Search for Active Cases follows discovery of Samut Sakhon cluster

[webfact]

Search for Active Cases follows discovery of Samut Sakhon cluster

 

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - More provinces are searching for active cases and testing for COVID-19, in the wake of the sudden discovery of a COVID-19 cluster in Samut Sakhon.

 

Officials in Mae Ai district of Chiang Mai have launched a campaign in which villagers using royally bestowed biosafety mobile units are collecting test specimens, after a woman originally from Ayutthaya province tested positive to COVID-19, after returning from her work at a beauty salon in Mae Sai district.

 

Villagers in the area can give a specimen for testing until 23rd December. Officials expect to test at least 600 people in this operation.

 

Meanwhile, test results from 10 high-risk people in contact with the patient have all returned negative. They are still being monitored for symptoms for another 14 days. Road checkpoints have been set up along borders between Tha Don, Malika, and Mae Ai districts, where people crossing at the checkpoint are required to register with the officials. Schools in the area have been declared closed for three days.

 

Some 100 migrant workers from Myanmar have queued up for COVID-19 tests at a booth located in front of Kamthieng Market. Most migrant workers being tested today were related to seafood refrigerating; Chiang Mai province is one of the biggest destinations of seafood from Samut Sakhon.

 

The Governor of Chiang Mai has raised the surveillance level to high alert, with checkpoints set up to screen incomers traveling to the province in cars, trains, and planes.

 

Phang Nga province is home to one of the biggest migrant worker communities in the country, especially migrant workers in the fishing industry. The provincial governor and health officials today oversaw the collection of specimens for COVID-19 tests on site in front of Duang Thawee Porn seafood wholesale market in Lam Kaen subdistrict.

 

Here, the officials urged businesses not to facilitate illegal and unreported entry of migrant workers to Thailand. Meanwhile, some of the 63-person group of migrant workers who have travelled to Samut Sakhon to extend their passport have started to exhibit worrying symptoms. Their specimens were collected and sent for testing, to check for the disease.

 

In Bangkok, the Governor Pol Gen Aswin Kwanmuang today visited Or Tor Kor Market, which is the workplace of 120 legally registered migrant workers. All tests that have returned to them so far have been negative.

 

Similar specimen collecting stations are being arranged at all 56 markets in Bangkok, which are workplaces for some 7,000 migrant workers.

 

City Hall expects all the tests targeting migrant workers in Bangkok will be completed within the week.

 

The BMA and the Department of Disease Control will be testing migrant workers at construction camps as well.

 

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2020-12-22

 

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[Somtamnication]

I feel this is starting to get out of control. Too many people do not want to be found. Disaster!

[ThailandRyan]

Most people they want to test are hiding in plain sight.  Unless they start to check all of the big market Areas here in Bangkok, like Chatuchack and Huai Kwam, it will remain an unknown here in the capital as to if and why there are cases outside of quarantine here.

[Crusader]

Good comment about too many people not wanting to be found.  The wife and I got shouted at by a couple of Thais going into Emporium (from Sukhumvit 24 entry) while she was scanning in they said, "just********walk in".

[Thaiophil]

If the PM does declare another lockdown before the NY holidays, it will be another blow for the tourist industry. I booked to go to Ko Lanta and judging by resort availability, it’s pretty heavily booked

[Tracyb]

While following this latest round of “discovered” infections I feel as though the govt is in reactive mode.....although they talk a good game of proactivity.  When I compare all of it to how my native land has handled covid, I still feel very lucky to be residing in Thailand full time.  Contact tracing helps identify, isolate, monitor and treat infected individuals.  I always scan in and out of the mall, businesses, what have you.  I want to be traced and contacted if I’ve been exposed.  In the meantime I mask up, wash my hands every chance I get, and social distance.  So far so good (knock on wood!). Now, where’s the vaccine??

[Banoo]

I’ve had fever for nearly 8 days. A persistent dry cough. And now headaches. I went to a hospital yesterday. Doctor touched my stomach and said stomach virus. I asked about a Covid test and was told not necessary. I’m not saying I have Covid. And thankfully because of Tylenol every 6 hours I am feeling better. But I found it strange with everything going on today, they didn’t even want to check. 

[madmitch]

1 hour ago, Thaiophil said:

If the PM does declare another lockdown before the NY holidays, it will be another blow for the tourist industry. I booked to go to Ko Lanta and judging by resort availability, it’s pretty heavily booked

I think low availability is more likely due to most hotels and guesthouses being closed.

[5633572526]

I am not interested in any government tracking or tracing me and judging by the almost non existence of anyone else bothering to scan in or register at any mall, restaurants, shops or 7/11 along Sukhumvit in bkk where I walk every day I am far from alone. I did glance at a sign in sheet at Robinsons yesterday and it is nice to see D. Trump and B. Johnson are shopping again ????

[hotchilli]

1 hour ago, Thaiophil said:

If the PM does declare another lockdown before the NY holidays, it will be another blow for the tourist industry. I booked to go to Ko Lanta and judging by resort availability, it’s pretty heavily booked

He won't do that unless this goes nationwide, another lock-down would kill the economy and Thailand.

[Chongalulu]

1 hour ago, Thaiophil said:

If the PM does declare another lockdown before the NY holidays, it will be another blow for the tourist industry. I booked to go to Ko Lanta and judging by resort availability, it’s pretty heavily booked

Ko lanta is my favourite though usually go in November and it’s very sparsely populated- we were the only ones in a largish hotel ! I would have thought it might be quite dead now due to no foreign tourists and wonder if the lack of resort availability you report could be because many simply haven’t bothered to open up ?

[tonray]

2 hours ago, Crusader said:

Good comment about too many people not wanting to be found.  The wife and I got shouted at by a couple of Thais going into Emporium (from Sukhumvit 24 entry) while she was scanning in they said, "just********walk in".

Emporium that hotbed of migrant activity......

[agood1963]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

More provinces are searching for active cases and testing for COVID-19, in the wake of the sudden discovery of a COVID-19 cluster in Samut Sakhon.

I'm sure it will not take them long to find them with there magic testing devices .

[0815]

Mae Ai, Mae Sai, Kamtieng Market ...
Can you please get your orientation updated ?
Mae Sai to Mae Ai is a distance of appx. 100 kilometers.
Mae Sai to Kamtieng Market in CNX appx. 280 kilometers.

Where did she work? Mae Sai or Mae Ai?

[TigerandDog]

1 hour ago, 0815 said:

Mae Ai, Mae Sai, Kamtieng Market ...
Can you please get your orientation updated ?
Mae Sai to Mae Ai is a distance of appx. 100 kilometers.
Mae Sai to Kamtieng Market in CNX appx. 280 kilometers.

Where did she work? Mae Sai or Mae Ai?

from what I know, she worked in Mae Sai, but on her journey back to Ayutthaya she visited Mae Ai for a few days before continuing her journey home.  Now here's the issue I have with this. Yes they are doing testing in Mae Ai, BUT no testing is being done where I live. As I have previously posted in other threads, several people that live in the same soi as myself were on the same bus as this woman. They have identified and subsequently placed in quarantine yesterday, but not a single person in our village who they came into contact with has been tested. The daughter of this family was sent home from school, but no testing done at the school with those she had been in contact with there. The adults in that family all voted in the elections on Sunday, but nobody who was at the pooling booth on Sunday has been tested. In reality every person in our village should be tested as most of us will have had some kind of indirect contact with these people, viz. we were at the polling booth or we had family/friends who were working the elections and they would have had direct contact, and then subsequent indirect contact with their family & friends, yet not a single test has been conducted here, and from what I'm told from people on the community committee the family placed in quarantine hasn't been tested either, just quarantined.

[NorthernRyland]

3 hours ago, Banoo said:

I’ve had fever for nearly 8 days. A persistent dry cough. And now headaches. I went to a hospital yesterday. Doctor touched my stomach and said stomach virus. I asked about a Covid test and was told not necessary. I’m not saying I have Covid. And thankfully because of Tylenol every 6 hours I am feeling better. But I found it strange with everything going on today, they didn’t even want to check. 

This tells you everything you need to know. They don't have the means or dedication to mass test the population. Not then and not now. If COVID wasn't in Thailand before it was mere luck on their part.

[Raphus]

@Thaiophil

hotels are empty. What they are doing to keep prices high is tell booking.com and others that they are near full occupancy to keep the price high on the app. As if they were empty, the prices would drop and discounts given. Thais are very clever at being extremely greedy...

[Dialemco]

Has the viras mutated same as discovered in UK to be more infectious?

[Raphus]

@Dialemco

it can only be that strain if someone from the UK brought it here !!

[George Aylesham]

1 hour ago, Raphus said:

@Thaiophil

hotels are empty. What they are doing to keep prices high is tell booking.com and others that they are near full occupancy to keep the price high on the app. As if they were empty, the prices would drop and discounts given. Thais are very clever at being extremely greedy...

This has been my experience too. By checking both the Booking com/agoda prices, then by contacting the hotel itself you can usually get a good price - and sometime 50% cheaper

[Caldera]

Seems pretty clear to me that they will need to suspend interprovincial travel before the long New Year weekend, otherwise that will be a disaster waiting to happen now that a few clusters have already been seeded at the very least.

[Thaiophil]

6 hours ago, nchuckle said:

Ko lanta is my favourite though usually go in November and it’s very sparsely populated- we were the only ones in a largish hotel ! I would have thought it might be quite dead now due to no foreign tourists and wonder if the lack of resort availability you report could be because many simply haven’t bothered to open up ?

Nearly all the resorts I checked were open and a few full. NY is popular with locals not just foreign tourists

[cryo]

2 hours ago, Raphus said:

@Dialemco

it can only be that strain if someone from the UK brought it here !!

The strains origin is unknown it first appeared in the UK because it is one of the two countries in Europe with the ability to sequence the genome of the virus. In reality it is worldwide as the sample sequenced was from September. The WHO worded their press statement very badly when this was announced and the press as usual changed the word sequenced in the UK to originated in the UK, I wonder why?

[thurien]

6 hours ago, Banoo said:

I’ve had fever for nearly 8 days. A persistent dry cough. And now headaches. I went to a hospital yesterday. Doctor touched my stomach and said stomach virus. I asked about a Covid test and was told not necessary. I’m not saying I have Covid. And thankfully because of Tylenol every 6 hours I am feeling better. But I found it strange with everything going on today, they didn’t even want to check. 

he immediately saw you are a "clean, responsible farang" so judged a possible C19 infection with "close to zero" - experienced doctor, this!

[GreasyFingers]

The wife tells me that they have 2 cases in Phetchabun, people bringing seafood from Samut Sakon to sell locally. How many other provinces would be in the same boat.

[VBF]

1 hour ago, cryo said:

The strains origin is unknown it first appeared in the UK because it is one of the two countries in Europe with the ability to sequence the genome of the virus. In reality it is worldwide as the sample sequenced was from September. The WHO worded their press statement very badly when this was announced and the press as usual changed the word sequenced in the UK to originated in the UK, I wonder why?

Assuming you're being sarcastic, because it's what the (irresponsible) press does to get readers.

 

Just to set the record as straight as is possible at present:

 

"It is thought the variant either emerged in a patient in the UK or has been imported from a country with a lower ability to monitor coronavirus mutations."  (My emphasis)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55388846

Edited December 22, 2020 by VBF

[unblocktheplanet]

10 hours ago, hotchilli said:

He won't do that unless this goes nationwide, another lock-down would kill the economy and Thailand.

Tuesday at 7pm, I gotta say, it's already gone nationwide. 17 provinces + BK showing infections. This is no joke.

 

Kill the economy? How are we going to eat if all the fresh markets are closed?

 

If my count is right from news reports, 31 cases so far in BK. I'm not scaremongering. Some of these may have resolved already.

 

But there needs to be a lot more testing. We need to consider what other countries did wrong and not repeat their mistakes.

 

Yes, Thai Chana is a joke, as are sign-ins, as are temp readings. But we all need to step up to the plate for the safety of ALL of us.

 

Self-isolate and note your movements if you think you've been in contact with Covid.

[goatfarmer]

13 hours ago, Banoo said:

I’ve had fever for nearly 8 days. A persistent dry cough. And now headaches. I went to a hospital yesterday. Doctor touched my stomach and said stomach virus. I asked about a Covid test and was told not necessary. I’m not saying I have Covid. And thankfully because of Tylenol every 6 hours I am feeling better. But I found it strange with everything going on today, they didn’t even want to check. 

This would appear to be negligence on the part of the doctor. I would go elsewhere and get a test with those symptoms. 

[kiwikeith]

20 hours ago, Banoo said:

I’ve had fever for nearly 8 days. A persistent dry cough. And now headaches. I went to a hospital yesterday. Doctor touched my stomach and said stomach virus. I asked about a Covid test and was told not necessary. I’m not saying I have Covid. And thankfully because of Tylenol every 6 hours I am feeling better. But I found it strange with everything going on today, they didn’t even want to check. 

If you had been admitted to hospital and died of covid, officially you would be listed as neumonia. 

[GreasyFingers]

12 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Tuesday at 7pm, I gotta say, it's already gone nationwide. 17 provinces + BK showing infections. This is no joke.

 

Kill the economy? How are we going to eat if all the fresh markets are closed?

 

If my count is right from news reports, 31 cases so far in BK. I'm not scaremongering. Some of these may have resolved already.

 

But there needs to be a lot more testing. We need to consider what other countries did wrong and not repeat their mistakes.

 

Yes, Thai Chana is a joke, as are sign-ins, as are temp readings. But we all need to step up to the plate for the safety of ALL of us.

 

Self-isolate and note your movements if you think you've been in contact with Covid.

Officially by puu yai  2 more reported in local area this morning.