Thailand

Updates on international travel to Thailand

Published

1 month ago

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Caitlin Ashworth

Updates on international travel to Thailand | Thaiger

Stock photo by Bao Menglong for Unsplash

Thailand to introduce “area quarantine” for international visitors from April

From next month, foreign visitors to the Kingdom will be able to experience the delights of “area quarantine”, after the government confirmed the scheme for 5 provinces: Phuket, Krabi, Chiang Mai, Chon Buri and Surat Thani, which includes the popular tourist islands Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan. Some of the tourist destinations are considered areas of “economic significance” and are included in the first phase of the Covid-19 vaccine campaign.

Read the full story HERE.

Thailand considering vaccine passport policy in bid to revive international tourism

A so-called vaccine passport, declaring a traveller has been vaccinated against Covid-19, would potentially allow foreign visitors to enter Thailand without going through a mandatory quarantine. Thailand’s Tourism Minister says he has asked the Public Health Ministry to approve a vaccine passport scheme, but the government is waiting on a statement from the World Heath Organisation on the matter before moving forward with a decision.

Read the full story HERE.

“Sealed route” set at Bangkok airport for international transfers

International transits and transfers are now allowed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. A so-called “sealed route” is being set up in the airport to ensure the passengers with a layover in Thailand don’t come in contact with the other passengers. Passengers need to have the required documents including a fit-to-fly certificate, travel insurance that covers Covid-19 expenses and a negative Covid-19 test result issued no more than 72 hours before departure.

Read the full story HERE.

Foreign tourists travelling to Thailand must now download a Covid-19 tracking application

Foreign tourists travelling to Thailand will need to download the Covid-19 contact tracking mobile application “ThailandPlus” before arriving in Thailand and use it throughout their stay. The app will notify travellers if they have been in close contact with any confirmed cases.

Throughout their trip to Thailand, tourists will need to keep the app “on” and check in and out of various locations by scanning QR codes. The app requires access to the smartphone’s GPS , but the Tourism Authority of Thailand says the information collected will only be used for public health purposes and will not infringe on the tourists’ right to privacy.

Read the full story HERE.

Thailand tourism sector seeks to reopen the country by July

The campaign Open Thailand Safely is urging the Thai government to reopen Thailand to international tourists by July 2021. The campaign there’s 5 reasons why Thailand should reopen by July.

The majority of citizens in many source markets will have been vaccinated by then.
It gives time to Thai medical authorities to vaccinate both front line staff in hospitality settings in Thailand and/or vulnerable citizens around the country.
It gives international travellers time to make travel plans and bookings.
The date gives time to airlines, hotels, tour operators and others to start marketing and sales and get ready for tourism operations to commence
It will take Thailand at least a year, and maybe longer, to return to the large numbers of international visitors that it had before the Covid-19 crisis.

Read the full story HERE.

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News Categories: Thailand Tourism

22 Comments

Stefan Svensson

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 5:41 pm

Great news

Reply
Toby Andrews

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 5:43 pm

Oh a new hoop to jump through. The tourist now has to have an app put on their smart phone.
I have a better idea. Just vaccinate all persons who are likely to be in contact with tourists.
Of course tourists have to be vaccinated, accepted.
Anyone know how many Thais have been vaccinated yet? 7221 so far – a joke!
21 million people in the UK have had their first vaccination. 964.000 are fully vaccinated.
27.8 million fully vaccinated in the United States.
It is democracy, Thailand, run by properly elected people, not peasants in uniform, who put little model houses outside their homes for spirits to live in.
.
And even more, put food and drink in the little houses for the spirits to eat and drink!!!! and when this is still there next day, guess what? They put more food and drink in the houses!!!!!
Perhaps they think the spirits are on a diet!!!!!!!!!
.
lol

Reply
Ben

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 8:51 pm

Toby, in America we say “Cmon Man”. Thailand’s religious practices are cool and don’t hurt anyone.

The latest here is we’ll probably reach herd immunity by summer through vaccinations and 25+% of the population having been previously infected. Restaurants, movie houses and other entertainment venues are starting to open at limited capacity. Disneyland is opening soon. It’s now hard to get a restaurant reservation in LA. Even on a Monday or Tuesday. There is pent up demand and it’ll be a sonic boom the second half of 2021.

By hook or crook Thailand will open up without quarantine in 2021 because many other countries that compete with Thailand for tourists, that are closed now, will be fully open to the vaccinated. And I’m not talking about Cypress or the Maldives. July is optimistic for herd immunity in Thailand. It’ll be more like the fall at the earliest. The path to this is not rocket science and they’ll figure it out.

Reply
Dreqo

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 8:56 pm

No one’s interested. The ship has long since sailed, anchored elsewhere and sank. Give it up already, eh? The glory days were dying prior to the new sars version, it’s official now. Give, it, up. Move, on. Accept, reality. The cash, is gone. Game, over. The jig, is up. Etc, etc and so on.

Reply
MARK GOODYEAR

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 9:15 pm

Yes Toby, it’s fucking Halloween here every day in Thailand! I bet even Issan Rubber Johnnie has one outside his frontage. Maybe a little bottle of Fanta and some fruit for the ‘ghosts’ to eat!? Strange that they never seem to “eat” human food or drink!! I’s always left there!! Maybe if you put a pot of finger-licking good, KFC Zinger burger and large fries it might be gone by the next morning!

Reply
Crispy

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 9:24 pm

What is your complaint? Do you need more time to understand, accept and respect Thai culture? Meaning through symbolism. Please try.

Reply
Issan John

Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 9:48 pm

What “news”, Stefan?

SO WHERE ARE THE “UPDATES”, THAIGER?

Reply
Roger C

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 12:23 am

So what qualifies as a fit to fly certificate?

Reply
Tim Houston

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 1:43 am

They should stop trying inventing the square wheel

Reply
Fred glue

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 2:42 am

Toby Andrews your Séance mettings every morning is not working for you. You keep connecting too
issan john, and the results are showing. 🤺

Reply
Sanuk

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 5:06 am

Toby and Isaan John arguing is what I come into the comments for.
Keep the free entertainment up fellas.

Reply
TC

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 7:28 am

Hmmm!
“…but the government is waiting on a statement from the World Heath”.
I will be very very surprised if WHO puts its neck on the line to endorse this.
Still recovering from the joke that was the enquiry into China/Wuhin and Covid. A complete joke showing up yet another sham organization. Combine with the UN they make for a woke lefty love fest not worth feeding let alone funding.

Reply
Indiana Scott

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 7:33 am

I am will to show my vacuum records but that it I don’t like being herded or spy On

Reply
Ian

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 5:02 pm

Add the United nations to that TC what a waste of money that lot are all talk and no action

Reply
LondonAl

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 8:19 pm

The Thai government come in for an awful lot of stick here but from where I’m sitting in UK they’ve done an amazing job in containing the virus and they’re not doing anything different to the rest of Australasia by not letting in tourists.

They seem quite proactive in looking at ideas for getting tourists back as quickly as possible, but understandably they want to be sure those tourists don’t have Covid, I believe that is now possible with a combination of vaccine and testing, hopefully they’ll agree.

Reply
Mario

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 1:39 am

Something seems to be neglected : if you had the vaccine, that doesn’t mean you are not a carrier of the virus, so quarantine can’t be bypassed. The only thing the vaccine does is protect you from getting ill, it doesn’t do anything to the virus crawling around on your body. The virus can survive up to 5 days on object surfaces, so a 1 week quarantine would be more sufficient, right ?

Reply
Patrick

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 5:57 am

Let me understand this. So if you are vaccinated you still have to take a covid test 3 days earlier and then pay an inflated travel insurance policy to come? I love Thailand, I’ve been 30 times and I really miss it but no thanks. I’ll take my dollars and go to Vietnam which is cheaper and less corrupt cops. By agreeing to these conditions you are being subservient to a Tyrannical dictatorship. Just stay away be patient. People power will win. Money talks.

Reply
Baroness

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 11:39 am

Why would you need an insurance against Covid-19 if you have been vaccinated? Does this mean you can still get infected and sick after being vaccinated? So what is the purpose of vaccination? Because being vaccinated or not you may still test positive and then you’ll go directly to the hospital. Conclusion: Vaccination does not make a difference for the Thai tourism industry and for the tourist.

Reply
Nick

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 12:11 pm

They will have to scrap all the hoops before I go back, particularly having to fork out for a test in both directions. If the result comes back back late or is inconclusive you miss your flight.

Reply
Mark

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 2:13 pm

Good to hear that the yanks can achieve herd immunity 10 years before everyone else. A magic snake oil bleach vaccine that can fly down a telephone wire maybe. Thailand has had a very low infection count which is why they maybe haven’t felt the urgency to vaccinate. I believe they underestimated the importance of tourism to their economy however, which can happen when the traffic is going your way for many years. A bit of complacency probably, that’s all.
What they haven’t done, is let half a million people die before organising their vaccine program, discouraged prevention measures, and aren’t opening Disneyland when the infection rate is out of control.
If you don’t like the way they are dealing with a very real killer pandemic, then go to Brazil for a holiday. It would help us all out.

Reply
David Mann

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 3:30 pm

Covid-19 vaccines are not a cure or a 100% protection against catching and harbouring the virus. The vaccines simply prepare your immune system to be able to deal with the infection in a timely manner. This means that for the vast majority of people vaccinated, they will either be unaware they have caught the virus, or show little or no symptoms. As such, life can go on as normal. However, what is not yet known is the extent to which a vaccinated and infected person can incubate/grow and pass on the virus to others. This therefore potentially leaves non-vaccinated people still at risk. The picture relating to how infectious vaccinated people are is changing almost daily. As nations roll out the vaccine more and more data is becoming available. There was a recent incident in Germany where some care home residents were found to have been infected with Covid-19, even though they had been vaccinated. This is normal! The key thing however, is that non of the elderly residents fell particularly sick or needed hospital care. Their bodies were more able to cope with the virus. There is a growing set of data which suggests the so called “viral load” that a vaccinated person can carry makes them “less likely” to pass on the virus. Phrases like “less likely” and “the probability of” etc all show that this is not an all or nothing situation. It’s about risk and probability. There will inevitably be people who are vaccinated who go on to die from Covid-19 complications. The problem for governments that closed down is that when you open again and the first person becomes infected, the media and commentators seize on it and the politicians run scared. It’s a crazy situation if compared to things such as road safety. We all know the idea of zero road deaths is impossible, yet we still drive cars. A vaccinated world from Covid-19 will be the same. It is possible over years, the virus will decline in number and strength and may even cease to exist or be endemic in the population. However, that is many years away I suspect. Maybe never!

Reply
LondonAl

Monday, March 8, 2021 at 4:58 pm

Mario that is simply not true, if it is perhaps you could produce the evidence, we have over 20m people vaccinated in UK and not one of them has been found to be carrying or transmitting Covid, and even if you are right it would be picked up with testing.

Reply

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Caitlin Ashworth

Caitlin Ashworth is a writer from the United States who has lived in Thailand since 2018. She graduated from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies in 2016. She was a reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette In Massachusetts. She also interned at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia and Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida.

Hot News

Man missing several days found dead in temple well

Published

44 mins ago

Monday, April 19, 2021

Neill Fronde

Man missing several days found dead in temple well | Thaiger

PHOTO: The man, missing for 4 or 5 days was found dead in a well.

The search is over for a man missing for several days when his body was discovered yesterday at the bottom of a well this morning. Surachet Kaenchan, a 37 year old man, had been missing for 4 or 5 days. He was from the Moo 13 village of the Muang district of Nakhom Phanom, a district on the Laos border in northeastern Thailand. The man was said to have a mental disorder. A Muang police duty officer said that Surachet’s body was found at the bottom of the well and reported at about 9 am. The well is at the Wat Tha Nong Chan temple in the same Moo 13 village in tambon Tha Kho. Rescue units and police officers were dispatched to the scene to investigate.

The well is about 12 metres deep and 2 metres wide and a sickly smell was reported coming from it. On closer inspection, a body was seen floating at the bottom of the well 10 metres down in about 2 metres of water. A rescue team member descended into the well to retrieve the body, hauling it up with a rope.

The abbot of the temple has spoken to relatives of the deceased man, who informed the abbot about Surachet’s mental disorder. After being missing for several days, the search came to a tragic conclusion with the discovery of his body in the well, but police have opened an investigation now into the circumstances of his death. There was no physical harm on the retrieved body and no traces of any sort of attack.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

Coronavirus (Covid-19)

Covid UPDATE: 1,767 new infections for Sunday. Provincial totals.

Published

8 hours ago

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Tim Newton

Covid UPDATE: 1,767 new infections for Sunday. Provincial totals. | Thaiger

1,767 new Covid infections were reported this morning, the highest ever daily report of new cases in Thailand. The spokesperson for the CCSA also reported that there were also 128 people in serious condition, with 28 people on ventilators.

608,521 people have now received at least their first dose of Covid vaccine.

Bangkok continues to lead the way in the new infections although the clusters are popping up right around the country now. Bangkok reported 347 new infections, Chon Buri with 229, Chiang Mai with 164, Nonthaburi, just north and west of Bangkok, 100, Prachuap Khiri Khan 66 and Samut Prakan 64. Locally, Phuket officials announced an additional 26 cases today, taking the tally in this latest cluster to 156 infections*.

Covid UPDATE: 1,767 new infections for Sunday. Provincial totals. | News by Thaiger Only 2 cases today were imported, everyone else who tested positive were living in Thailand.

The total number of infections in Thailand has now reached 42,352 people. There has been 2 additional deaths reported in the past 24 hours, taking that total to 101 dead from Covid-related disease. 13,569 people remain in state-monitored care.

Some provinces are adding their own restrictions, including demanding negative Covid tests if you’ve arrived from a red zone – Krabi and Trat have announced this already. The only exceptions are if you’ve had full doses of Covid vaccine or have just come from quarantine. Chiang Rai has announced a ‘request’ that citizens stay at home for the next 14 days.

In Phuket, the closure of entertainment venues has been further extended to the start of May.

Expect more provinces to make similar announcements in the next few days.

If you are travelling, or planning to travel, it would be recommended to pre-load the Mor Chana app on your phones and fill out the information. This will help avoid some delays as you arrive in new provinces.

*Readers should also realise that the local provincial health officials report daily as well. Those totals don’t usually find their way into the national daily tally until the next day.

Covid UPDATE: 1,767 new infections for Sunday. Provincial totals. | News by Thaiger

Coronavirus (Covid-19)

Shortage of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients worrisome

Published

10 hours ago

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Neill Fronde

Shortage of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients worrisome | Thaiger

FILE PHOTO: Empty beds for Covid-19 patients are getting harder to find.

A shortage of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients is spreading throughout Thailand, as the Coronavirus surges through the country, and people are getting desperate to secure a bed for their loved ones. Even celebrities are posting on social media in an attempt to get a space in the rapidly filling hospitals. Government officials say there are enough beds for everyone with Covid-19 but not all beds are in luxury facilities. The National Health Security Office says a 700-person waiting list exists for Covid-19 infected patients to get a hospital bed. The NHSO performs daily check-ups and advice anyone needing help to call 1330 or the Department of Medical Services at 1668.

The president of the Private Hospital Association asserts that the shortage is not as dire as it seems, and a lot of the problem stems from how private hospitals are handling bed allocation. He claims that private hospitals didn’t make proper arrangements and are not referring Covid-19 infected patients out of their medical network in order to charge for treatment even though the government is paying for Covid-19 expenses.

Part of the problem is that hospitals are required to admit all patients as soon as they test positively for Coronavirus to avoid spreading. As a result, some private hospitals have stopped testing for Covid-19 when they don’t have beds to accommodate them.

25,000 extra beds have been requested by the government to beef up hospital capacity along with the quick building of makeshift field hospitals. The Health Minister encourages hospitals to partner with hotels in the recently launched “hospitel” program to handle patients and free up ICU beds for more severe Covid-19 infections.

The Ministry of Public Health is considering self-treatment at home for patients who live alone when hospitals hit capacity. The Health Minister requested Friday a self-care guidebook be created by the Department of Medical Services designed for stay-at-home Covid-19 patients who may need to treat themselves. Asymptomatic patients will be the most likely to be assigned to self-care at home if they live alone and will not spread the virus.

The National Institute for Emergency Medicine and Erawan Medical Centre Bangkok of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration are working to create more beds and asking people to stay calm. They say Covid-19 beds are still available in Bangkok though numbers are limited. As of now, 9,183 beds exist in total with 4,244 still available, including new beds added to Bang Khun Thian Geriatric Hospital and field hospitals at Bangkok Arena and Chalerm Phrakiat Bang Bon Stadium.

In the meantime, even celebrities have found themselves scrambling to find hospital beds for Covid-19 infected friends and family. Star Chiang Mai United footballer Boworn Tapla contracted Covid-19 on April 12 and then later discovered his wife and 2 daughters also were infected. After being placed in a long queue by the hospital that diagnosed them, Boworn posted a plea for help on Instagram. After 4 days, they finally found beds for his family at Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health in Bangkok, and yesterday Chiang Mai United management and the chairman of Chiang Mai provincial administrative organisation.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post