The administration of Bang Lamung district in Thailand's Chon Buri province, which includes Pattaya, is making preparations to convert hotels into "hospitels" with a capacity to accommodate 2,500 COVID-19 patients initially, if daily infections continue to rise steadily.
Chon Buri province may also be declared a COVID-19 "red zone" again, as the province saw 769 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours. The daily infection rate has overtaken Bangkok's top spot since Sunday.
Cumulative infections in the province, since last April, have soared to 115,902, with more than 4,000 people still being treated in hospitals. The death toll is 794, according to the provincial health office.
The office said that most of the new infections have been linked to pubs and bars in Pattaya and Bang Saen, which were allowed to operate as eateries to ease the hardship caused by prolonged closure.
23 new cases linked to Pattaya's eateries have been reported in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infected in this cluster to 325.
Visitors to Tree Town market in the city have been advised to take two such tests, five days apart.
