Field hospitals being established in Covid hot zones around Thailand
Despite the confident posture and Songkran going ahead, amid restrictions, there is a lot of background activity which suggest the authorities are getting ready for a surge in new infections at the end of the Songkran break, officially this Thursday, but in reality, next Sunday at the end of the weekend when most people who travelled home will return for a resumption of work.
The Thai lunar new year celebrations – Songkran – are the largest mass movement of Thais each year, a source for a huge leap in road deaths and accidents. And, this year, a potential super-spreader event.
Quietly, at least 3,000 extra beds have been prepared in 10 field hospitals around Bangkok. The government has also confirmed that additional field hospitals are being set up in other potential 'hot zones', including Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chonburi and Hua Hin. Some of them were set up last year, and since closed, and now being prepared for new positive infections.
One Thai person who had been in one of the field hospitals put together a check-list of things to take IF you end up as an invited 'guest' HERE.
The CCSA say they are looking for additional beds in hotels and previous state quarantine facilities (where repatriating Thais were housed for their free quarantine) to be used if needed.
This year's Songkran had bad timing, coming just a week after a number of major clusters were identified around some of Bangkok's popular nightlife areas in 3 key inner city districts. Even before Songkran these isolated clusters had already spread into the provinces. In the weekend before Songkran the government had already listed 37 provinces which had instigated some form of paperwork or restrictions for people who had been in any of the 3 Bangkok districts.
The government also leapt on the source of the new outbreaks – bars, clubs and entertainment venues – and promptly shut them down for at least 2 weeks. At this stage it looks likely that that ban will be extended beyond the 2 weeks and, depending on the extent of new infections following the Songkran holiday, additional restrictions will also be added.
Even today the Civil Aviation Authority published a number of new in-flight restrictions for passengers – another blow to the hard-hit domestic aviation sector.
The provincial restrictions, in some cases, will accept a negative Covid test as an alternative. But you expect some delays whilst travelling between provinces over the next week of Songkran celebrations. The annual migration to home provinces by Thais is the biggest movement of people in the country each year, the exact opposite to what you would want during a potential outbreak of new infections.
