BANGKOK, Dec 3 (Bernama) — Another six Thai nationals who skipped quarantine after sneaking into Thailand from Myanmar via natural border crossings have tested positive for COVID-19.
This brings to 10 the number of Thai women who tested positive after illegally entering the kingdom. All the quarantine flouters worked at Tachileik province in Myanmar.
In the latest development, six Thai women, aged between 21 and 36, sneaked into the kingdom in the northern province of Chiang Rai last week and tested positive for COVID-19 days later. Some of them had travelled to Bangkok and other provinces.
Disease Control Department director Dr Sophon Iamsirithawon said all the new cases entered Thailand via Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district and dodged compulsory quarantine.
He said the new cases included two women, aged 21 and 25 and working at a hotel in Tachileik province, who entered the kingdom via Mae Sai land border and later flew to Bangkok and Phitsanulok.
“They were tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday and Tuesday,” he said at a press conference Thursday.
Besides that, Dr Sophon said a 36-year-old Thai woman who worked in Myanmar sneaked into the kingdom and later caught a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, before travelling by bus to Ratchaburi.
“She went to a private hospital for COVID-19 test after learning one of her friends had tested positive,” he said.
The other new cases included two women aged 23 and 25, who lived in Chiang Mai and were friends of a confirmed case, and a 28-year-old woman who worked at a hotel in the Tachileik border town.
Meanwhile, Public Health Ministry deputy permanent secretary Dr Thongchai Keeratihatayakorn said close contacts of the 10 patients have undergo screening and tested negative for COVID-19.
“No local transmission has been reported thus far,” he said.
To date, Thailand has recorded 4,026 COVID-19 cases with 60 fatalities.
— BERNAMA
