By Tanakorn Sangiam

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - Thailand’s Minister of Public Health says that more COVID-19 vaccine doses from the latest shipment will be sent to tourism areas, such as Phuket and Koh Samui, while confirming there will be no changes to the announced measures for Songkran holidays, as the situation is under control.

 

The Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul has revealed that more vaccines, from the recently arrived batch of 800,000 doses of Sinovac’s vaccine from China, will be made available to tourism provinces, with 100,000 doses reserved for Phuket, 50,000 doses for Koh Samui, as well as more doses for second wave hotspot Samut Sakhon.

 

He said epidemiological factors are the most important when creating the vaccine distribution plan. However, the vaccine will also need to be given to villagers in tourism areas, in addition to healthcare workers, in order to stimulate economic activity.

 

The private sector in Phuket has recently requested 900,000 doses of vaccine to be made available to the province, in order to reopen the Andaman islands to international visitors.

 

The Minister of Public Health said this is highly feasible, as Thailand will be receiving 5 million doses of locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine in June, with 10 million doses per month expected afterwards.

 

Prior to June, Thailand will be receiving a shipment of another 1 million Sinovac doses from China.

 

Mr. Anutin said, however, that it is not yet clear if the country can reopen for tourists on 1 July, as the vaccination process itself takes time, and the overall COVID-19 situation must improve, with fewer patients, no severe cases and low infection rates.

 

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-03-23

 

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14 minutes ago, webfact said:

The Minister of Public Health said this is highly feasible, as Thailand will be receiving 5 million doses of locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine in June, with 10 million doses per month expected afterwards.

Vaccinating 10 million plus a month from July ? Not without help from the Energizer Bunny, The Flash, and Doc and Marty !

Drop in the bucket.

Health Ministry Assures Enough Covid-19 Vaccines for Tourism Hubs

By Paphamon Arayasukawat

 

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - The Public Health Ministry has assured that there are enough doses of Covid-19 vaccine for people in Phuket and Surat Thani’s Samui Island to immunize local people before tourists return.

 

Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said 800,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine, which had arrived in Thailand on Saturday, would be distributed to important areas in Phuket and Samui Island at 100,000 doses and 50,000 doses, respectively.

 

He added that the government must distribute the vaccine in economic or tourism hubs first in order to boost Thailand’s economy.

 

Mr. Anutin also insisted that there was enough vaccine to deal with the present situation in Thailand.

 

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-03-23

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

Thailand reported 401 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, a huge surge in new cases compared to previous weeks.

 

8 hours ago, webfact said:

no changes to the announced measures for Songkran holidays, as the situation is under control.

 

 A bit of a conflict there methinks.

 

Who are these tourist Thai nationals or Chinese, it will not be from Europe or America's,

25 minutes ago, emilyarin said:

Who are these tourist Thai nationals or Chinese, it will not be from Europe or America's,

Cino ..cino..cino 5555

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Mr. Anutin also insisted that there was enough vaccine to deal with the present situation in Thailand.

the opposite is true. So far only 60k were given the first jab.

That is minuscule scale, with a target of some 90mln doses needed.

 

it's a pointless now to talk about an international tourism, before whole vaccination program is completed.

Today was sharp rise from 80 cases to 400. Hence songkran celebrations are now in danger of being cancelled.

That is how far planning can go - several weeks in advance. Certainly not several months. Too many factors involved, main being influx of burmese escaping civil war unfolding in the border regions.

 

the only international tourists for foreseeable future can be chinese (if their government allows them to travel). They all can be squeezed in phuket province, no need for them on samui 

8 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Vaccinating 10 million plus a month from July ? Not without help from the Energizer Bunny, The Flash, and Doc and Marty !

Doing the math: 10 million divided with 30 is 333,334 a day, divided with 72 provinces gives an average of 4,630 persons per province; that's not impossible.

 

My home country Denmark have vaccination plan ready for 100,000 people a day, and it's only 5.6 million people and 5 health regions, i.e. 20,000 per region of average little more than one million inhabitants, a Thai province has in average just under one million inhabitants.

 

According to WHO is Thailand better prepared for pandemic than Denmark, Thailand was placed by WHO as sixth best the World.

UK was doing 500k per day until they ran out of AZ

Frontline essential service workers like medical / logistics personnel should all get the first run of vaccination.

As of now, it's early days yet!

It's not just a case of Thailand expecting tourists to be vacinated in the future, tourists will also need to know that the population of the country they are visiting will also have had to have a vacine.

34 minutes ago, Partenavia said:

It's not just a case of Thailand expecting tourists to be vacinated in the future, tourists will also need to know that the population of the country they are visiting will also have had to have a vacine.

It's completely ludicrous to assume that tourism will be safe in a post pandemic world if they don't vaccinate properly.  Remember, the reason why we are all doing this is because if we didn't the health care system earth wide would crash very quickly because everyone would be sick.  

This is a new virus and the chances of getting it are very high.  It's very easy to get and spread.  

I can't see travelling to any country that doesn't have a population that is properly vaccinated for a long time, and I assume everyone's country of origin will not recommend travel there too, which will have monetary consequences in the form of much higher insurance premiums.  

CANCEL Songkran!!! Good crikey, don't they get it?!?