The government on Friday reported four new coronavirus disease infections, all people in quarantine who had returned recently from the United Arab Emirates or Sudan.
Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman of the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, announced the new cases and said the country had now been free of locally transmitted infection for 32 days.
He said that did not mean the country was free of the disease. He pointed to Beijing, which had not recorded a local infection for about 50 days before a second wave of Covid-19 cases hit the Chinese capital city.
He warned that people should not drop their guard.
"No matter how many days have passed without a local infection, it does not mean that there is no disease. This is why everyone is saying that a second round of infection will occur," Dr Taweesilp said.
People should still strictly follow personal infection prevention measures, including the use of face masks and social distancing, and use the Thaichana app, which would help officials investigate and contain any future eruption of local infection.
Two of the new cases announced on Friday are women, aged 22 and 27 who arrived from Sudan on Wednesday, when they tested positive for Covid-19.
They were quarantined in Samut Prakan province. One of them had a fever and the other had no sense of smell, a cough and a sore throat.
The other two are masseuses, aged 32 and 53. They returned from the UAE on June 13, were quarantined in Bangkok and tested negative initially. They tested positive on Wednesday, but remained symptom free.
So far, the state had quarantined 46,569 returnees, 225 (0.48%) of whom were infected, he said.
"The strength of our measures has resulted in the detection of the infected people," Dr Taweesilp said.
The total number of Covid-19 cases in the country has now risen to 3,162, of whom 3,040 had recovered, including two discharged over the previous 24 hours. Sixty-four patients remained at hospitals. The death toll was unchanged at 58.
Global Covid-19 cases rose 183,082 over the past 24 hours to 9.71 million with 491,783 deaths, up by 6,811. The United States had the most cases at 2.50 million and 126,780 deaths, he said.
