Thanon Panphipat, the Hua Hin district chief officer, says all hotels in the Gulf resort town, four hours south of Bangkok, must check the passports of all Chinese tourists and to immediately report if any of them appear sick or develop flu-like symptoms.

He says that the instruction was a precautionary measure to prevent the possible spread of the virus,. Many Chinese tourists are visiting Hua Hin during the Chinese New Year festival.

The Prachuap Khiri Khan provincial health officials announced yesterday that a 73 year old tourist from the Chinese city of Wuhan, fell sick and was admitted to a private hospital in Hua Hin. She has been diagnosed with the new coronavirus.

Authorities have confirmed that the tourist flew into Suvarnabhumi international airport on January 19 on a direct flight from Wuhan and then proceeded to Hua Hin for a sight-seeing tour. All passengers would have had a preliminary screening when they walked off the plane. But she fell sick on Thursday night and was admitted to a private hospital.

Preventive measures are necessary, in light of anticipated rise in the number of Chinese people expected to visit Thailand during the Chinese New Year festival. Thailand’s Deputy PM and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is calling an urgent meeting of the ministries of Public Health, Transport and Tourism and Sports to discuss plans to limit the spread of novel coronavirus in Thailand.

The new case in Hua Hin has brought the total coronavirus cases in Thailand to six.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World

Bangkok awakes on Monday, even before the traffic starts choking up the city air and the factories puff their pollution into the Bangkok skies, with appalling air quality. With light winds and hot temperatures, the city is in for another bad day of air quality. Even at 6am this morning Bangkok ranked number 13 in the worst air pollution of world cities.

The air pollution in Bangkok worsened over the weekend with high levels of PM2.5 in all areas. Phra Nakhon district, the home of the Grand Palace on the banks of the Chao Phraya, was the worst affected. Apart from the city, the poor air quality extends down to the south-east and south-west, to Pattaya and Hua Hin, and to the west in Kanchanaburi where the readings are up to 208 this morning, four times the Pollution Control Department’s upper limit of 50 mg of PM2.5 micron particulate.

The PCD together with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration studied the situation of particulate matter not more than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) in Bangkok and its suburbs. It reports that the amount of dust in the air overall had increased in all areas compared to Saturday. The amount of dust and smog in 46 areas was at a level unhealthy for sensitive groups (Orange) while the situation was more serious (Red) on Samsen Road in Phra Nakhon district.

A high-pressure system that covered the North and the Northeast of the country weakens while the westerly winds in the upper parts are still blowing cold air from the Himalayas to the North. Cool mornings are forecast with possible isolated patchy fog in the North and the Northeast. Mountain peaks will see cold to very cold weather. All transport should proceed with caution in foggy areas in northern Thailand. Stronger easterly winds prevailing across the Gulf of Thailand could bring more thundershowers.

SOURCES: AirVisual | The Nation

PHOTO: Thai Rath

…we should clarify that the woman wasn’t wearing the underwear at the time.

Hua Hin has a creative freelance writer on the loose who has been choosing the medium of women’s underwear to share his words of wisdom. But the messages have been salacious in content and causing a great deal of distress for the owner of the underwear who had been hanging her ‘smalls’ at the rear of her house.

A 30 year old spa employee, Keepet Petsri, in the coastal town of Hua Hin is asking police detectives to catch the man who has been writing tasteless and rude messages on her underwear. The clothing was hanging to dry behind her apartment, according to Thai Rath.

Keepet Petsri on her Facebook page… “Urgent warning. Don’t forget to collect your underwear that you hang to dry behind your apartment. There’s a man who wrote vulgar messages on my underwear this morning.”

“I feel unsafe because my husband is upcountry for work.”

An apartment mechanic has downloaded a video clip that is thought to have captured the creative writer and will be given to police to identify and arrest the intruder.

SOURCE: Thai Residents