Coronavirus (Covid-19)
Team Thailand, hell yeah! Coming to save you from Covid-19.

The world may be going completely bonkers but at least here in Thailand we can rely on Team Thailand.
“Team Thailand”, is the patriotic term the mercurial Thai Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has come up with to describe the hand-picked panel of medical experts who will be going through daily reports and recommending the next steps to battle the Covid-19 outbreak.
The elite team includes the heads of medical schools, royal colleges and the Medical Council to bring together academic expertise and the Public Health Ministry’s experience in the battle against the coronavirus.
Flanked by former public health minister Dr Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn and Dr Prasit Watanapa, dean of Mahidol University’s Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Anutin spoke glowingly about his Team Thailand.
“This is the best team we have. If it can’t do the job, no one else can.
Over the weekend, Dr. Piyasakol announced that the number of new cases would not drop immediately after the launch of stringent restrictions and the push for “social distancing”, though positive signs could be expected in a week or so.
Born in 1948, Piyasakol has taught at the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital since 1975. In 1981, he began accompanying HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej on trips to rural provinces to deliver medical care to people in remote areas. Between 2000 and 2007, he served as the dean of the faculty, before becoming Mahidol University president until 2011. He was also Thai public health minister between 2015 and 2019.
Following meeting with Team Thailand last week, government policymakers are taking firm new measures. The team sat down with Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha and proposed the “Stay Home to Stop Covid-19 for the Nation” initiative.
Without a “soft” lockdown, says the team, the new virus would infect about 350,000 people within one month, leaving more than 50,000 hospitalised and some 17,000 in intensive care units. That scenario would see about 7,000 people killed by Covid-19.
The lockdown, if implemented effectively, promises to make a big difference they claim.
But others are drawing comparisons with Italy, Europe and the US saying the soft lockdowns will not be enough to stem the incoming crisis.
In support of the lockdown, the Social Security Office has announced that staff can claim unemployment benefit of up to 7,500 baht per month if their company’s are closed or suspend their operations due to Covid-19. But the benefits have ‘strings attached’ and require you having worked for a company for a minimum period (check with your employer).
Disease Control Department’s deputy director-general Dr Tanarak Pilpat, who had been following the Covid-19 outbreak since early January, warns that the situation had changed.
“We are now at a turning point. Whether we will collapse or make progress depends on cooperation from society. Victory is not in my hands hands. It depends on how each and every Thai responds to the control measures.”
SOURCE: Thai PBS World
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Coronavirus (Covid-19)
The Thai government threw a tourist party (sound of crickets) | VIDEO

The Thai Government, flushed with the success of their containment of Covid-19, decided to market the Land of Smiles to the world as the safe place to travel. With the annual wet season starting to weaken the tourists would flock back to the S E Asian country that had such a remarkable success containing, then almost eradicating itself, of the coronavirus.
Then they came up with the STV – the special tourist visa which would have the world’s eager travellers packing their sun cream for up to 270 days of Thai tourism.
There were promises of plane loads of tourists and even published flights and carriers. A few flights arrived, most didn’t.
In fact, since the start of the STV, the Special Tourist Visa, with its long list of restrictions and requirements, was floated, along with a re-vamped Tourist Visa, less than 400 people have arrived per month, on average, since the end of October. In the October and November of the year before more than 3 million people arrived in Thailand. Even the government’s limit of 1,200 new tourist arrivals per month was even slightly tested.
The government had bought all the streamers and a pretty new dress for the party but no one came.
What went wrong?
Where was the much-anticipated pent-up demand and people banging on the doors of the world’s Thai embassies?
It was the European winter and the ‘snowbirds’ would surely be back to soak in some Thai sun rays. But no.
The first problem was there wasn’t much for them to come back to. They would have the beaches of the islands all to themselves, they wouldn’t have to wait in line for anything, the domestic airlines were still selling low fares to Tavel anywhere around the country.
But otherwise there wasn’t a lot for them to do. The tourism magnets were a shadow of their former selves. Walking Street, Bangla Road, tours and tour boats, all the tourist strip restaurants. The buzz of the crowds was gone and more than 90% of the tourist-related business had closed up.
Their staff, their families, their bank loans, their stock and investments – all on hold and forced to find come other means to make ends meet. 931 of some of the larger official tourism operators have now gone out of business, according to Bloomberg News. There would be thousands of the smaller family operations that have also been swept aside by the Thai government’s responses to the world pandemic.
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Coronavirus (Covid-19)
Covid-19 travel pass to pilot on Etihad and Emirates Airways flights

A travel pass for passengers inoculated against Covid-19 or who have tested negative will be piloted on flights for Dubai’s Emirates and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways. With the travel pass issued by the International Air Transport Association, passengers can keep control of their data and share their test results with airlines and authorities for travel.
The travel pass will be offered on selected flights from Abu Dhabi in the first quarter, and will expand the pass to other destinations of the trail is successful. Emirates is going to implement phase 1 of the travel pass in April for flights departing from Dubai.
Recently, the IATA travel pass programme has been also tested in International Airlines Group and Singapore Airlines.
SOURCE: Reuters
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Coronavirus (Covid-19)
Outbreak in Samut Sakhon is “worrying,” CCSA spokesperson says

While the number of daily new Covid-19 cases continues to drop, health officials are still scrambling to contain the virus in the prime hotspot: Samut Sakhon. The outbreak in the coastal fishing province is “worrying,” according to Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration spokesperson Taweesilp Visanuyothin.
Health officials rolled out a proactive mass testing campaign after a spike of Covid-19 cases in mid-December. The vast majority of cases were concentrated around the Central Shrimp Market in the Mahachai fishing hub, which affected a large migrant population. The virus has since spread to 61 of Thailand’s 77 provinces.
With the help of proactive testing, more than 4,000 cases were reported in Samut Sakhon. Field hospitals have been set up on the fly to treat and quarantine those that are infected.
But public health officials are still racing to test as many people in the province as possible with plans to inspect 600 factories and test 50 factory workers per day. There are 12,000 factories in Samut Sakhon and Taweeslip says health officials are speeding up testing to “isolate infected people as soon as possible.”
“The outbreak in Samut Sakhon is worrying. It is difficult to conduct active case-finding there. There are many obstacles, including the number of factories… Meanwhile, factory owners and workers must cooperate. There are more than 10,000 small factories where 1-200 people are employed.”
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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