Army welfare chief tests positive for Covid-19

By The Nation

 

General Nattaphan Srisawat

 

The chief of the Army's welfare department, Maj-General Rachit Arunrangsri, was confirmed to be infected with Covid-19 after a lab test at Phramongkutklao Hospital showed him positive for the new coronavirus, the Royal Thai Army’s special adviser, General Nattaphan Srisawat, said on Monday (March 16).

 

“Thirty-six close contacts who returned home are now in self-quarantine for 14 days, including the driver. We believe that we can control the situation,” he said.

 

Maj-General Rachit Arunrangsri siting in the front row on the right of the picture

 

He debunked the rumour that Rachit had got infected after returning from France, saying he had not travelled to a foreign country for a year.

 

Maj-General Rachit had gone to Lumpinee Boxing Stadium on March 6 when actor Matthew "Deane" was also working as a host and later revealed himself to be Covid-19 victim on his Instagam. After that Rachit has been working normally and had met with more than 100 soldiers.

 

The Royal Thai Army Chemical Department has disinfected all the areas in the Army division 1, where he works, to prevent further spread of the virus.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30384176

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-03-16

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I guess now ‘important’ people and celebs are catching it off each other there will be some action rather than trying to point the finger at ‘dirty farang’.

The problem in Thailand is that all the hospitals are charging between 8k and 14k baht for a test which is the equivalent of at least 2 weeks wages for the average Thai. Hence the true extent is unknown. I sense we are beginning to see a similar situation in Thailand as that at the start of the situation in Iran where important government/army figures and celebrities will be confirmed to have Covid despite only 50-100 odd cases reported in the entire country with a population of 70+ million which seems disproportionate (possibly due to the aforementioned cost of testing not necessarily due to case numbers purposely kept low). 

Edited March 16, 20206 yr by Guest

Supose there's no chance of the army boss catching it......

For every high profile figure you can guess how many hoi polloi? The truth is that most infected people (Thais) will recover without ever being recorded. Still, Thailand's a good place to be, given they had an early start, herd protection and all that. Stay away from Farangs, especially newly imported ones.

51 minutes ago, nausea said:

For every high profile figure you can guess how many hoi polloi? The truth is that most infected people (Thais) will recover without ever being recorded. Still, Thailand's a good place to be, given they had an early start, herd protection and all that. Stay away from Farangs, especially newly imported ones.

Wow! Are you a medical professional infected disease qualified expert? I sincerely hope so, otherwise your post is to be filed under 'U' for useless waffle.

2 hours ago, canopus1969 said:

Supose there's no chance of the army boss catching it......

In these uncertain troubling times, hope is a wonderful thing.

Edited March 16, 20206 yr by Ian Nagle

If a couple hundred generals get infected then the boss will take action.

????????????????❤????????

Well there was a proposal to reduce the number of generals by 40%.

 

 

42 minutes ago, Ian Nagle said:

Wow! Are you a medical professional infected disease qualified expert? I sincerely hope so, otherwise your post is to be filed under 'U' for useless waffle.

Ooer. I'm really upset, Mr. 263 posts guy. 

The cost should be covered for Thai nationals by the 30baht scheme that was what it was designed for unless the present military rulers have decided to cancel the scheme for Covid which would be ludicrous, if they can afford second hand Chinese subs they can dig deep to simply protect their people.

 

However if all people had free access to a test,, the numbers would be harsh as expected and i dont think the hospital system here could cope and neither could the generals easily deal with the mayhem.

30 minutes ago, nausea said:

Ooer. I'm really upset, Mr. 263 posts guy. 

One should not confuse quantity with quality.

Pleasant change, he was offered the French connection but admitted it was the boxing arena...kinda weird really!

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The Royal Thai Army Chemical Department has disinfected all the areas in the Army division 1, where he works, to prevent further spread of the virus.

Waste of time.

 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

After that Rachit has been working normally and had met with more than 100 soldiers.

lol..... and what about the contact of person to person with 100 soldiers, and who they've subsequently been in contact with?

31 minutes ago, 0zr0cks said:

Pleasant change, he was offered the French connection but admitted it was the boxing arena...kinda weird really!

think there was too many cases arising from there to say otherwise

Lumpini boxing stadium. Could be another cluster. A small wonder if they don't close down pretty much everything tomorrow.

6 hours ago, webfact said:

We believe that we can control the situation,” he said.

and i believe I can fly too pal

5 hours ago, mrwinner said:

The problem in Thailand is that all the hospitals are charging between 8k and 14k baht for a test which is the equivalent of at least 2 weeks wages for the average Thai. Hence the true extent is unknown. I sense we are beginning to see a similar situation in Thailand as that at the start of the situation in Iran where important government/army figures and celebrities will be confirmed to have Covid despite only 50-100 odd cases reported in the entire country with a population of 70+ million which seems disproportionate (possibly due to the aforementioned cost of testing not necessarily due to case numbers purposely kept low). 

What your  also going to find is  a  higher death rate in Thailand as many Thai men SMOKE

4 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Lumpini boxing stadium. Could be another cluster. A small wonder if they don't close down pretty much everything tomorrow.

20+ cases from there now from a show on 6th of March so definitely a cluster.

March 6 .. so that's about 10 days ago. There's a delay between symptom onset and official diagnosis of about two weeks or so, as learned in Hubei:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

 

 

So, if people are starting to show symptoms now, in two weeks there should be an very large increase in the number of diagnosed. If they test. We're somewhere around that "Official cases start exploding" now. Lockdown should and must follow, luckily they have finally started to act.

19 hours ago, Orac said:

I guess now ‘important’ people and celebs are catching it off each other there will be some action rather than trying to point the finger at ‘dirty farang’.

Dean - the actor- has an australian father