People living in Bangkok and nine other "maximum-restriction and controlled" provinces will now feel the pain of a semi-lockdown imposed by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).
The quasi-lockdown starting today is a desperate bid to stop the surge which is threatening to sweep through these high-risk areas if it is not kept in check.
The restrictive measures imposed by the CCSA are more extensive and will have a greater impact than the closing down of all construction camps announced by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Friday.
Under the new move, all construction or maintenance underway must be halted for one month.
Dine-in eating inside and outside malls, shopping centres, hotels, bus and train stations, supermarkets, convenience stores and airports is banned, and only take-home and delivery services are permissible.
Just imagine the pain that the operators of these eateries will suffer having only just reopened from the earlier ban. How many more will be driven out of business by this sudden U-turn?
Construction workers can count themselves luckier than the owners of the eateries or the street vendors because at least they will still get paid, although only at half their daily rate but with free food, thanks to the generosity of the government. Without such financial support, many would have been forced to leave their housing camps.
Some Thai workers who left the camps to head home via upcountry provinces over the weekend may be lured back when they hear about the pay they are missing out on and weigh that against the prospect of being isolated, with no stipend, in local quarantine.
With such measures in place, there is no need for the complete lockdown of Bangkok as proposed by the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI).
FTI chairman Supant Mongkolsuthree, who does not agree with the closing of worker's housing camps and said it would not solve the problem at its root, may now have second thoughts after hearing details of the CCSA's restrictive measures which equate to a lockdown minus the curfew.
But the restrictive measures are just the first step needed in addressing the runaway Covid-19 infections in Bangkok and the "maximum controlled" provinces.
More needs to be done during the one-month partial lockdown such as the blanket screening of workers at all camps and nearby communities to separate the infected from the others.
Mass vaccinations of the workers, both Thais and foreign migrant workers, are a must as advocated by the FTI, but this may not be achieved due to the shortage of vaccines.
All available resources must be mobilised to contain the spread of the pandemic.
The suggestion that this partial lockdown is just a trial and that, if it does not work, other measures will be explored only reflects weakness and lack of confidence in measures already adopted.
The government does not have the luxury of time. This is a war that must be won, or we all will be the losers, not just a prime minister who appears to have gambled his political future on this fight to tame the virus so Thailand can reopen to foreign arrivals in four months.
Whether the prime minister will succeed in attaining his dream so he can stay on for another term does not matter any more because his seven years in the office without any significant achievement is already too long.
For the time being, we should all remain focused and help in whatever ways we can to win this war -- not for the sake of the prime minister and the politicians, but for ourselves and the country so it can begin to move forward once again.
Veera Prateepchaikul is former editor, Bangkok Post.