News of the Klong Toey cluster of Covid-19 cases has unearthed a can of worms, especially about inequality in Thailand.
A growing gap between the richest and poorest Thais has largely led to the rise of congested communities in Klong Toey, homes to some 90,000 low-income residents that call it home.
The immense number of people congregating in one place during a pandemic is recipe for disaster. It took the government two waves of Covid-19 cases since last year to realise this and that only after countless residents began to contract the virus. This is as much unfortunate as unforgivable as we see a considerable number of cases daily.
As the Bangkok Post building is not far from the Klong Toey, I have often walked through the maze of homes -- some partitioned by planks and rotting wood -- in squalid conditions and wondered how the residents would deal with a life-threatening hazard bigger than fires and flooding that mind you most are already used to.
The virus outbreak in one of the largest and dense communities in the heart of Bangkok was a sitting time bomb.
Due to their job description, I believe it is ludicrous to expect daily wage earners to practise Covid-19 measures to curb the spread of the virus.
We are living in unprecedented times, which means the paltry government handouts just don't cut it.
During the first and second wave of Covid-19 cases, the government's relief measures for the most part were grossly inadequate for many in our society. I know this because I interviewed many people.
If business owners are struggling to survive, what about the destitute and homeless?
People in the lower echelons of our society are often left to their own accord and this creates an income disparity we as a society already know exists but still choose to look the other way.
While we say "prevention is better than cure", oftentimes a more self-centred approach is taken.
This attitude has brought us to where we are today, grappling with a third wave that started from rich patrons at Thong Lor nightlife establishments and has now impacted some of the most vulnerable groups in our society.
While it is commendable to see Thais unite by offering all sorts of support to the less fortunate, I wonder why the private and government sectors did not do more to help narrow the income gap in better times.
While the Klong Toey slum has made major improvements in the last decade thanks to non-government organisations working in the area, there is still so much to be done for the lives of its residents.
Having had the opportunity to visit homes within the slum a handful of times for work-related purposes, the poverty you experience pulls on your heartstrings.
Using a daily route to work that cuts across the slum, I have become friends with two women -- a former convict turned salon owner and a garbage collector who also looks after stray animals.
Both women's homes are located adjacent to each other, however, the economic disparity is obvious. The hairdresser resides in a part-wooden part-concrete one-room home which doubles as a salon while the garbage collector's abode doesn't even have a proper roof and front door.
Both women desire a better future. The saloon owner wants to see to it that her witty seven-year-old granddaughter with a flair for English gets educated while the garbage collector deems working for an animal shelter would be the key to a better future for her.
A conversation I had with both the women a while ago went like this.
The 40-something hairdresser shared: "I would like to see my granddaughter attend a government school, however, since last year the number of customers I get from the Klong Toey area has drastically dropped because of the pandemic and I don't have enough money to even pay for the miscellaneous expenses that come with sending her to a government school.
"The slum community school she attends has done little to keep her up to pace with children her own age."
The 52-year-old garbage collector's candid reply was: "Society thinks I am a menace.
"My hair is matted and I dress shabbily. Who would give me a chance at improving my life? People like me are shunned in our society."
Due to a lack of documents to qualify for government relief measures, both women find themselves in a state of limbo.
Apart from slum dwellers, it is the homeless and street children that have been most impacted by the pandemic.
While the ones I met recently for an interview said they haven't contracted Covid-19 because they keep away from society at large, they did not refute the possibility of being asymptomatic.
Many of them are involved in selling drugs and sex to generate an income.
Nan, an underage sex worker, said the lockdown and curfews since last year had made it difficult for her to make money to pay for her daily expenses.
Falling between the gaps of a dysfunctional educational system and family life, she saw herself on the streets at age nine.
She asks me why the government has totally disregarded their presence in society.
"Life has always been hard for street children. Besides NGOs, we cannot depend on anyone else,'' remarked the teen.
"I don't desire to be a sex worker all my life. My goal is to become a nurse. I was attending night school to complete my schooling so I could get a shot at higher education. However, the third wave of Covid-19 cases has put all my lessons online. It was OK in the beginning but then I got into a fight with my boyfriend who smashed my mobile phone on the wall in a fit of rage. He said I wasn't paying enough attention to him."
Yvonne Bohwongprasert is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.