It has been three weeks since the country reopened to vaccinated tourists and there has been no spike in the number of daily Covid cases, according to data released by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation (CCSA) on Tuesday. Thai Enquirer

Covid numbers not spiking three weeks after reopening

November 23, 2021

It has been three weeks since the country reopened to vaccinated tourists and there has been no spike in the number of daily Covid cases, according to data released by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation (CCSA) on Tuesday.

A total of 90,737 air passengers arrived between November 1 and 22. Of that, 118 or 0.13 per cent tested positive for Covid.

From the total number of passengers, 69,809 went through the "Test & Go" procedure which is what the CCSA is calling the one-night quarantine and test period.

This option is only available to vaccinated tourists from 63 designated countries and territories so far.

The remaining 16,997 have entered tourist sandboxes or the "Blue Zone" in 17 destinations which comes with a seven days quarantine period within these destinations, 1,426 entered seven-day quarantine facilities and 2,505 entered 10-day quarantine facilities.

At the same time, the daily number of Covid cases in the general Thai population (excluding cases found in prisons and imported cases) continued to decline from 7,049 confirmed cases on November 2 to 5,014 cases on November 23.

The top ten nationals that have arrived between November 1 and 22 including 11,032 from the United States, 9,469 from Germany, 7,824 from the Netherlands, 4,354 from the United Kingdom, 3,984 from Japan, 3,677 from Russia, 3,350 from France, 3,255 from South Korea, 2,413 from the UAE and 2,317 from Israel.  

Despite the low numbers of infected arrivals and the continuous decline in the daily number of cases, Dr Apisamai Srirangsan, a deputy spokeswoman for the CCSA, said on Monday that some foreign tourists who came for business meetings within the tourist sandboxes were not following the Thai government's Covid prevention guidelines, especially refusing to wear a facemask at a social gathering.

She warned that a tourist who entered the tourist sandboxes could still be fined up to 20,000 baht if they refused to wear a face mask at a social gathering or a public space.