BANGKOK: Thai authorities have been told to be prepared for a new Covid-19 lockdown in the event that the pandemic spirals out of control.
Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan o Cha told the Public Health Ministry to be ready, even as health officials were randomly testing migrant workers at virus hotspots.
This comes as 382 people tested positive for the virus on Monday, 360 of who were migrant workers, as the spread of infection from the Samut Sakhon shrimp wholesale market continued. The number of confirmed Covid-19 patients from the Samut Sakhon cluster was 821 on Monday night, with only 33 Thais involved.
Prayuth said everyone should cooperate with the government and the health authorities in containing the spread of Covid-19 among migrant workers "or else a lockdown will become unavoidable".
The Bangkok Post reported Prayuth as saying that he needed seven days to assess the Covid-19 situation before deciding whether the New Year countdown should be held.
He urged the public not to panic and hoped that the situation would improve. He said the Public Health Ministry had assured him that the situation was under control.
Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration spokesman Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin said the ministry would present its proposals at the next meeting with the prime minister.
He said the information compiled over the past two to three days on the outbreak in Samut Sakhon was not adequate to predict the situation during the holiday season.
"It will probably take seven days to tell, around Dec 28, so it's hard to say at this point if celebrations should still be held or not."
The health authorities have also sped up the screening of migrant workers in Samut Sakhon.
Dr Taweesilp warned that the number of infections linked to the Samut Sakhon outbreak would likely keep rising, as most Myanmar workers lived together in the same apartments.
He said the Public Health Ministry had adopted the measures that proved to be successful among migrant workers in Singapore, with the apartments where they lived being turned into makeshift quarantine centres.
"This approach should contain the spread of the virus."
Labour Minister Suchart Chomklin said more funds were being sought from the government so that Thai and foreign migrant workers in registered factories and workplaces in Samut Sakhon could be tested.
He said the budget would cover 160,000 tests and targeted workers in the province and legal migrant workers who had social security cards. The cost is estimated at 3,000 baht per person.
He said his ministry would stop bringing in migrant labour from neighbouring countries and that this won't affect companies as there were 2.3 million legal migrant workers in the country.
Meanwhile, the Thai army admitted that it was impossible to completely seal Thailand's borders from illegal migrants.
"Our border is 5,526 km long," said deputy army chief of staff Lieutenant-General Santipong Thammapiya.
He said illegal migrants were sneaking into Thailand from Myanmar, especially at highly porous locations in Tak, Chiang Rai and Kanchanaburi.