Thailand
Covid-19 quarantine: 119 new infections, restrictions to be relaxed after April 1

There were 119 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday with 112 local and 7 from travellers entering Thailand, but quarantine may soon be relaxed from April 1. 26 Thai and 12 Burmese are among the 38 cases in Samut Sakhon province, the centre of the recent Covid-19 outbreak south of Bangkok.
Bangkok has another 38 local cases, 31 of which are Thai nationals, mostly from the west side of the Chao Phraya. The remaining cases are in 8 other provinces including Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani, Nontha Buri, and Ayutthaya. The 7 imported cases are in Covid-19 quarantine and came from Myanmar, Russia, Sweden, Poland, and India.
Thailand’s infections have now totalled 27,713, after about 23,000 cases from the December 15 wave. While nearly 96% recover, including 62 released from care in the past day, 1,111 people are currently hospitalised. No new loss of life has been reported and the death toll remains at 90 people, according to the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration.
The CCSA expects the 14-day Covid-19 quarantine currently in place to be slowly phased out in the coming months. A 10-day isolation period will be required for Thais and foreigners who are unvaccinated but have tested negative in the previous 72 hours. Meanwhile, those who have been vaccinated, and with all tests and jabs required, will be quarantined 1 week. These new guidelines are set to begin on April 1 and continue to September 30. More details about the relaxation of quarantine times HERE.
After October 1, Covid-19 quarantine may be eliminated if several criteria are met and there is no major resurgence of Covid 19 infections in Thailand. Vaccination targets of at-risk groups must be reached, including 70% of medical staff, and the areas must be prepared to handle the influx of low-risk traveller.
800,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine are in Bangkok now, having arrived from China yesterday, and another 1 million jabs are expected to arrive in April. The current vaccines will be given in high-risk areas and to frontline medical workers throughout Thailand, according to a Facebook post by Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.
Globally the Covid-19 infections have reached 122.88 million with 2.71 million resulting deaths. The US, Brazil and India have had the most cases, with over 30 million in the US, nearly 12 million in Brazil, and about 11.5 million in India. Thailand’s 90 deaths rank 115th.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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World
India sees record Covid-19 infections, oxygen shortages

India is experiencing record infections and deaths due to Covid-19 and is now running dangerously low on oxygen supplies. The countries second wave of the virus includes a dangerous virus variant that is spreading quickly and has infected 3.5 million people just this month. In the last 24 hours, 295,000 new infections occurred with just over 2,000 deaths. Prime minister Narendra Modi said that India was in for a big fight and that the second wave of Covid-19 came like a storm.
India had done relatively well during the first wave of the coronavirus for a country dense with 1.3 billion inhabitants. In the last few weeks though people have let their guard down with millions attending religious festivals cricket matches huge weddings, and political rallies around the country. This coinciding with delays and even stopping of production for Covid-19 vaccines and medication along with a lack of oxygen being generated in India is leading to new levels of crisis.
With oxygen supplies dwindling throughout India, relatives of Covid-19 patients are buying black-market oxygen supplies for hyper-inflated prices. Some hospitals are said to be down to their last few hours of oxygen supplies. The health minister of New Delhi is pleading with the government to focus on the oxygen supply chain in India before it devolves into a serious crisis.
Mumbai is the centre of this most recent surge and oxygen shortages there are no better. One doctor said in the event of an oxygen shortage they would usually just relocate patients to another hospital, but now no hospital has the needed surplus. The prime minister said that the government, federal and local, along with private enterprise are working to increase oxygen supplies in India.
New Delhi is in the middle of a week-long lockdown and several other Indian States are facing shut down this weekend. Several countries are cancelling flights or moving India to advisory lists, urging their citizens not to travel there. The United Kingdom and the United States have both flagged India as unsafe to travel, while New Zealand and Hong Kong have completely banned flights.
Vaccination has been hit or miss in India, with early criticism for exporting jobs produced there while so few had been administered locally. Now India has stopped exporting AstraZeneca vaccines, and more than 130 million jabs have been given though supplies have still been limited. Data is expected in the next few weeks about the effect of the Indian Covid-19 variant. As of now, India is second to only the US in total cases with 15.6 million infections and over 180,000 deaths.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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Coronavirus (Covid-19)
Phuket requires Covid-19 vaccination or 72-hour test

To help wrangle the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak in Phuket, strict controls for everyone entering the island go into effect today until the end of April. The provincial communicable disease committee approved the measures in an effort to stop the proliferation of Covid-19 in the province. The new regulations state that only people who have received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine or have tested to be Coronavirus-free within 3 days of arrival, will be allowed to enter Phuket. Proper certification or documentation must be presented to verify this information – either a Covid-19 vaccination certificate or the results of a recent negative Covid-19 test.
Anyone attempting to enter Phuket without two jabs of the vaccine or a negative Covid-19 test within the last 72 hours will be charged 300 baht for a rapid antigen test at their port of entry. These tests generate results in about 15 minutes and then negative-tested visitors will be allowed to proceed. If a person receives the test and is diagnosed positive for Covid-19 they will be sent to medical facilities immediately for treatment.
All entrants to Phuket are also required to use the Mor Chana Covid-19 contact tracing app to check in and record their travel timelines. That mobile app is available at gophuget.com.
The new restrictions apply to local and foreign travellers except for people making deliveries that are not staying overnight. Those people will get a special certification from their companies to present at the checkpoint entrance to the island.
Phuket is now classified as a Red Zone province, one of 19 provinces throughout Thailand where infections are on the rise. 208 current Covid-19 infections were registered at the start of this week in Phuket.
In response to the increasing Covid-19 infections in Phuket, Surat Thani has made special restrictions for anyone travelling from Phuket to Surat Thani. Those people will be required to scan and register their trip through the “Save Surat” website before being quarantined for 14 days.
SOURCE: Thai PBS World
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Coronavirus (Covid-19)
Thailand to purchase additional 35 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine

PM Prayut Chan-o-cha says the Thai government will purchase another 35 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in addition to the 65 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The prime minister made a post on his Facebook page today announcing that Thailand will produce the additional doses from 2 or possibly 3 companies.
Out of the 35 million additional doses, 10 million to 15 million will be purchased by the private sector, led by the Board of Trade of Thailand. A government committee tasked with Covid-19 vaccine procurement made the decision to acquire 35 million more doses, according to Prayut.
Prayut also recently announced that the government plans to purchase 5 to 10 million doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech. The prime minister told reporters that the government is “still waiting for quotations and terms and conditions,” but they expect the vaccines to be delivered within the second half of the year.
So far, 572,000 people in Thailand have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to Reuters. The government plans to vaccinate half the population, or 35 million people, by the end of the year.
The Thai government has been criticized for heavily relying on AstraZeneca as the primary vaccine against the coronavirus. The vaccine will be locally produced by Siam Bioscience and the first 6 million doses are expected to be available by June.
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Issansucks
Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 10:41 am
Can we get any news about corrupt hospitals in Thailand? My Thai friend is being held hostage in pattaya and the doctors won’t give her test results they just say “we think you have covid you must stay 10 days”. They tested her pcr and antigen but won’t provide the result lab papers!
Then today they say “your positive you just stay 10 day”
Oh yeah well i don’t see chin buri in this list of new cases, this hospital in pattaya is full of sh*t and holding her hostage all because some asshat in hua hin said he lived with her even though he left pattaya well over a month ago and contracted covid in hua hin being a scumbag going to Gogo and massage daily!
Issan John
Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 12:40 pm
“While nearly 96% recover,…”
That is an APPALLING re-write of the original BP article, which writes that “a total of 26,512 (95.7%) have recovered,including 62 discharged from hospitals over the past 24 hours, and 1,111 people remain in hospitals.”
Come on, Thaiger, these re-writes of other media articles are just getting worse and worse.
Reading the BP articles it now appears that the changes reported here before to be taking place on 1 April were premature – to put it very, very mildly.
Thomas H.
Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 9:05 pm
Surprise, #Issansucks — Thailand is a country with laws and rules just like anyplace else and not the fantasyland of irresponsibility your friend wanted to escape to. Boo-hoo.
Entitled farang can be expected to just get up in the doctors’ faces even more if shown lab results, so why bother. (Username checks out.)
Issan John
Monday, March 22, 2021 at 12:52 am
His “friend” is supposedly Thai, Thomas H, which is why nothing he’s said makes any sense at all.
D-Boy
Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 6:59 pm
What happened? Dead silent!