The Education Ministry announced on Wednesday that all schools, except for those in Samut Sakhon province, will be allowed to reopen from February 1.
However, the announcement said schools in Bangkok and its vicinity – Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Nakhon Pathom and Pathum Thani – can have no more than 25 students per classroom.
In Samut Sakhon, which has seen the highest number of infections in the new wave, schools are required to conduct online classes or at least assignments in case they don’t have facilities.
A group of 120 naval officers gather at the Royal Thai Navy Convention Hall in the capital’s Bangkok Yai district to donate blood on Wednesday.
Admiral Sittiporn Maskasem, the Navy’s deputy chief, presided over the blood donation drive, which was operated by medical personnel from Somdech Phra Pinklao Hospital.
The Army has launched a project encouraging officers to donate blood at public or military hospitals until July 31 in a bid to tackle the shortage of blood supply amid the Covid-19 crisis.
Erawan National Park in Kanchanaburi will reopen to visitors from Friday (January 29), after getting the green light from the communicable disease committee.
However, visitors to Erawan Waterfall will only be allowed to trek the first three of its seven tiers between 8am and 4pm.
The rest of the park will be open from 7am to 8pm.
Erawan’s campsites and guest houses will also reopen from Friday but must be booked before 6pm.
Meanwhile Kaeng Krachan National Park in Petchaburi has been closed until February 11 after visitors on January 13-15 tested positive for Covid-19.
Chonburi’s massage parlours and beauty businesses were allowed to reopen from Wednesday after the Covid-19 outbreak eased.
The move came after massage therapists protested at Chonburi’s city hall on Monday, calling on authorities to lift the longstanding closure order on their workplaces.
Chonburi authorities proposed the issue to the government, and on Wednesday cancelled the order covering massage parlours and spas. Also permitted to reopen from Wednesday are hair salons, beauty clinics, and tattoo/piercing shops.
The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to remove kratom (mitragyna speciosa) from Thailand’s narcotics list and classify the herb as a controlled substance.
The draft Narcotics Act proposed by the Justice Ministry was passed by 319 votes to seven with three abstentions.
If approved by the Senate, the draft will be published in the Royal Gazette and become law within 90 days.
The Cabinet in March 2019 approved the plan to align the law with widespread consumption of kratom, especially by farmers and labourers in the South.
The draft allows production, import and export of kratom by those granted permission by the Narcotics Control Board.
However, sale of kratom to people under 18 or pregnant women is prohibited, as is hiring or allowing people under 18 to sell kratom. Violators face up to two years in jail and a maximum fine of Bt200,000.
Selling kratom in schools, dormitories, public parks, theme parks, or via online channels is prohibited and punishable with a fine of up to Bt40,000.
Advertising or marketing kratom is also prohibited and carries up to six months in jail and a maximum fine of Bt500,000.
Police on Wednesday morning raided several hotels and restaurants in Phuket and Chaiyaphum provinces for allegedly stealing from the “Rao Tiew Duay Kan” (We Travel Together) government subsidy scheme.
According to police, of the 41 suspects in Chaiyaphum province, 38 were arrested, while 12 of the 14 suspects in Phuket were nabbed.
The suspects include operators of hotels and restaurants, as well as accomplices, who took advantage of a not very stringent verification system.
For instance, police said, a person was able to register a fake hotel and even show bookings. In some cases, operators allegedly recorded a higher price for rooms to get a bigger payoff from the government. The subsidy scheme offers customers a discount and returns the difference to hotels or restaurants.
The suspects face a variety of charges, ranging from fraud and false identification to misusing electronic cards and adding fraudulent information to the computer system.
Dairy Farming Promotion Organisation (DPO), a state enterprise under the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry and producer of Thai-Danish milk, has set a sales target of Bt11 billion this year after missing its aim of achieving Bt10 billion in sales last year due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Thai-Danish only sold Bt9.5 billion worth of milk and milk products last year.
“To achieve the target this year, DPO will use a three-pronged strategy by focusing on the dairy industry, marketing and dairy cow farming,” DPO’s acting director Suchart Jariyalertsak said.
“For the dairy industry, we plan to install two high-speed packing machines for UHT milk at our factories in Khon Kaen and Prachuap Khiri Khan, which will boost our production capacity to 24,000 cartons per hour,” he said.
“We also plan to bring one or two new products to the market per year and boost the market share ratio of ready-to-drink milk between traditional markets and modern trade to 50:50.”
As for marketing promotion, DPO plans to add its Chew-D UHT yoghurt, which was introduced in mid-2020 and received a good response, to shelves in 7-Eleven convenience stores to maximise sales.
“DPO will also expand the sales channels of refrigerated products, such as pasteurised milk, yoghurt, drinking yoghurt and ice cream by making them available via modern trade and online channels such as Lazada and Shopee,” Suchart added.
“In terms of dairy cow farming, DPO has strictly followed measures announced by the Department of Disease Control to curb the spread of Covid-19 and other communicable diseases to ensure the safety of farmers and staff,” he said. “This year we will also be working with Betagro and Charoen Pokphand Foods who will help bring modern technology to dairy cow farmers who are part of the DPO cooperative to boost their productivity.”
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on Wednesday reported one death and 819 new cases in 24 hours, including 11 people who travelled from abroad, and announced it would consider a proposal to relax strict anti-virus measures in especially “orange-coded” provinces including Bangkok.
Of the new cases, 92 were exposed to the virus while visiting high-risk areas.
The province with the highest number of infections in 24 hours was Samut Sakhon (70), while six cases were confirmed in Bangkok.
Proactive testing led to the discovery of 716 cases – 714 in Samut Sakhon, 1 in Samut Prakan and 1 in Rayong.
The 76th domestic death was confirmed as a bedridden male patient, 56, who had an ischemic stroke. He passed away on January 25.
He experienced breathing difficulties and had a lot of phlegm on January 22. He was confirmed positive the next day. Despite treatment, his condition deteriorated rapidly.
Of the returnees, two are Thai nationals who came home from Bahrain and Sweden. Also testing positive are one Indian from the United Arab Emirates, an Australian from Mozambique, three British nationals, a Polish citizen, an Iranian, a Swedish national, and an Indonesian, who flew in from their respective nations.
Meanwhile, 162 patients have recovered and been discharged.
CCSA spokesman Taweesin Visanuyothin announced that a draft of fresh guidelines has been proposed for setting the level of risk in each province, with “maximum controlled” areas coded red, “highly controlled” being orange, “controlled” light orange, “high surveillance” yellow, and “surveillance” green.
If the proposal, or draft, is accepted by the CCSA’s main committee, the only maximum controlled province will be Samut Sakhon, which will need to continue conducting intense Covid-19 tests and employ all preventive measures. A CCSA sub-committee has suggested that some remote districts of Samut Sakhon, which are far from the centre of the outbreak, could even relax strict rules for businesses.
Meanwhile, Bangkok, Samut Prakan, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani are expected to fall into the highly controlled category (orange). These provinces could go in for further relaxations, including allowing food and alcohol to be served in restaurants until 11 pm, opening schools fully and allowing an unlimited number of guests in banquet rooms but with strict virus-preventive measures.
The proposal, by the Public Health Ministry, will be sent to the main CCSA committee for consideration this Friday.
As of Wednesday, the number of confirmed cases in Thailand has risen to 15,465. Of these, 13,058 contracted the virus domestically, including 6,248 who were found via proactive testing, and 2,407 are returnees. So far, 11,054 have recovered and been discharged, 4,335 patients are still in hospital and the death toll has increased to 76.
According to Worldometer, as of 10am on Wednesday, the number of confirmed cases globally has increased to 100.83 million (rising by 528,698). Some 72 million have recovered, almost 26 million are active cases (110,299 in severe condition) and 2.17 million have died (up by 15,879 in 24 hours).
Thailand ranks 121st on the global list of most cases. The US tops the list with 26 million, followed by India 10.69 million, Brazil 8.93 million, Russia 3.76 million and the United Kingdom 3.68 million.
The Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT) estimates that a second Covid-19 outbreak would leave half of the workers in tourism or 2 million people jobless because businesses don’t have enough cash to continue paying salaries.
A study on the confidence index of businesses in the tourism sector, conducted by TCT and Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya, learned that business confidence in the last quarter of 2020 stood at 62 points, equal to the same quarter in 2019.
The study found that 1.04 million workers had lost their jobs over 2020. Also, an additional 10 per cent of businesses in the tourism sector closed temporarily in the last quarter, up from 3 per cent in the third quarter. The number of businesses that closed permanently stayed at 3 per cent.
The survey also showed that 50 per cent of tourism businesses decided to reduce their staff by around 30 to 40 per cent in the last quarter of 2020.
TCT chairman Chamnan Srisawat said his organisation has urged Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn to set up a Tourism Labour Bank by March to help those who have lost their jobs. He also called on the government to issue soft loans for businesses in the tourism sector.
Thailand was hit by a new wave of Covid-19 infections in December when people, both Thais and foreigners, began sneaking across the border, leaving medical personnel on the frontline overwhelmed.
However, doctors in Tak’s Mae Sot district have found a new way to “shake it off”. Mor Chai Dan or doctors in the border area shared a clip on Facebook showing doctors and nurses dancing. They said the dance workout, led by a Covid-19 Ward chief and a nurse, put them in a good mood and got rid of the stress.
More than 60 Thais, who either sneaked across the border or took the legal route, are being treated at the Mae Sot Hospital, while foreigners have been sent back to their own country.
As of last Sunday, there were 136 confirmed Covid cases in Tak province. Of them, 26 had been infected locally and 110 were returnees. So far, two people have died from the infection, 62 have recovered and 72 are still undergoing treatment.
