A new cluster of 800 Covid-19 cases was reported in Samut Prakan after suspicion that the virus spread to a condominium complex of 8,000 residents in the province.
Muang Samut Prakan district chief Natchawan Allapach Techasen on Friday led a team of public health and immigration officers to give Covid-19 tests to over 8,000 Thai and foreign workers living at the Sin Charoen Thani condominium complex.
A number of the condominium residents work at the Bang Pu industrial estate where hundreds have tested positive for Covid-19.
The district chief said the authorities would finish testing all residents of the Sin Charoen Thani condo within five days.
Samut Prakan governor Wanchai Kongkasem had instructed agencies concerned to test the residences of the infected employees from three factories in the industrial estate.
The three factories have around 4,000 employees in total -- 800 tested positive. They live in three condominium complexes in Samut Prakan.
Muang district has a population of 550,000. Half of them are factory workers.
The movement of foreign workers in the province is now prohibited.
Assistant spokesperson of the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), Apisamai Srirangson said three new clusters of Covid-19 cases were reported in Bangkok yesterday.
A cluster of 36 cases was found in Min Buri market while Bang Khae and Watthana had clusters of 89 and five cases respectively.
The CCSA was closely monitoring 39 clusters in 27 districts of Bangkok, including the three new clusters, to prevent the virus spilling to other areas, the doctor said.
Thailand reported 3,759 new cases with 34 deaths yesterday, bringing the total cases and deaths to 144,976 and 954. Some 973 of the new cases were found in Bangkok while 2,465 were among the general population and 1,294 cases in prisons.
In an afternoon briefing yesterday, the CCSA said that Bangkok again led the fatalities with 24 cases. It said two of them were prison inmates but gave no other details.
Samut Prakan registered three deaths, with two in Nakhon Si Thammarat and one each in Chon Buri, Nakhon Ratchasima, Nakhon Sawan, Tak and Roi Et.
The first wave of infections had a death rate of 1.42%, the second wave 0.14% and the third wave from April 1.23%.
Patients aged 60 and older are at a higher risk of dying from the disease, the assistant spokesperson said.
