BANGKOK (AP) – When COVID-19 was recently diagnosed with Thailand’s transport minister, it was Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha who got a headache.
Prayuth was not particularly praised for his leadership last year against the coronavirus, but for much of 2020, Thailand has been battling the disease to a halt, with low infection and death rates envied by more developed countries.
Now an outbreak of night spots in the capital Bangkok has caused new infections, suggesting that the country may have had a false sense of security before mass vaccinations began.
On Thursday, 1,543 new cases were confirmed, taking the total to 37,453, with 97 deaths. Although much better than most other countries, the cases of Thailand were tripled in the first three months of this year than the country had last year, and its daily numbers are rising rapidly.
The new outbreak has spread to mostly young, affluent and mobile Thais, and some of the newly infected have the more contagious variant first identified in the UK
The government says Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob was picked up by an assistant who involved some of the contagious night spots, including a club described by Thai media as a glorified strip club blatantly violating social measures. distance removed. This has contributed to widespread skepticism about the government’s handling of the latest crisis.
Thailand has only recently begun to facilitate strict border controls, which have eliminated most travelers in recent years, especially important tourists whose spending supports millions of jobs. The restrictions included mandatory tests and fourteen-day quarantines for almost all arrivals.
Officials appear reluctant to impose comprehensive restrictions, such as curfews, bans on serving alcohol and closing bars, parks and shopping malls, which was the rule last year when Songkran Thai New Year holidays were canceled.
The week continued the holiday, and as many as a million Thais visited family or beaches, even though some hospitals stopped testing COVID-19 due to a rush of thousands of people worried about being exposed or evidence was needed. they were virus free. Some hospitals claim that the test supply is running out, but the government said the real reason was an unintended consequence of a well-intentioned regulation. They were expected to admit infected patients immediately, but believed that there were not enough beds to accommodate them.
Officials threatened to allow referrals, filling thousands of beds at field hospitals that had to house those with confirmed infections, according to government protocol to isolate all known patients. Online photos show exhausted medical staff in protective gear sleeping on their desks and chairs.
A worst-case scenario of the Department of Disease Control’s epidemiology department calculated that the country could see a maximum of 28,678 daily cases without security measures.
“The situation is still worrying; more measures will come, ”Dr Opas Karnkavinpong, director-general of the department, warned on Tuesday.
Gen. Natthapon Nakpanich, chief operating officer of the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration, expanded on Wednesday, saying the government was considering setting up locks in several areas after the holiday. These include Bangkok and the surrounding provinces, Prachuab Khiri Khan in the south, where the resort town of Hua Hin is located, the northern city of Chiang Mai, and parts of the East Coast, where another popular holiday destination, Pattaya, is located.
The government on Tuesday raised eyebrows by posting photos of soldiers spraying forest areas along the border, although experts believe the biggest virus risk is in the air.
The latest crisis has made an Achilles heel in Thailand’s strategy strikingly clear, and the failure to get enough doses this year to vaccinate a targeted 70% of the population, deemed necessary to achieve herd immunity.
To date, less than 1% of the 69 million Thais have been vaccinated, a smaller percentage than in many of its neighbors in Southeast Asia.
Thailand’s early success in fighting the virus was remarkable given the millions of international travelers, especially from China, who are usually offered every year. The first case outside China was a Chinese traveler whose fever was detected at the Bangkok airport.
It is unclear why Thailand and several other Southeast Asian countries were able to curb the pandemic much of last year. Thailand’s extensive and experienced public health system has played a major role, and the Prayuth government has generally relied on the advice of medical experts.
But the country has paid a heavy price for its aggressive attempt to control outbreaks: the economy shrank by 6.1% in 2020, and the revival of business makes tourism payments soon unlikely. Household debt rose by 42% last year as incomes fell or stopped, to 87% of the country’s GDP.
And Thailand’s happy series faded late last year, when a virus group was found among migrant workers working in factories and seafood markets and living in crowded dormitories. Serious restrictions and a massive test campaign near the epicenter of the outbreak appear to have contained it after a few weeks.
“We do not want to lock up the whole country because we know what the problems are, so can you lock everyone up?” Prayuth said at the time. “It’s for everyone, if you do not want to get infected, then stay home for 14 to 15 days.”
This flare-up drew attention to the government’s vaccination plans, just as US and European countries were doubling their vaccinations.
In early January, Prayuth said Thailand was trying to get 63 million doses, which at two doses per person would cover less than half of its population. Local production of the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to begin in June.
Complaints have emerged that well-connected companies could unfairly benefit from government contracts to produce and deliver vaccines, which are denied by the government and the companies involved. Prayuth’s political opponents piled up and complained about mismanagement, a lack of transparency and the failure to diversify beyond the AstraZeneca and Chinese Sinovac vaccines.
Registration for vaccines for the general public begins in early May, and vaccinations begin later in the month. Vaccinations have so far mostly gone to medical workers, areas considered particularly high risk, and communities that could be opened earlier as so-called bubbles where vaccinated foreign tourists can be allowed to go without being quarantined.
On Wednesday, 1,681 people received their first shot and 388 their second shots. So far, only 73,949 people have been fully vaccinated.