BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand has reported 527 new cases of coronavirus, most of them migrant workers who were already isolated, and the government said it is restricting the movement of people across the country.
Thailand is battling a sudden surge in the virus after months of almost no cases of domestic transmission. Field hospitals were being installed in parts of five provinces with many cases.
Large parts of the country, including the capital Bangkok, are under various containment restrictions, and the government has said it will also restrict travel between provinces affected by the virus to necessary goods, cargo and travel, and establish checkpoints on some roads.
Of the new cases confirmed on Tuesday, 439 were migrants, 82 were local broadcasts and six were quarantined travelers, said the COVID-19 Situation Administration Center. The total was down from 745 on Monday, the highest record in Thailand, where the first case of the virus outside China was detected last January.
Most of the increase since last month has occurred in Samut Sakhon province, near Bangkok, among migrant workers who live in dormitories and employees in fish markets and factories. A field hospital close to the market is treating infected migrants.
Although it canceled public activities and meetings and closed schools, bars and other places of concentration of people, the government has not yet taken measures as rigid as those it imposed in March – when it managed to eradicate local transmission.
Malls and department stores remain open with the required social distance, and dinner in restaurants is allowed until 9 pm
Instead, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha begged people to stay at home.
“We don’t want to block the entire country because we know what the problems are, so can you block yourself?” he said. “This is up to everyone, if you don’t want to be infected, stay home for 14 to 15 days.”
The government has also struggled to acquire more vaccines after an initial period of complacency.
Prayuth said on Monday that Thailand is trying to secure 63 million doses, which would not cover half of its population of around 70 million. So far, it has about 28 million doses ordered by the end of the year.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– Sri Lankan authorities say they will fully reopen the country’s two international airports and allow tourists who undergo coronavirus testing to return from January 21. Foreign tourists were banned in March, when the first wave of COVID-19 appeared. In a pilot project last month, hundreds of tourists were allowed to leave Ukraine in a “travel bubble”. In the new program, tourists must take the test in their country 72 hours before the flight, upon arrival at the hotel and seven days later. Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said Tuesday that the decision to reopen airports and tourism was made because of the plight of people who depend on the tourism industry. Tourism accounts for about 5% of Sri Lanka’s GDP and employs 250,000 people directly and up to 2 million indirectly. Sri Lanka has reported 45,498 cases of COVID-19, including 215 deaths.
– Qantas Airways started selling seats on international flights as of July 1, despite the Australian government’s ban on leaving most of the country’s residents. Australia’s leading airline said on Tuesday that it is selling tickets in the expectation that international travel “will begin again in July”. “We continue to review and update our international programming in response to the situation of the developing COVID-19,” the agency said in a statement. Since March, Australia has prevented most citizens and residents from leaving so that they do not bring the coronavirus back to the island. New Zealand travelers are the only ones who saved 14 days of quarantine in hotels upon arrival in Australia in recognition of the success of their close neighbor in controlling the virus. Australian Transport Minister Michael McCormack said the borders will be reopened when international arrivals do not pose a risk to Australians. “Decisions about when international travel will resume will be made by the Australian government,” said McCormack in a statement.
– China designated parts of Hebei province, near Beijing, as a high-risk coronavirus zone after 14 new cases of COVID-19 were found. Eleven of these cases occurred in the city of Shijiazhuang. Parts of the city will undergo more stringent tests and isolation measures, and areas in another city in Hebei with new cases have been registered as medium-risk areas. Medical investigators were investigating whether a single event, such as a family reunion, had been the source of many of the cases. Suspicious of another wave of infections, China is asking migrant workers to stay put during the Lunar New Year holiday. Classes are being dispensed earlier and tourists are being told not to come to Beijing on vacation.
– Indonesia will begin the COVID-19 vaccination on January 13, with President Joko Widodo the first beneficiary. Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said Tuesday that other government ministers will receive the vaccine after the president. A broader program will start the next day, prioritizing 1.3 million health professionals and 17.4 million civil servants. China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine is yet to receive emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Supervision Agency and halal approval from the Indonesian Ulema Council. The Ministry of Health says it will take 15 months to vaccinate its total population of 181.5 million people. On Tuesday, the country reported 7,445 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the confirmed total to 779,548, including 23,109 deaths.
– India has reported 20 more cases of a new, rapidly spreading variant of coronavirus originally found in Britain, totaling 58. Health officials have not said whether the infections were found in people who returned from the UK or spread locally. Overall, confirmed coronavirus cases, however, have remained on a downturn since reaching their peak in mid-September. India recorded more than 10.3 million cases and more than 150,000 deaths. Soon, she plans a massive vaccination program targeting about 300 million people by August. The government has granted emergency use approval for two vaccines, one developed by the University of Oxford and the UK-based drug maker AstraZeneca, and another by Indian company Bharat Biotech and a government institute. The Indian vaccine was hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a success in India’s self-reliance effort, but it was controversial because the country’s regulator has not published information on its effectiveness. The watchdog All India Drug Action Network said he was “perplexed to understand the scientific logic” in approving “a vaccine that has been studied incompletely”.