The Public Health Ministry has not confirmed yet if a Covid-19 infected South Korean military officer who attended the Cobra-Gold training exercise in Rayong last week is a local transmission case.
Walairat Chaifoo, the Department of Disease Control's chief of Epidemiology Division, yesterday told a press briefing that the department had obtained information that one military officer from South Korea tested positive for Covid-19 at Incheon Airport after he arrived there on Nov 8.
Dr Walairat said the case of the officer has alerted both central and local medical disease investigation teams to help gather more information to identify the source of the disease transmission.
According to the 32-year old military officer's time line, he arrived in Thailand on Oct 17 and went into alternative state quarantine (ASQ) in a hotel in Bangkok.
A virus test was done there twice and no disease was detected. He left the ASQ on Nov 1 and went to stay at a hotel in Bangkok's Sukhumvit area for one night.
He later arrived at a training venue in a hotel in Rayong's Ban Chang district and stayed there from Nov 3-5.
He left the hotel on Nov 6 and stayed for two nights at a hotel in Bangkok. He left the hotel and went to Suvarnabhumi airport on Nov 8, taking a Korean Airlines flight.
"We have three assumptions that firstly he might have been infected with the disease in his country. He might also have been infected in alternative state quarantine or at the meeting place. We do need to have additional information from South Korea in order to verify those assumptions," Dr Walairat said.