Nonthaburi provincial authorities on Friday revealed the timeline of the 13th patient in the latest Covid-19 wave in the province.
As of Friday, 15 new patients were confirmed in the province, taking the cumulative total to 131 since the outbreak early this year.
The 13th case is a person aged 36, who possibly got infected in Samut Sakhon.
According to the announcement, the man lived in Nonthaburi’s Bang Bua Thong district, and had driven to Mahachai seafood market in the red area province on December 15, 18 and 22.
The man had suspected symptoms – diarrhoea and snot – on December 21.
He also visited Sarasas Witaed School – Bang Bua Thong branch – for bringing his child back home on December 15, 16 and 17. Also, he took his child to the school on December 16 and 17.
The patient also visited Sombat Buri market in Nonthaburi on December 17 and 21, and Bang Len seafood market on December 22.
The man decided to visit a private hospital for checkup on December 23 and was found infected on December 24.
The Criminal Court on Friday read its verdict in a case filed by the Criminal Case Prosecutor Office against Krisada Chaikhai, aged 49 years, and Phassanai Phanas, 45, members of the United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship, also known as red shirts, for violating the Arms Control Act BE 2530 during the mass protests in 2014.
The two were arrested with 20 anti-personnel fragmentation grenades in Bangkok’s Bang Sue district and had confessed to their crimes.
The court gave two years’ prison time to both defendants, reducing the original sentence of four years due to their confession and cooperation with the investigation. However, only Phassanai will serve the two-year sentence as Krisada, on March 12, had already been given a life sentence by the Criminal Court for throwing a grenade on a stage during a rally of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee, also known as yellow shirts, on January 19, at Victory Monument, resulting in one death and 26 injured.
The district chief of Sungai Kolok district in Narathiwat province on Friday announced the arrest of 11 male migrants from Myanmar while they were trying to enter Thailand by crossing a river in Pasemat subdistrict that serves as a border with Malaysia.
“The migrants were disembarking from a ferry when officials confronted them before making the arrests. However, the ferry boat driver fled immediately,” district chief Rungreung Thimabutr said.
“Officials then brought the 11 migrants to Sungai Kolok Police Station for Covid-19 screening and interrogation. None of them has proper documents. They used to work on fishing boats in Malaysia and tried to enter Thailand to find jobs,” he said.
Preliminary screening showed that the 11 migrants have normal temperature. They are still detained in isolation until more detailed tests clear them of Covid-19 infection.
Rungreung added that in the past few months, officials had arrested several illegal migrants trying to enter Thailand via natural channels in Sungai Kolok district.
“Most of them were from Kelantan state in Malaysia and were either trying to escape the escalating Covid-19 situation in Malaysia or trying to find jobs,” he said.
“The agency in Malaysia that facilitated their entry would keep their passports to avoid authorities tracing back to them in case the migrants were arrested. We suspect that they could be international human trafficking rings.”
Nonthaburi provincial authorities on Friday ordered Wat Boromracha Kanchanapisek Anusorn, also known as Wat Leng Noei Yi 2, a famous Chinese Buddhist temple located in Bangbuathong district, to be closed temporarily from December 25 until January 8.
“Officials will use the temple’s premises as quarantine location for persons suspected of contracting Covid-19 but are yet to show symptoms,” province officials said on the Facebook page of Nonthaburi Covid-19 Information Centre on Friday evening.
Two new Covid-19 cases have been recently reported in Nonthaburi — both are Myanmar national female workers at the temple aged 54 and 46 years.
After the cases were found, 113 monks and staff of the temple were quarantined within the temple.
Health officials are tracing their travel history and testing people who might have had close contact with the patients.
Six officials in the Prime Minister’s Office at Government House who had earlier tested positive for Covid-19 via rapid test were ruled as not infected after swab test, a senior official said.
Government House had performed random screening of its 700 staff on Friday afternoon. The six positive results came from the first batch of 350 staff whose saliva was tested with rapid test kits. The second batch will be tested on Monday.
“The six staffers were ruled as carrying no risk, but were told to work from home for the peace of mind of their colleagues,” Nuttreeya Thaweewong, director at Office of Spokesman, Secretariat of the Prime Minister, said on Friday evening.
The Thailand Meteorological Department said on Saturday that the high-pressure system over upper Thailand is weakening, causing the temperature to rise by 1-3 degrees Celsius with possible morning fog.
Cool to cold weather continues in the North and the Northeast, while mountaintops remain cold to very cold with frost in some place. Motorists in upper Thailand should proceed with caution due to poor visibility, the department said
Meanwhile, the weak northeast monsoon prevailing over the Gulf and the South, will bring isolated heavy rain to the areas.
The weather forecast for the next 24 hours:
North: Cold to cool weather with light fog in the morning; minimum temperature 10-21 degrees Celsius, maximum 27-34°C; temperature on hilltops likely to drop to 4-12°C with frost in some areas.
Northeast: Cool weather with light fog in the morning; minimum temperature 17-22°C, maximum 30-31°C; temperature on hilltops is likely to drop to 10-15°C.
Central: Partly cloudy with light fog in the morning; minimum temperature 23-24°C, maximum 31-34°C.
East: Partly cloudy with light fog in the morning; minimum temperature 23-25°C, maximum 31-34°C; waves 1-2 metres high and two metres off shore.
South (east coast): Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 40 per cent of the areas and isolated heavy rain; minimum temperature 23-25°C, maximum 26-30°C; waves 1-2 metres high and two metres during thundershowers.
South (west coast): Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 20 per cent of the areas; minimum temperature 21-24°C, maximum 28-30°C; waves a metre high and 1-2 metres during thundershowers.
Bangkok and surrounding areas: Light fog in the morning; minimum temperature 23-25°C, maximum 30-34°C.
Time for Prayut and his allies to reflect on national security, amid Covid surge and prolonged political conflict
NationalDec 26. 2020Police erected a barrier of razor wire and shipping containers to prevent a rally at the Crown Property Bureau, so protesters switched their focus to the Siam Commercial Bank headquarters on November 25.
By Wichit Chaitrong The Nation/ Analysis
Flooding and Covid-19 have exposed serious flaws in national security under the government of PM Prayut Chan-o-cha this year.
The deep faults in national security strategy are highlighted by the mismanagement of tax funds and the handling of youth-led protesters under Prayut’s leadership.
The prime minister is again under fire after Covid infections spiked over last weekend. Migrant workers from Myanmar, especially illegal immigrants, are the suspected source of the outbreak, which centred on a Samut Sakhon seafood market and saw cases jump by over 500 last Saturday.
Observers have criticised the government’s failure to monitor migrant workers and crack down on migrant-trafficking gangs at the border, despite setting up the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).
Social activist Sombat Boonngamanong noted the government had redirected border patrol police to counter pro-democracy rallies in Bangkok.
Instead of using them to prevent illegal entry by migrants from Covid-ravaged neighbouring countries, the government has deployed border police to keep an eye on protesters during major street rallies in the last few months.
Bangkok police in November and December also barricaded roads with razor wire and shipping containers, in a move ridiculed as overkill by observers.
Some pointed out that the razor wire barriers could be used more productively at borders to prevent virus-infected smugglers sneaking into the country.
The excessive response to peaceful student-led protests that began in July eventually turned violent when the government imposed an emergency decree and police fired water cannon and teargas to clear the gatherings. Royalist counter-protests were also mobilised against the pro-democracy movement, leading to violent clashes.
In a desperate bid to crush protests calling for Prayut to step down, a new Constitution and monarchy reform, police have lately applied the draconian lese majeste law against dozens of protesters, including a 16-year-old child.
The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights criticised the government for using Section 112 – which carries jail sentences of up to 15 years – against demonstrators exercising their internationally recognised right to protest peacefully.
The government defended its actions as “protecting national security”. However, the Covid-19 surge suggests Prayut’s administration has a warped view of national security priorities that has weakened Thailand by shifting human and financial resources to counter protesters rather than the virus. If Prayut and his inner-circle were genuinely focused on the nation’s security, they would have allocated more personnel and budget to combating Covid-19 instead of wasting human and financial resources on countering peaceful protests. More evidence of misplaced priorities came with the Bt54 million in tax money spent by the Royal Thai Air Force to renovate a toilet on its VVIP jet-liner.
The government also fared badly in efforts to combat severe flooding which hit almost 1 million people in the South this year. Prayut’s administration prioritised combat of a different sort, spending billions on military hardware including a submarine, despite the absence of threats – marine or otherwise – from foreign powers. The budget choices were more proof of misplaced national security priorities among Prayut and his military top brass.
Academics duly called on the government to abandon a national security strategy rooted in the military-establishment alliance.
Surachart Bamrungsuk, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University, urged the government to cancel its 20-year national strategy – a legacy of the post-coup junta – warning the plan would quickly be rendered obsolete by the fast-changing global and local landscape. He observed that the national strategy was a political tool designed to entrench the military’s role in government following the March 2019 general election. Hence it was not capable of addressing the country’s current problems, he added.
The impact of Covid-19 had severely damaged the country’s economy and competitiveness. The unforeseen crisis had rendered the 20-year national strategy worthless, Surachart wrote in a comment piece headlined “Is the 20-year National Strategy relevant post-Covid 19?” published by the Nation Thailand in April.
Meanwhile Thailand is officially becoming an ageing society. Protecting national security now means finding ways to boost productivity of the younger generation, since they are the ones who will have to pay off the huge public debt built up by this generation. The youngsters will need to shoulder the growing burden of caring for the aged. The priority now is to upgrade the quality of education to support this young generation. There is also an urgent need to strengthen key institutions, especially the political and judicial systems that mediate conflicts in society. However, the government has ignored this need, instead exploiting those institutions as weapons to combat younger generations and their demands for national reform and genuine democracy.
Prayut and his Cabinet have branded pro-democracy protesters as youthful troublemakers. The reality is that many in the older generation back their calls for national reform. Former prime minister Anand Panyarachun has expressed support for amendment of the lese majeste law. Business leader Banyong Pongpanich has backed monarchy reform, suggesting that Thailand should return to the benchmark set by King Rama IX. The previous monarch did not take control of two Army regiments in Bangkok, nor did he have direct control over the Crown Property Bureau.
It has become obvious that the youth-led democracy movement wants “rule of law” as the solid ground on which Thailand can develop in the 21st century. This is the priority that all stakeholders in the country can agree on. The youth are already determined to achieve it in their lifetime, but the current government has rewarded their efforts with charges of sedition and lese majeste. Unfortunately, Prayut and his old alliance are still at a loss over the true identity of national security. The New Year is the right time for them and the whole country to reflect on this issue.
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) released a map of Thailand with provinces colour coded based on the level of Covid-19 risk and strength of measures taken.
The colours are red, orange, yellow and green, with red being provinces with the highest number of infections. As of Friday, of the 32 provinces where Covid-19 cases have been confirmed, the only one marked in red was Samut Sakhon.
Province marked out in orange, signifying more than 10 cases, were Bangkok, Samut Songkhram, Ratchaburi, Nakhon Pathom, Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan.
Provinces marked out in yellow, where fewer than 10 cases have been found, are Saraburi, Suphanburi, Pathum Thani, Uttaradit, Chachoengsao, Kamphaeng Phet, Phetchabun, Ayutthaya, Phuket, Phetchaburi, Nakhon Ratchasima, Prachinburi, Krabi, Khon Kaen, Chai Nat, Udon Thani, Phichit, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chaiyaphum, Nakhon Sawan, Ang Thong, Ubon Ratchathani, Songkhla and Loei.
The rest of the provinces were marked in green to show no Covid-19 cases have been reported in the new wave of infections.
Six officials in the Prime Minister’s Office at Government House have tested positive for Covid-19 after random screening of its 700 staff. The six positive results came from the first batch of 350 staff whose saliva was screened with rapid test kits. The second batch will be tested on Monday.
The six whose results came back positive have been tested again via the swab method to confirm the infection, with the results due tomorrow (December 26).
Government House has now been closed to outsiders, while all documents delivered to the building are being sterilised in a UV cabinet.
The building will be sterilised in a deep-cleaning operation on Friday. Meanwhile the press pack at Government House have been warned they face rapid tests if the situation does not improve.
The Department of Disease Control (DDC) has revealed a new Covid-19 cluster from a “big-bike party” in Koh Lanta, with around 10 confirmed infections and 129 people at risk.
A Covid-19 patient travelled from Samut Sakhon on December 9 with two friends to attend the Multistrada Thailand Meeting of Ducati bikers on December 11 in Koh Lanta.
There he came in contact with 133 people, 129 of whom are at high risk and four not at such high risk. All these people have been tracked and contacted as the hotel had registered every partygoer.
So far, 10 cases related to this party have been detected, including the initial one from Samut Sakhon.
Four cases have been found in Krabi, one of whom attended the party in Koh Lanta and then transmitted the virus to his wife, daughter and relative.
One partygoer transmitted the virus to his two sons in Phuket, while two infections were recorded in Songkhla, as one of the big bikers transmitted the virus to his younger sister.
DDC has called on authorities in each province to look out for people who may have attended the Koh Lanta party and passed the infection on to others.
Police erected a barrier of razor wire and shipping containers to prevent a rally at the Crown Property Bureau, so protesters switched their focus to the Siam Commercial Bank headquarters on November 25.
