SAMUT SAKHON: The number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in Samut Sakhon, with another 975 infections reported on Thursday.
Of the new infections, 199 were detected via mass testing, 10 were found at a prison and 766 confirmed at a hospital, the public relations office said on its Facebook page on Thursday.
The 766 cases found at hospitals comprised 634 residents of Samut Sakhon and 132 people from other provinces.
The provincial total stood at 38,325 cases, of whom 27,370 had recovered. A total of 10,865 were still under treatment at hospitals. Accumulated deaths stood at 90.
The province’s seven field hospitals still had 189 beds available.
Samut Sakhon governor Veersak Vichitsangsri on Thursday posted an unsual message on his Facebook account, "If regulations cause people to die because of a lack of quarantine places, just bypass those regulations and do it. I issue the order. Let’s see what is more important the regulations or deaths."
Media reports explained his message.
The reports said the province planned to set up 32 community isolation centres to separate infected people from their families.
There were currently 13 such centres receiving infected people. However, the official process for admitting infected people to the centres was very slow.
This is what prompted the governor to order officials to bypass regulations in isolating infected people from their families.
The governor was earlier infected with Covid-19 disease while overseeing efforts to combat the epidemic and spent nearly three months in Siriraj Hospital. He was discharged on March 19 this year.