People are not being responsible enough after lifting of lockdown measures, official says. Thailand will likely see a spike in the next few weeks due to carelessness on the part of the public, a public health official told Thai Enquirer on Wednesday. The country lifted some lockdown restrictions on September 1 due to lower covid numbers, allowing dining-in at restaurants and easing travel restrictions. “If you look at the malls in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces, it was completely packed in some places. Shoulder-to-shoulder, nose-to-nose,” said a professor of public health at Chulalongkorn University who asked not to be named as he works closely with the government. “I understand that after a month of lockdown that people are antsy to get back to their daily routines but this lack of responsibility threatens all the gains that we have worked so hard to make.” Thai Enquirer



People are not being responsible enough after lifting of lockdown measures, official says

September 8, 2021

Thailand will likely see a spike in the next few weeks due to carelessness on the part of the public, a public health official told Thai Enquirer on Wednesday.

The country lifted some lockdown restrictions on September 1 due to lower covid numbers, allowing dining-in at restaurants and easing travel restrictions.

Inter-province travel has also been allowed with people traveling from and between "redzone" or hard-hit provinces.

"If you look at the malls in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces, it was completely packed in some places. Shoulder-to-shoulder, nose-to-nose," said a professor of public health at Chulalongkorn University who asked not to be named as he works closely with the government.

"I understand that after a month of lockdown that people are antsy to get back to their daily routines but this lack of responsibility threatens all the gains that we have worked so hard to make."

According to the professor, the contagious nature of the Delta Variant and the close proximity that people are now operating in means that it is inevitable that there will be a spike within the next two weeks.

"With this sort of thing, the spike is usually higher than the previous peak so we can be looking at 30,000 cases per day by the beginning of October because people are just not careful."

The professor added that confusing government policy has also compounded the situation as the CCSA and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration did not stick with public health guidelines forwarded by their team of advisors.

"We said that dining-in and shopping malls should be only open to fully vaccinated patrons. The government said, that is fine but let's begin that in October. So we have the whole of September to be a super spreader event for some reason. It makes no sense," he said.