SAMUT SAKHON: Authorities are considering a lockdown and temporary factory closures in this central province after the Covid-19 situation worsened over the past few days.
Seven Covid-19 deaths and 1,057 coronavirus cases were reported in dark-red zoned Samut Sakhon province on Saturday.
Of the new cases, 822 were confirmed at hospitals, 224 detected during mass testing and six were found at the prison.
Of the 827 cases found at hospitals, 678 lived in the province (475 Thais and 203 foreigners). The remaining 149 — 124 Thais and 25 foreign nationals — were from other provinces.
The 224 cases found during mass testing comprised 38 Thais and 186 foreign nationals. The six cases at the prison were five Thais and one foreign national, the provincial public relations office said on its Facebook page on Saturday morning.
The new infections brought the provincial total since Dec 17 last year to 40,452 cases, of whom 28,254 had recovered, with 327 discharged over the previous 24 hours.
A total of 8,732 were still under treatment and another 3,367 were under observation. Accumulated fatalities stood at 99, according to the public relations office.
Samut Sakhon governor Veerasak Vichitsangsri, chairman of the provincial communicable disease, said the temporary closures of factories and a lockdown of the province had been raised for discussion during the panel's meeting on Friday.
The measures will be discussed again at the next meeting if the number of cases keeps rising, he said.
The governor signed an announcement on Friday asking operators of flea markets to cooperate by temporarily closing the markets until the situation improved, according to the public relations office Facebook page.
