Saturday Covid UPDATE: 3,095 new infections, 17 deaths

The Thai public health ministry has announced 3,095 new cases of Covid-19 along with 17 new deaths from the past 24 hours of provincial totals. 877 of the new infections emerged from Thai prisons again after 3 days of reports with high numbers of cases coming out of key Bangkok prisons.

• Diners may be able to eat at Dark Red Zone restaurants if a decision is made today to ease some of the restrictions for the tightest controlled provinces. The decision will be announced today, but it will only be for 25% of tables, or perhaps one person per table, according to sources.

The CCSA yesterday discussed easing of restrictions surrounding restaurants and food outlets.

• Starting tomorrow, visitors to Phuket must either be 1) vaccinated or 2) have a covid-free certificate that is no older than 72 hours. The Phuket Governor says that the island province is still coming up with 10-20 cases per day and if people can’t produce either of the documents they will not be permitted to enter. An earlier decision to allow a 14 day quarantine as a third alternative appears to have been scrapped.

The Governor says the island is determined to reduce the numbers of cases and restrict entry. So it’s vaccination or valid PCR test…

“If not, they cannot come.”

• The world’s aviation industry, one of the hardest hit over the past 14 months, agrees that it is going to be a long recovery back to ‘normal’.

Jeffrey Goh, the CEO of Star Alliance says that the different ways that countries are gradually easing restrictions, and the unpredictable nature of the virus, as well as national regulations on vaccination ‘passports’ will make it a complicated recovery.

• The family of a man who died while infected with Covid-19 is demanding the prime minister, as well as other government officials, pay millions of baht in compensation, citing “negligence” after calls to Covid-19 hotlines went unanswered or were not of help.

35 year old Kunlasub Watthanaphon died on April 23. Kunlasub is said to have contracted the virus from a cluster in Bangkok. Many of the clusters of infections early in the recent outbreak were concentrated in nightlife districts in Bangkok including Thong Lor and Ekkamai.

• All inmates in Thai prisons will be vaccinated against Covid-19 starting next month. The announcement of the nationwide prison vaccination campaign follows this week’s outbreaks infecting nearly 3,000 inmates at 2 Bangkok prisons. There have also been outbreaks at prisons in Chiang Mai and the southern province of Narathiwat.

SOURCES: FRB |Bangkok Post