Thailand plans tighter COVID-19 lockdown
BANGKOK: The Thai government on Sunday announced plans for a tighter lockdown in Bangkok and high-risk provinces next week, suspending most domestic flights and expanding curfew areas ater the country reported a third straight day of record COVID-19 case numbers.
Thailand reported 11,397 infections and 101 deaths on Sunday, bringing the cumulative total to 403,386 cases and 3,341 fatalities, the vast majority from an outbreak since early April that is being fuelled by the highly transmissible Alpha and Delta COVID-19 variants.
Domestic flights to and from Bangkok and other provinces classified by the Thai government as at high risk from COVID-19 will be suspended from Wednesday, the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand ( CAAT) said in an announcement.
Exceptions are being made for medical flights, emergency landing aircrat and flights in connection with the government’s tourism reopening programs, while other local flights can only fly at 50 per cent capacity, the announcement said.
Tougher measures designed to keep people in high risk areas mostly at home will be introduced from Tuesday, said General Natapon Nakpanich, the chief of National Security Council, but supermarkets, banks, hospitals and medical clinics will still be allowed to open.
Shopping malls will be closed and a 9pm-4am curfew will be imposed from Tuesday onwards in Chonburi, Ayuthaya and Chachoengsao provinces, an announcement on the official Royal Gazete on Sunday showed.
Thai health authorities said they were stepping up efforts to secure more vaccines to fight the latest outbreak, said the director-general of the Department of Disease Control Opas Karnkawinpong.
Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul also plans to seek approval from the country’s COVID-19 task force to temporarily regulate the export amount of locally manufactured
Meanwhile, deaths of doctors from COVID-19 in Indonesia rose sharply in the first half of July, according to the profession’s association, as the Delta variant of the coronavirus fuelled a surge in infections across the country.
A total of 114 doctors died during July 1-17, the highest number reported for any period of similar length and more than 20 per cent of the 545 total doctor deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, officials from Indonesia’s doctors association (IDI) said during a virtual news conference.