FILE PHOTO: Travellers arrive at the airport, as Phuket reopens to overseas tourists, allowing foreigners fully vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to visit the resort island without quarantine, in Phuket, Thailand July 1, 2021. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

 

(Reuters) -Thailand's Phuket will ban travel from the rest of the country from Aug. 3-16 to try to stop a surge in coronavirus cases from spreading to the resort island, but overseas visitors will be largely unaffected, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

 

Phuket is at the heart of efforts to revive Thailand's tourism industry, a major revenue earner that has been devastated by the pandemic.

 

Since July 1, tourists fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have been allowed to move freely on the island, with no self-isolation on arrival, an initiative dubbed the "Phuket sandbox".

 

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said the new travel rules will restrict movement to Phuket from elsewhere in Thailand, meaning foreign visitors who stay on the island will not be affected.

 

Tourists who have stayed on Phuket for more than 14 days will be allowed to leave for other parts of Thailand and can re-enter Phuket only if they have international flights booked from the island's airport, Tanee said.

An order signed by Phuket's provincial governor said exceptions would also be made for medical supplies and personnel and supplies of fuel, money and food.

 

Operating hours have been restricted for some venues on Phuket and some have been ordered to close as authorities try to limit any impact from the rise in infections across the country.

 

Thailand has in the last few months been struggling with its worst COVID-19 outbreak since the start of the pandemic, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, first detected in India.

 

The national COVID-19 task force reported 17,669 coronavirus cases and 165 deaths on Thursday, both record highs. It said 21 of the fatalities had died at home.

 

Hospitals in Thailand's capital Bangkok and the surrounding provinces are running out of capacity due to the surge in infections. More than 1,200 people are waiting for hospital beds and over 6,000 have called a hotline in the last week requesting treatment, health authorities said.

 

"We don't know where to put the sick people anymore, the ER (emergency room) units in many hospitals have to be temporarily closed because they no longer have bed spaces," Department of Medical Services head Somsak Akksilp told a news conference.

 

There are more than 37,000 hospital beds, including in makeshift field hospitals, in Bangkok and surrounding provinces, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

 

Thailand won plaudits for containing the coronavirus for most of last year, but authorities have struggled to halt the wave of cases starting in April that has taken total infections to 561,030, with 4,562 fatalities.

 

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Ed Davies and Catherine Evans)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-07-30

 

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Finally, a couple of real tourist arrived. Camera, ready, go!

8 minutes ago, webfact said:

Tourists who have stayed on Phuket for more than 14 days will be allowed to leave for other parts of Thailand and can re-enter Phuket only if they have international flights booked from the island's airport, Tanee said.

I would suggest with a 2 week watch on Phuket, they'd be better off changing their dates and getting out now if they are booked to fly from the Island Internationally. Every chance the International flights will be cancelled soon if two week watch goes badly

You better double up on your masks guys

Good luck

I am going to paste some info from another Thai newspaper, the bp. In an article named sandbox gets dirty, the info says Since July 1 , there have been 11,806 sand box foreign arrivals to the province, of which 26 persons were detected Covid-19 in PCR test.

 

I believe there are few are tested only on the 7th day. So, the positive rate was 0.22%, and likely to have few infected on the plane or arrival or local. And during the 4 weeks time, the positive rate per week is merely 7 person per week. Since they are either quarantined or send back home, the 7 person per week infection is unlikely to cause the local outbreaks.

 

Hence, double vaccineed tourists are the least of the problems. You can't have a sand box unless you sealed it from domestic arrivals too, which is politically incorrect to the government, unfortunately. 

 

But, sadly, I don't see anyone within the leadership can correct the mistakes. It will only add anxiety to everyone involved. We will end up having a situation that no step can be taken as any direction would be wrong to most involved or have dire consequences. I really believe this is the moment that do nothing actually is the best strategy.

1 hour ago, ChC1 said:

I really believe this is the moment that do nothing actually is the best strategy.

Doing nothing is the worst possible course of action, it's spreading like wildfire.

very bad and worrying news.

feel so stupid to come to phuket in the first place.

does not feel like a holiday at all, when all is closed and people are so sad.

the proud and selfish authorities allowed all those dirty farang in, but did not

stop the clean thai from entering.

maybe i better leave now.

The entire country should be restricting interprovincial travel. That's one of the steps that wiped out the virus the first time.

Foreigners in Thais out - how will that go down with the racists in the country (not all Thais are racist, just the noisy ones), who consider themselves the superior race

 

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand's Phuket will ban travel from the rest of the country from Aug. 3-16 to try to stop a surge in coronavirus cases from spreading to the resort island, but overseas visitors will be largely unaffected, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Yeah okay...

Good idea. Duh! It is the Thai people who are primarily spreading Covid right now within Thailand, not the few tourists who are showing up tested multiple times, and fully vaccinated. Stop the xenophobia. It is so tiresome and boring, already. 

Maybe my expectations of a "holiday" are too high..  I can't see the enjoyment in walking around the towns in Phuket (especially Patong) in a lack lustre, subdued environment..  That's how it will feel if you've been there many times before when things were normal.

When you can't experience the famous "thai smile" because of a mask..  or, although fully vaccinated, become covid positive on the day after arrival and pass it on..  not my kind of holiday.   

Unless Thailand bars unvaccinated children from coming to the country, the Phuket sand trap is just that.

Already a couple of unvaccinated kids who were COVID carriers came in with their mom, who also became infected.

How stupid it was of Thailand to let anyone into the country who did not get vaccinated.  Very simple math 

involved here.  I am glad that I have not gotten the travel bug, and I will not be travelling anywhere, as long as there

are unvaccinated people travelling anywhere in the world.  Money and greed is one thing, but Stupidity is quite another.

Geezer

A post with an intentional misspelling of Phuket into a profane context has been removed as well as a reply.  Please refrain from posting that type of profane misspelling.