Phuket Immigration touts anti-crowding, COVID measures

[webfact]

Phuket Immigration touts anti-crowding, COVID measures

By Eakkapop Thongtub

 

The scene at the main Phuket Immigration Office in Phuket Town yesterday (Mar 25). Photo: Supplied

 

PHUKET: Phuket Immigration today (Mar 26) announced its measures to prevent crowding at the office among its measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

 

The announcement comes after days of crowds of tourists and other foreigners arriving at the main Phuket Immigration Office in Phuket Town in the hope of extending their stay during the current state of emergency “lockdown”.

 

The new anti-COVID measures include body-temperature screening of all staff, visitors and detainees awaiting repatriation at the office, Phuket Immigration Chief Col Narong Chanaphaikul announced today.

 

Full story: https://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-immigration-touts-anti-crowding-covid-measures-75457.php

 

 

-- © Copyright Phuket News 2020-03-27

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[bluesofa]

25 minutes ago, webfact said:

The new anti-COVID measures include body-temperature screening of all staff, visitors and detainees awaiting repatriation at the office

'detainees'. Is that now the official description for those foreigners who are unable to leave the country?

[ChrisY1]

Immigration just cannot admit their utter and incompetent failures within their systems.

Scrap the stupid 90 day report for the interim period, and reduce crowds maybe 50%....get the immigration system working online properly.....however, this may need them to cease Windows XP and upgrade!

Will criticising the Immigration Bureau come under the computer crimes act....if so, thousands of us are in trouble? 

[LivinginKata]

90 day online still not work today

[sapson]

If their was a nuclear holocaust ...........Any remaining Thailand immigration offices would still be demanding extensions, 90 day reports. tm 30s, and 800k in the bank!!

[Geeyore]

Chaeng Wattana was doing body temp and mandatory hand sanitizer  1+ months ago. Now they have mandatory distancing by all reports.

 

Not that I'm looking forward to another trip there. They should simply extend all visas automatically for 90 days and keep their staff and foreign guests safe. These immigration offices endanger everyone and most especially Thai IO staff.

[marko kok prong]

Judging by the photo,it seems to be working well.

[Scott Tracy]

Si Saket immigration has room for 4 people sitting waiting. 4 for those being processed. Plastic screens in place and masks being worn by all those who were there on Monday. Hand sanitizer was by the door. 

I had to go there to do my 90 day report and get my stamp transferred to my new passport, otherwise, I would have tried online. I was there around 13:30 and left around 14:20. I was number 11 and there were at least 6 others waiting while I was being processed. Work progressing as normal, I would say, with distancing being carried out as best they could in the small office they have and the number of clients.

[merijn]

The picture and the the people in the picture are not doing 90 day reporting, as this is now done at a separate location next to immigration building.

They are all doing the normal 30 day extension or special 30 day extension with the embassy letter.

The IO can be a pain sometimes but in this case they are trying to do their best.

They have setup a system with normal extension on one side and the special corona extensions on the other side.

This would work well and they have several IO just working there to collect all the applications.

They have chairs placed in such way that everybody sits at least 1.5 meter from each other but i have to say that most if not all of the tourist don't listen and just don't care about keeping distance and following the instructions.

If they would the process would go much faster and less dramatic.

Don't forget that on a normal day they get maybe 50 people in total for a 30 day extension and know there where over 200 people at any single time, not one agency would be able to handle that smoothly.

Cancelling the 90 day reporting would be nice and helpful but this is not something Phuket Immigration can do on it's own unfortunately.