Bangkok will not go into total lockdown, but construction worker camps will be closed for 1 month
Migrant Workers (Takaeshiro / Shutterstock.com)
Bangkok's total lockdown has been rejected by the government as it will further damage Thailand's already fragile economy. However, the government has decided to close infectious and high-risk areas, including construction worker camps in the Greater Bangkok region and four southern border provinces, for 30 days from Monday.
The government will also impose travel restrictions on people from high-risk areas to prevent transmission of the virus, but there will be no travel ban. A proposal for the measures was presented by the Department of Disease Control (DDC) at a meeting with the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Doctors had previously called for a total lockdown of Bangkok for seven days amid fears of a shortage of hospital beds and healthcare staff in Bangkok given the rise in new Covid-19 infections.
The measures that are now being taken mean that the construction worker camps in Bangkok, the surrounding provinces and in Pattani, Yala, Songkhla and Narathiwat will be closed for a month. The Department of Labor will compensate unemployed workers during that period, Prayut says. This means that construction projects must also be temporarily halted and construction contracts may be extended, according to the prime minister. It is estimated that there are more than 400 construction worker camps in Bangkok alone, many of which are populated by migrant workers from neighboring Myanmar. Conditions are often appalling.
Furthermore, Prayut has ordered to increase the number of beds in hospitals in Bangkok. The Ministry of Health has to arrange 100 extra beds for Covid-19 patients and build additional intensive care units.
Source: Bangkok Post
If it's worth it as Thailand indicates in charts that almost 9 million vaccinations have already been put, of which just over 2,5 million as a 2nd shot, then Thailand definitely deserves a few compliments. Just compare it with the Belgian injection situation: it has been going on for months, in December last year still delivering sneering to the Netherlands and now at the end of June no further than 6,7 million vaccines, of which 3,7 million completely. Let's hope that Thailand will be able to continue at this pace and be ready by the end of the year and thus manage to survive the winter high season.
Just because tourists and locals are fully vaccinated does not automatically mean that everyone, from every country, is welcome in the pre-pandemic way. Far from it.
I foresee that Thailand will continue to ban tourists from infected areas for a long time to come (if the measure of fear in Thailand is followed, almost the whole world will be banned for now), quarantine, mandatory apps and testing, restrictions in domestic travel etc etc.
Not to mention the government's possible reaction if even 1 foreigner brings in the virus or a mutant of it.
The only logical decision. The economy should now take precedence. Life isn't fair but everyone will die one day and it doesn't matter if it's covid, cancer or traffic. The majority must continue as it has been for centuries. Trying to extend life is a luxury and the big question is why you would want to do that and the government has a clear position.
I understand that the camps are closed, but with the residents in it!!!
What another drama for those poor slobs who are already miserable.
There is absolutely no sleeping accommodation for hundreds of construction workers in those construction sites. How are they going to do that? Idd, poor bastards; severely underpaid, hard work and long working days (nights) and now being locked up for 1 month with payment of only half their wages.
Where do they normally sleep? Thought the problem was correct that when sleeping one is accommodated in sleep chains
and so on and so on. That is why it was first possible to continue working because after all, you do not transfer a virus in the sun and outside air, but you do when you are indoors together.
That there is underpayment is also nonsense; enough factories where people can also go to work and many come from neighboring countries and people go to work in Thailand precisely because they earn more than in the home country or earn more as a Thai than by working elsewhere in Thailand.
Probably because they work in shifts and therefore also sleep. So for 2 you have enough with 1 bed. Very common all over the world.
After work, they are rounded up in small tricks and taken to a place to sleep elsewhere, as I have seen regularly. They will probably have to go into quarantine there, but not on the construction site itself, as the message says, because there is no sleeping accommodation there.
My advice, following what other countries are doing that are a bit more thoughtful and have a more competent government, would be:
1. do not rely too much on rapid Covid testing and do not build policy on it;
https://www.healthline.com/health/how-accurate-are-rapid-covid-tests#advantages-of-rapid-testing
2. vaccinate the weak, elderly, overweight people as soon as possible;
3. then donate as many vaccines as possible to poor countries;
4. have asymptomatic patients stay at home for 14 days unless they live together in large groups;
5. let prisoners go home (with control, ankle bracelet, etc.) who are there for minor offenses;
6. bear all costs of admissions to private and public hospitals;
7. transport the sick (with army transport planes and helicopters: good for image) in the absence of ICUs in Bangkok to other districts where ICUs are empty.
That's a sensible list of measures, Chris. Prayut said everything can open again on October 1, I think it will be December 1. Should be possible if the vaccinations go a little faster.
The majority of Thais are also against the country opening on October 1.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2139231/majority-disagree-with-reopening-the-country-in-120-days-nida-poll
You can ask the question why many Thais are against reopening.
Many always answer the exact opposite of what the government says.
At the lockdowns, many indicated it was outrageous, they wouldn't die of cocid but of starvation, and demanded the country open ASAP. Better a small risk of covid than a big risk of bankruptcy.
Now that the government is indicating, we want to open as soon as possible, priority to the economy, but we are taking a risk on covid, you get opposite reactions from government opponents.
It turns out that establishing a relationship between the number of vaccinations (of Thais and foreign tourists) and stopping all restrictions is not logical in the Thai situation.
In France, with 68 million inhabitants, 5,7 million Covid cases and 110.000 deaths, everyone who has been vaccinated is allowed again, without any restrictions (no tests, quarantine, mandatory apps). The Thai government does not have that much guts and it still consists of a group of former soldiers.
We used to call them scarecrows.
In a situation in which many people, in this case construction workers, are sitting on top of each other and the possibility of the virus spreading is high, two types of measures are actually possible:
1. you hermetically seal off the construction worker camps (if that is even possible in Thailand; don't think so), lock them up so that they feel like they are in a prison (while some do not even have Covid or are asymptomatic) and you create optimal conditions for the virus. Construction workers are angry and won't vote for Prayut next time. The rest of the population looks on with resignation and thinks it's fine. (By the way, why 30 days and not 14: does the virus spread more slowly among construction workers??);
2. You take all those construction workers out of those overcrowded camps, transfer them to the thousands of empty hotel rooms in this country and just put them in state quarantine for 14 days like everyone else. Pro: construction workers happy (have never been in a hotel for 14 days), vote Prayut in the next election and happily tell their friends. Hotels happy with the unexpected turnover.
Construction workers in Bangkok on major projects are 80% migrants. They cannot vote in Thailand
You are right, but 20% of 81.000 construction workers (source: Bangkok Post) are still 16.000 votes.
Camps closed Bangkok open, so much unrest has already been caused that people are already traveling home with the result, (my wife just heard she is a teacher) all schools that were just open for 14 days by order of the government of Udon Thani, in the province of Udon Thani will close again until July 19 due to a number of infections in the province
Many Thai construction workers left quickly on Friday. The new law has only come into effect on the 26th, date in Royal Gazette, but has been announced before. So shutting down the sites is already a farce. The so-called “spreading” has already started because they have gone to their place of residence. Info from Thai friends in that business.
Construction workers flee Bangkok. Fears of more Covid in Chiang Mai. And of course in many, many more provinces.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/ChiangMaiNewsinEnglish/
Today the work in Narathiwat was still in full swing. No less than five new mosques are under construction, one of which is to become the largest in Thailand, financed by a Salafist organization in Saudi Arabia. The construction workers are all Pakistani. I wonder what will happen to them now. Will they continue to be paid during the construction freeze?