Thailand scrambles to contain outbreak, secure vaccines

BANGKOK (AP) — For much of 2020, Thailand had the coronavirus under control. After a strict nationwide lockdown in April and May, the number of new local infections dropped to zero, where they remained for the next six months.

Thailand closed its borders, enforcing mandatory quarantines for its own citizens and the handful of foreigners allowed to visit. But aside from a few outward signs of the “new normal,” like the ubiquitous wearing of masks and reminders to practice social distancing, life resumed as though the pandemic had largely run its course.

A new outbreak discovered in mid-December threatens to put the country back where it was in the toughest days of early 2020, when it tallied 3,045 cases and 59 deaths. Thailand's COVID-19 coordinating center has warned that the number of new daily cases could rise to more than 10,000 by later this month under a worst-case scenario if the government does not do more to curtail the virus’s spread.

The outbreak identified in mid-December was centered in a seafood market in Samut Sakhon, southwest of the capital Bangkok, that employs thousands of Myanmar migrant workers. It has now spread to 56 of Thailand’s 77 provinces.

On Tuesday, the country reported 527 new cases, most of them migrant workers linked to the market in Samut Sakhon. A day earlier, Thailand counted 745 new cases, an all-time high since the pandemic was first found in the country last January.

Thailand now has 8,966 total confirmed cases with 65 deaths.

Complicating its path to recovery, Thailand is playing catch-up in its bid to secure vaccines. Despite being a production hub for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the government has yet to secure enough doses to cover its population of nearly 70 million people.

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