The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) is considering renewing some disease-control measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, including reducing the number of eventgoers and public transport passengers in the wake of at least one new local case of COVID-19 in Chiang Mai.
Gen Nattaphon Narkphanit, secretary-general of the National Security Council and head of the CCSA’s panel on the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, will call a meeting to discuss strict containment measures.
Renewal of disease-control measures that have already been relaxed will be considered carefully, the source said, noting they include reducing the number of people at concerts and in public transport vehicles.
Five new confirmed COVID-19 cases linked to Myanmar were reported on Friday, two Thai women and a Thai man infected in Myanmar who sneaked back across the border, a businesswoman who travelled onboard an aeroplane with two previously confirmed patients, and a person in Chiang Rai.
The 51-year-old businesswoman is from Sing Buri, Dr Sophon Iamsirithaworn, director of the general communicable disease division under the Disease Control Department, said.
She flew from the northernmost province of Chiang Rai to Bangkok on the same flight as two confirmed cases who had returned from working in Tachileik, a border town in Myanmar, without passing through immigration or quarantine.
He said health officials were questioning the woman to identify where she most likely contracted the virus.
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The woman told officials she had not visited Myanmar. If that is verified, she will be considered as another case of local infection, Dr Iamsirithaworn said.
According to media reports, the Sing Buri woman visited Chiang Rai from 25th November to 28th November on business.
On 28th November, she took Nok Air flight DD8717 from Chiang Rai airport to Bangkok’s Don Mueang. Two women who have since been confirmed as cases coming from Tachilek were on the same flight. One of them lives in Bangkok and the other in Phichit province.
From Bangkok, the Sing Buri woman returned to her factory in Ang Thong province and later went to her home in adjacent Sing Buri province.
The three other new cases were two Thai women and a Thai man who sneaked back across the border from Tachileik. The 32-year-old man worked as a DJ at a hotel there. He was receiving treatment at Nakornping Hospital in Chiang Mai. The two women also worked at the same hotel.
They were receiving treatment at a hospital in Chiang Rai and officials are contacting people who had been in close contact with them.
According to the CCSA, a local infection case in Chiang Rai was a 28-year-old Thai man working at an entertainment venue. He was receiving treatment at a hospital in Chiang Rai. The man came into close contact with an infected woman from Phayao who returned from Tachileik.
In Yala’s Betong district, a Thai woman who returned from Malaysia on 25th November was confirmed on Friday to be infected with COVID-19 while in a local quarantine facility.
The Public Health Ministry has also asked visitors to Farm Festival at Singha Park in Chiang Rai on the night of 29th November to self-quarantine for 14 days after an infected woman visited there.
The CCSA on Friday morning posted a message on Facebook saying: “The Chiang Rai provincial public health office has sought a list of Thai nationals working at a service venue in Tachileik, which is the origin of the spread of COVID-19, as well as those working at other businesses and entertainment venues.
“Those who enter the country at the Thai-Myanmar Friendship checkpoint and other natural passages must be checked to stop the disease spreading.”
In Kanchanaburi, security has again been ordered tightened along the border with Myanmar to stop illegal border-crossers who may bring in COVID-19 in the lead up to the New Year.
Kanchanaburi governor Jirakiart Phumsawat said on Friday the CCSA recently met to discuss the illegal entry by 10 infected Thai workers returning from nearby Tachileik.
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