Thailand Plans To Slash Quarantine Period

By Linda Khoo Hui Li BANGKOK, Sept 24 (Bernama) -- Thailand plans to reduce 14-day hotel quarantine for fully vaccinated tourists and travellers to help boost its economy and tourism industry. Director-general of Disease Control Department Dr Opas Karnkawinpong said the disease control committee has proposed to slash the mandatory two weeks quarantine to seven days for fully vaccinated travellers where they must undergo RT-PCR test upon arrival. He said for visitors without jab certificates arriving by air would be subjected to 10-day quarantine while those arriving by land would undergo 2-week quarantine. “The planned measures will apply to visitors from every country. The shorter quarantine of visitors would not worsen the (COVID-19) situation as the Phuket Sandbox reopening project proved that visitors did not cause an outbreak but local infections did,” he was quoted saying by Bangkok Post. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the disease control committee would propose to the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) that to slash the mandatory 14-day quarantine next week. Thailand is pushing to reopen more of its popular tourist destinations to vaccinated travelers starting October to revive its tourism industry hard hit by COVID-19 pandemic following the success seen in "Phuket Sandbox” and "Samui Plus” launched in July. However, Thailand’s plans to reopen Bangkok on Oct 1 were probably delayed following failure to meet the target of fully vaccinating 70 per cent of the adult population. Last week, Bangkok Governor Aswin Kwanmuang said though more than 70 per cent of the adult population in Bangkok to date received at least one dose of the vaccine, only 37 per cent have been fully vaccinated. Over the last 24 hours, Thailand recorded 13,256 new cases and 131 deaths, bringing the total infections in the kingdom to 1,524,613 and 15,884 fatalities. -- BERNAMA