Labour Ministry to provide 9.2 million workers with vaccine

Labour Minister Suchart Chomklin announced that under Section 33 of the Social Security Act, over 9 million employees will receive a Covid-19 vaccine and don’t need to register on the Mor Prom Line account. PM Prayut Chan-o-cha posted on Facebook Wednesday that these 9.2 million workers would receive priority vaccines as at-risk essential workers. Insured employees that have to work on-site in their workplaces will begin receiving vaccines on June 7 in Bangkok.

Employers were instructed by the Social Security Office to survey their staff and report how many wanted to be vaccinated. Of 3.7 million workers, 63%, about 2.38 million employees, wanted the vaccine. The SSO is calling on employers and business owners to be proactive in registering their staff and keeping them informed when the jabs are ready.

The Labour Ministry is aiming to administer 50,000 jabs every day for 2 months to vaccinate everyone and the SSO has partnered with 20 hospitals to act as private vaccination centres, separate from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s main vaccine rollout.

Following Bangkok, the Labour Ministry plans to launch similar vaccine schemes for workers in Chon Buri, Ayutthaya, Rayong, and 6 other economically crucial provinces, beginning in July. After that, the plan is to expand it to all provinces in Thailand.

The Labour Ministry is also pushing for proactive testing to prevent further outbreaks in factories and other industrial businesses. After testing 70,000 workers insured by social security, 1,000 Covid-19 infections were identified. Testing is now being offered for insured employees in Ayutthaya, Chon Buri, Pathum Thani, and Rayong.

PM Prayut proposed this scheme of inoculating workers with a Covid-19 vaccine covered by Section 33 of the Social Security Act after quickly shuttering the recently-launched walk-in vaccination service centres. Citing fears that vaccines are limited and centres would easily be overrun with people showing up for inoculation and leaving frustrated without their jabs. He hopes to instead launch this social security program with the Labour Ministry and a new sign-up format like on-site registration.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post