Phuket hails drop in cases

Russian tourists stay at the beach in Phuket on March 12, 2022. (Reuters photo)
Russian tourists stay at the beach in Phuket on March 12, 2022. (Reuters photo)

Phuket reported fewer than 100 daily Covid-19 cases for the past 10 consecutive days, the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office said.

Covid-19 will be labelled an endemic disease in Thailand in early July, allowing people to return to normal life.

Phuket recorded just 39 new cases and zero deaths on Tuesday.

There were also no new cases from international visitors since testing was replaced by a vaccination certificate and health insurance.

"Phuket's fatality rate has been less than 0.1% for two weeks and the vaccination rate among locals is relatively high with 89% of the population fully vaccinated and 67% having received their booster dose," Phuket's public health chief said.

For endemic disease status, the death ratio must not exceed one in 1,000 people infected, or 0.1%, and more than 60 % of the population must have received full vaccine doses, he said.

Koh Samui is proving another popular destination after the Test & Go scheme was cancelled on May 1. Bangkok Airways said its flights to Koh Samui are now fully booked.

International tourists have overwhelmed Suvarnabhumi airport since the requirement for an RT-PCR test after entry was dropped.

In contrast to Phuket and Koh Samui, Krabi is suffering from a lack of international flights to bring in incoming travellers.

Krabi only has two international airlines flying to the province while Phuket has almost 200 flights per day. The international terminal is under renovation but has been approved for reopening by the Airports of Thailand (AOT).

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Vocabulary

  • cancellation: a decision to stop something that has been arranged from taking place - การยกเลิก
  • certificate: an official document or record stating that particular facts are true - หนังสือรับรอง
  • dose (noun): an amount of drug or something else that you take at a single time or affects you at a single time - ปริมาณที่ให้ต่อครั้ง
  • endemic: regularly found in a particular place or among a particular group of people and difficult to get rid of - ประจำท้องถิ่น
  • hail: to describe somebody/something as being very good or special, especially in newspapers, etc - ยกย่อง, ชมเชย
  • insurance: an arrangement in which you regularly pay an insurance company an amount of money so that they will give you money if something you own is damaged, lost, or stolen, or if you die or are ill or injured - การประกัน
  • lack of: when there is not enough of something - ขาด
  • overwhelm: to be in such great amount that a person cannot deal with it - ท่วมท้น
  • renovation: making something old look new again by repairing and improving it, especially a building - การปฏิสังขรณ์, การทำให้มีสภาพดีเหมือนเดิม, การบูรณะ, การซ่อมแซมใหม่
  • replace: to change from one thing to another - แทน
  • requirement: something that you must have or do in order to do or get something else - ข้อกำหนด, ข้อบังคับ
  • suffer: to experience something very unpleasant or painful - ประสบ
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