Thailand News Today | Bars defy bans, Sandbox ‘still on’, vaccine rush | July 28

An optimistic Thai PM claims the country’s worst Covid-19 outbreak since the start of the pandemic should be over in 2 or 3 weeks, maybe 4. Another 12 people were arrested last night at an underground room as part of the latest Pattaya bar raid. The “Phuket Sandbox” is still on, but the uptick in coronavirus infections now poses a threat to the tourism experiment. Before the July 1 reopening, the government said it would reconsider the travel scheme if cases exceeded 90 Covid infections over a one week period. There were scenes of overcrowding reported at Bangkok’s Bang Sue station yesterday as people rushed to try to get a vaccine before walk-in registration ends.