains on track for a re-opening of Thai tourism and entry by fully vaccinated foreign travellers, via the Phuket Sandbox on July 1.

Just this morning the announcement has been made that some foreign embassies are now issuing Certificates of Entry for people that had already made bookings to the southern Thai island.

The situation in the Deep South provinces along the Malaysian border, remains worrisome. The government has announced a ‘Disease Control Situation’ for the southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla, and Yala. The PM has gone out of his way to use the word ‘lockdown’ reminding everyone that they can still leave their homes and work as normal but there will be some isolated closures of specific areas – construction worker camps, markets or other locations where there has been isolated outbreaks of Covid-19.

The closure of other outbreak zones in selected pockets of Bangkok and surrounding provinces has also been announced.

Here’s some information about general conditions for entry via the Phuket Sandbox (the video was record 2 weeks ago but the information is still pertinent)…

• Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha says there will not be a Bangkok lockdown but under the present circumstances will resort to limited lockdowns at sites where there are cluster infections and to make sure that the action will not have unnecessary impacts on people in general and the overall economy, while the government procures more vaccines.

• While Deputy PM and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul claimed the situation in Bangkok hospitals was not critical, senior doctors at many hospitals are proposing a 1-week full lockdown of the capital city. Perhaps meeting in the middle, late this afternoon PM Prayut Chan-o-cha announced the 1-month closure of all construction work camps in Bangkok as well as 4 provinces in the south of Thailand.

In his role as the director of the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, PM Prayut made the announcement that construction camps, as well as other high-risk locations, were on a 1-month closure in Bangkok, Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla, and Yala. Calling it a “disease control situation,” the prime minister shied away from specifically using the word “lockdown.”

• Here’s a list of the low, medium and high risk countries as updated every 2 weeks. Only people from low and medium risk countries are currently allowed to apply for entry via the Phuket Sandbox program…

Here is the list of Provincial cases announced in the past 24 hours. We will have an updated list of the Saturday announcements just after lunchtime (Thai time) today…