Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew has joined the call for people to not panic over officials issuing a “temporary suspension” of assigning vaccination appointments for those registered as living outside Phuket. Phuket News

Governor joins call for calm over vaccination registrations

PHUKET: Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew has joined the call for people to not panic over officials issuing a "temporary suspension" of assigning vaccination appointments for those registered as living outside Phuket.

Speaking at a meeting of the Phuket Communicable Disease Committee at Provincial Hall yesterday (May 24), joined by all three Phuket Vice Governors Phichet Pana[ong, Piyapong Choowong and Vikrom Jakthree, Governor Narong noted that the number of people not living in Phuket who had registered through the 'Phuket Must Win' web portal to receive the vaccine on the island numbered as many as 30,000.

Concerns had been raised that people not registered as living on the island being vaccinated through the Phuket campaign could affect the number of vaccine doses allotted for Phuket being available in order to reach the goal of vaccinating 70% of the island's population so that Phuket could reopen to receiving fully vaccinated tourists from July 1.

Governor Narong assured that people who are registered as living in Phuket remain unaffected.

Those who work in Phuket and live on the island, but have not changed their registered address to Phuket, will need to have their right to register through the 'Phuket Must Win' web portal by presenting a letter from their employer and other documents to their local village head for verification, he said.

Once the person's right to register for vaccination through "Phuket Must Win' has been verified by the village head, the person must present the verified documents to their local municipality or tambon administration organisation (OrBorTor), or local District office, who will will confirm that they are allowed to register through 'Phuket Must Win', he added.

Present yesterday to hear the process were village heads from across the island.

"As for people who are already registered as living in Phuket can register [for vaccination] normally. I confirm that we have enough vaccines [doses] to reach our target," Governor Narong said.

"But the reason for the temporary cancellation of vaccinations for registered persons in Phuket is in order for the registrations to be screened to make sure they really match our target population," he said.

As for the mass vaccination campaign underway, with 'Round 2' being carried out from May 18-28, at last report as of last Frida (May 21), a total of 162,225 people in Phuket had received at least one vaccination injection ‒ 34% of the target 466,587 people needing to be vaccinated to reach the 70% target.

LOW INFECTIONS

Before yesterday's meeting Governor Narong had already praised people throughout Phuket for their cooperation in helping to reduce the daily rate of new infections on the island, with officials reporting only single-digit figures for the daily rate of infections for more than a week.

The Phuket Provincial Public Health Office (PPHO) reported four new confirmed cases of people on the island infected with COVID-19 for yesterday (May 24), another slight fall from the six new cases reported for Sunday (May 23), the highest since the island marked zero new cases last Wednesday (May 19).

After recording zero new cases for one day last Wednesday, officials reported three new cases last Thursday (May 20), four new cases last Friday (May 21), four new cases on Saturday (May 22) and six new cases on Sunday (May 23).

The four new cases confirmed yesterday brought the total number of COVID infections in Phuket since Apr 3 to 631.

Of those, 543 had been discharged from hospital care, while another 93 remained under medical care or supervision.

So far Phuket has suffered one death since officials started reporting the 'Third Wave' of infections on Apr 3, that of a 71-year-old man who was already suffering from emphysema.