No new Covid-19 infections in Mae Sot

TAK: Tests have not found any new Covid-19 infections in Mae Sot district since the recent scare, but Myanmar lorry drivers are still regarded as posing a risk, a senior disease control official said yesterday.

Tanarak Plipat, deputy director-general of the Disease Control Department, said 4,189 people in Mae Sot sought Covid-19 tests after lorry drivers from Myanmar were found to be infected.

He said the results of 1,194 of the tests were negative.

Health officials had also tested 163 Myanmar lorry drivers and 18 passengers — all were negative.

“The situation in Mae Sot is still considered to be normal. No Thai people are infected,” Dr Tanarak said.

People in Mae Sot were tested for Covid-19 after three Myanmar lorry drivers were found infected in the border district last Friday and Saturday.

Dr Tanarak said testing for Covid-19 had to continue in the district.

Although there were only a small number of Covid-19 patients in the nearby Myanmar border town of Myawaddy to date, lorry drivers there travelled throughout the country, and Covid-19 was spreading fast there, he said.

The government reported nine new cases of coronavirus disease yesterday. All were quarantined arrivals from India, Japan, South Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, raising the total to 3,652.

The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration said there were three each from South Sudan and the UAE, two from India and one from Japan.

All were asymptomatic.