Samut Sakhon authorities are mulling a provincial lockdown and have ordered factories to set up a field hospital, after the Covid-19 situation worsened over the past few days.
Samut Sakhon governor and chairman of the provincial communicable disease committee Veerasak Vichitsangsri yesterday ordered all factories that have more than 50 workers to set up Factory Accommodation Isolation (FAI) units to treat infected workers.
These FAIs will need to have enough beds for at least 10% of staff at the factory and meet all requirements set out by the Public Health Ministry. However, they can work with other factories to build shared FAIs outside their facilities, Mr Veerasak said.
He said if the factory operators fail to complete the FAIs by July 30, the provincial communicable disease committee may begin imposing shutdown orders.
Temporary market closures have also begun.
Seven Covid-19 deaths and 1,057 coronavirus cases were reported in this dark-red zoned province yesterday.
Of the new cases, 827 were confirmed at hospitals, 224 detected during mass testing and six were found among prison inmates. Of the 827 cases diagnosed in hospitals, 678 live in the province (475 Thais and 203 foreigners). The other 149 -- 124 Thais and 25 foreign nationals -- were from other provinces.
The new infections brought the provincial total since Dec 17 last year to 40,452 cases, of which 28,254 had recovered, with 327 discharged in the last 24 hours.
A total of 8,732 were still undergoing treatment and another 3,367 under observation. Accumulated deaths stood at 99, according to the provincial public relations office.