Villagers around Lak Si camp get COVID-19 jabs

[Jonathan Fairfield]

 

BANGKOK (NNT) - Residents around Lak Si construction camp have been getting COVID-19 jabs since the camp was linked to a large cluster. On Tuesday, City Hall opened an on-site vaccination center for the villagers, which is however closing today.

 

The vaccination center was opened at Bang Khen School in Lak Si, Bangkok, to urgently inoculate people living in the neighborhood around the Lak Si construction camp.

 

On its final day of operation today, a 500-meter long queue can be seen as many people arrive to get their jabs. The center can provide the jabs to 10 people in a given time slot, with officials from Lak Si District Office on the ground to provide assistance and prevent crowding among those waiting.

 

From 25th May until today, the district office arranged for residents of the seven communities surrounding the cluster-linked construction camp to get their COVID-19 vaccine shots, in an attempt to contain the outbreak.

 

The construction camp is one of the major clusters emerging in Bangkok in recent weeks, with the B.1.617.2 variant of concern first found in India, detected in some of the cases in this cluster.

 

People getting their shots today said they feel more confident after getting their first dose, as they believe the vaccine will protect them from COVID-19. They have asked other people to join in the vaccination program in order to stop the spread in Thailand.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-05-30

 

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[Bkk Brian]

While the migrants in the camps languish locked up, with infected people among the uninfected allowing it to spread inside. 

 

"Enforcing an abusive and discriminatory policy, Thai authorities put migrant workers affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in a ghetto, where infection spreads like wildfire in squalid conditions," said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Thailand.

 

https://news.trust.org/item/20210528152739-huym4/