Phuket relaxes checkpoint requirements to help tourists and health officials

Phuket is looking to bring in more domestic tourists and reduce the workload for healthcare officials who have to screen visitors, by reworking their health surveillance measures, says the provincial office. The measures are focused on the Chatchai checkpoint.

Yesterday, Provincial governor Narong Woonciew announced that over 30,000 people have visited Phuket via the Sandbox programme that was launched 2 months prior. The Bangkok Post notes that the approach of the high tourism season that goes from November to February means many domestic tourists should arrive in Phuket soon.

This fast-approaching season has driven officials to modify public health measures in place at the Chatchai road checkpoint, a location that sees a good deal of traffic going in and out of Phuket. As many as 700 to 800 people go through the checkpoint a day. This has resulted in a heavy workload for health officials who must balance their duties taking care of Covid patients with testing incoming visitors.

Narong says visitors can now get tested at specific medical outlets in their provinces and then give their results to officials at the Chatchai checkpoint, rather than doing a swab test on the spot. Concurrently, Phuket plans to vaccinate 200,000 people with booster doses that use injections that go under the skin, sometime this month. Narong went on to say that the reason cases haven’t decreased in Phuket is because they continue to perform mass-testing in the province.

“We will be doing mass testing for a while longer because we want to tackle the spread of the virus”.

He adds that they hope to bring down the case numbers before October, or in 4 days. Narong continued on to say that there are now plenty of beds for patients who have limited symptoms and that patients will receive satisfactory medical attention if they get sick while vacationing in Phuket. Phuket residents can book an appointment to get their booster shot through this site, until the end of the month.

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SOURCE: Bangkok Post