Covid-Free Setting zones require all staff vaccinated by October 1

Starting October 1, Thailand will roll out their Covid-Free Setting measures in an effort to safely reopen businesses. Yesterday Department of Health Chief Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai announced that as part of that rollout, shopping centre employees and staff at other at-risk businesses must be fully vaccinated by that October 1 launch.

The Department of Health head made the declaration while visiting the Siam Paragon shopping centre in Bangkok yesterday where they are doing a test run of the Covid-Free Setting programme this month.

The plan is to launch these Covid-19 safety zones in order to get Thailand on the road back to normal life after months and months of Covid-19 restrictions and partial lockdowns and closures. But when these measures go into effect next month, all employees in these Covid-Free Setting areas must be fully vaccinated as well as take an antigen test kit every week.

Any employee working in the Covid-Free Setting that has only had the first of 2 vaccines will have to undergo a risk assessment and test negative for Covid-19 before being permitted to return to work.

Customers of these Covid-Free Setting zones will be subject to similarly stringent regulations to enter. They will need to have both doses to be fully vaccinated, or at least present a negative antigen test before being admitted to one of these safe zones.

If, even with all these precautions, a Covid-19 outbreak occurs, the shopping centres and businesses must have plans in place to contain any cluster quickly. These plans must include treatment of infected employees as well as plans in place for quarantine to quickly isolate anyone as soon as an infection is discovered.

SOURCE: Nation Thailand