#Thai Health Department Wants Tracking for Beaches and Tourist Spots

Dr. Panpimol Wipulakorn head of Thailand’s health department has said that even though some restrictions on domestic travel have been relaxed, travelers should adopt “new normal”.

This week popular beaches opened across Thailand with great fanfare by beach goers especially at Bang Saen beach in Chonburi province. Bang Saen beach in Chon Buri was almost bursting at the seams with beach goers. Traffic on the beachfront road in Bang Saen ground to a halt prompting authorities to order its temporary closure.

Now Thailand’s health department has made calls for limiting the number of visitors to tourist spots to prevent a possible surge in Covid-19. The concerns also come as Thailand’s government prepares to allow more businesses and activities to reopen ahead of schedule.

Dr. Panpimol Wipulakorn head of Thailand’s health department has said that even though some restrictions on domestic travel have been relaxed, travellers should adopt “new normal”.

People need to continue to practices and maintain social distancing and safety precautions. And above all continue wearing masks and sanitizing their hand wherever they go.
Face Masks on Beaches

For the next phase of lockdown easing, it may be necessary to curb the number of visitors to tourist spots. Similar to limiting the number of people going to shopping malls, Dr Panpimol said.

She added that local governments should control the number of visitors to beaches in their respective provinces. Above all to prevent overcrowding and improper social distancing. Tourists and workers in the service industry should also be required to wear masks while on the beaches, Dr Panpimol said.

Hand sanitizer should also be provided for visitors while toilets and bathrooms on beach fronts should be cleaned every two hours, she said. She also believes visitors should have to check in and out at beaches.

Dr Panpimol said the health department has been monitoring every phase of relaxation. It found that while people continue to wash their hands, they aren’t wearing face masks in public as much.

She also said movie-goers will not prohibited from eating popcorn and soft drinks in cinemas. However they have been urged to take precautions and wear masks all the time.

Pubs and Bars Reopening

Meanwhile, Dr. Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) said on Friday that more businesses and activities will be allowed to reopen ahead of schedule. If they can give assurances that they have plans to prevent covid-19 transmission.

Dr Taweesilp said that the CCSA has regularly discussed the fourth and final phase of relaxation. Especially for businesses and activities that are in the high-risk category such as pubs and bars.

The spokesman for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, said that businesses that come up with plans to prevent transmissions may be permitted to reopen ahead of  schedule. However, such plans have to be approved by the CCSA’s business resumption committee first.

The next stage of relaxation which will effectively lead to a complete reopening of the country. The government plans to completely lift the lockdown on all businesses and activities on July 1 country wide.

This also includes lifting inter-provincial travel restrictions. And above all ending the emergency decree and curfew.

The emergency decree, which was invoked on March 26 to deal with Covid-19, will end in June. Furthermore the ban on international travel would end at the same time it is lifted.

The CCSA on Friday reported one new case of Covid-19 infection, a returnee from Kuwait who tested positive just before leaving quarantine. There have been no new deaths from covid-19.

Source: The Chiang Rai Times / Bangkok Post

#Thailand - Maya Bay 'well on the road to recovery'

Coral reefs and ecosystems at the world-famous Maya Bay in the Andaman sea have been almost fully revived, but a date for its reopening to tourists has not been set. 

 

“After being closed for many months to facilitate natural restoration, the beach's green forests have started to recover and coral reefs in the bay area have also been showing recovery and these are encouraging signs,” Thon Thamrongnawasawat, well-known Thai marine biologist, wrote on his Facebook page on September 25.

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He also showed several photos provided by the marine national park operation centre, featuring lively coral reefs, crystal blue water and a shark swimming in its waters.

He praised the collaborative efforts for natural rehabilitation by many parties including nature conservation officials, staff of Kasetsart University, representatives from the private sector and volunteers.

There is still the problem of floating garbage spoiling coral reefs but the good news is that officials and volunteers are constantly collecting those garbages, he said.

As part of the two-year natural restoration plan, officials currently are working on the tourists' walk trail to ensure tourists do not damage trees. They are also arranging a new boat pier, ticket booking, tourist quota and other things, he said.

He expected the famous beach could be reopened for tourists uninterrupted. After that it should not be opened and closed from time to time as in the past, he said.

The bay has been closed since June 2018 after overcrowding by tourists damaged the bay environment. The authorities announced in May this year that it would be closed for two years to allow natural rehabilitation.

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Thon said the latest developments pointed to growth of diversified coral reefs, blacktip reef sharks swimming freely and beach forests turning green.

“This is the mission for the future to ensure that later generations would not condemn us (for destroying nature),” he wrote.

He did not speculate when the bay will reopen for tourists, but hinted that it would not be far away, saying that “new hope is approaching”.

Many who commented on his post were excited about the updates but some suggested that the bay remain closed for a more fewer years.

Source - The Nation

#Thailand - “We could move the capital”, says Thai PM

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Citing overcrowded conditions in Bangkok, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has said moving the capital is a possibility.

He made the comment at the seminar “Connecting Thailand with the World”, hosted by the Office of the National Economics and Social Development Council in Muang Thong Thani on Wednesday (September 18), and also vowed to extend the registration deadline for low-income earners to receive state welfare.

“There are two possible approaches to moving the capital,” Prayut said. “The first is finding a city that’s neither too far nor too expensive to move to. The second is to decentralise the urban area to outer Bangkok to reduce crowding.”

The second approach would preserve Bangkok’s important landmarks, he said, while government and business facilities could be relocated to the city’s perimeter, reducing the need for so many people to travel in and out of the city centre and thus easing traffic jams.

Moving the capital is just an idea and would require extensive research as to the economic and social impacts, Prayut said, but it is a possibility under his administration.

“Past governments were never able to pull this off, fearing it would cause irreparable conflict in society,” he said. “The first priority now is to establish mutual understanding among the people to make sure they and the government are on the same page.”

Earlier this year Indonesia’s president announced that the capital of the world’s fourth-most populous country will be moved from Jakarta on the crowded main island of Java, though no new location has been chosen. 

Prayut also said at the seminar 14.6 million citizens had registered as low-income earners eligible for state welfare, though he believes the number should be higher.

“Some people missed the registration deadline, so the government will extend it indefinitely to make sure no one is left behind,” he said.

Source - The Nation

Move to exempt Thais from immigration form

Agency boosting staff and counters at Don Muang airport in bid to alleviate huge crowds of arriving passengers.

EXEMPTING Thai nationals from filling out immigration forms is among the measures being considered to help relieve the overcrowding of arrivals at Don Muang International Airport.

Immigration Bureau commander Pol Maj-General Nattorn Prohsunthorn said yesterday that his agency had discussed the passenger backlog problem with executives of the airport. 

They agreed to increase the number of immigration counters and outsource some of the work.

 He said one of the measures being considered was for Thai passengers to no longer be required to fill the departure and arrival TM6 form.

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The immigration police chief said his agency wanted the proposed exemption to be implemented as soon as possible and it was seeking to expedite amendments to relevant regulations.

He dismissed concerns that cancellation of the requirement would adversely affect national security, pointing out that authorities already have a database of Thai passengers.

“The Immigration Bureau has also sought permission for foreign passengers from certain countries to pass through the automated passport control channels” that are now reserved for Thai passport holders, to help relieve the overcrowding, Nattorn said.

Contingency plans

He said that from tomorrow, the number of immigration officials at Don Mueang airport would be increased to 100, from 42 at present, and they would work four shifts around the clock.

He also said Airports of Thailand (AOT), which oversees Don Mueang airport, has agreed to create space to set up more immigration counters. Within two weeks, the number of immigration counters will be increased from 25 at present to 39, he said.

The Immigration Bureau chief was speaking to The Nation after inspecting immigration operations at Don Mueang airport yesterday, where there were still long queues of arriving passengers.

Over the past year, the number of passengers passing through Don Mueang airport every day has increased to 40,000, up 400 per cent from 2012, when it was reopened as Bangkok’s second international airport.

 On Tuesday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha ordered relevant agencies to tackle the problem of long immigration queues at the airport.

The PM instructed the Immigration Bureau, AOT and the Transport Ministry to prepare contingency plans to deal with chaos similar to that seen at the airport last Friday night, when almost 10,000 passengers had to wait up to five hours to be processed by immigration officials. The chaos was blamed on the delay of over a dozen flights. 

Meanwhile, the Immigration Bureau yesterday described as “inaccurate” media reports that the prime minister had signed a new ministerial order last Friday to exempt all passengers from having to fill the TM6 form when they leave and enter the country.

In a statement, the bureau said that the order, effective from October 1, would cancel the existing TM6 form and replace it with a new one that asks for information necessary for the Ministry of Tourism and Sports in analysing and planning tourism marketing strategies.

“Passengers still have to fill the form when they leave or enter the country,” the Immigration Bureau statement said.

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports clarified yesterday that from October 1, the existing TM6 form would be replaced by a new one – in which both the “departure card” and the “arrival card” will be on the same page. 

The ministry said in a statement that an electronic alternative to collect necessary passenger information would be needed before the TM6 form was eventually scrapped.

“The relevant state agencies are in the process of doing so,” the statement added.

Recently, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of the think-tank Thailand Development Research Institute, said the TM6 form cost Bt5 each and that almost 7 million Thais travelled overseas, according to the 2015 statistics.

He noted that all the information that passengers have to fill in is already on the passport, which has to be produced while passing through the automated passport control machine.

Source - TheNation

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