Covid Infections, and Blame, Rise Along Southeast Asian Borders

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From NYTImes

Vigilance against the coronavirus has been heightened in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, which sits directly across the Moei River from Myawaddy, Myanmar.Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times

By Hannah Beech

MAE SOT, Thailand — The border between Thailand and Myanmar is more than 1,500 miles long, much of it thickly forested. Myanmar has suffered runaway transmission of the coronavirus. Thailand, so far, has not.

But over the past couple of weeks, at least 19 Covid-19 cases in Thailand have been linked to migrant workers who slipped between the two countries undetected. The infections have spooked Thai officials, who have managed one of the world’s most successful coronavirus containment strategies.

The health authorities in Thailand are now racing to trace the contacts of hundreds of people who may have been exposed to the virus. And the events have cast a spotlight on how regions like Southeast Asia that depend on porous borders are fighting to keep the virus out while allowing economic activity to continue.

From Mexican farm workers in California to Ethiopian construction workers in the Persian Gulf and Zimbabwean domestic workers in South Africa, essential labor is often carried out by undocumented people who slip across borders for work. Yet several countries are now using the illicit flow of migrant labor to accuse their neighbors of virus outbreaks.

In Southeast Asia alone, Myanmar has blamed people from Bangladesh, and Thailand has blamed Myanmar. Vietnam has pointed fingers at China. And China says its southwestern flank is suffering because of movement from Southeast Asia.

The winding frontier between Myanmar and Thailand — separating one country that has managed the virus from one that has not — is putting the crisis in stark relief.

“The border is very long,” said Col. Chatri Sanguantham, whose soldiers patrol the mountainous northern Thai region, near the town of Tachileik, Myanmar. “They will do anything, take any measure, to get what they want, including entering the country illegally,” he said of migrant workers from Myanmar.

Compared with other countries, the total caseload in Thailand — a shade over 4,000 infections — seems absurdly low. But over the past few days, Thailand said it had fortified parts of its border, increased military patrols and uncoiled barbed wire at popular illegal crossing points to try and stop the recent spread of infections.

The police have arrested those suspected of being people-smugglers, who are paid as little as $15 to help migrants cross the border illegally.

Undocumented workers, who often labor in crowded conditions, are of particular concern to the authorities because their uncertain legal status also makes them less likely to admit when they are sick, increasing the odds that the virus could spread undetected.

“Because these people came in illegally, they will lay low, work in hiding,” said Suthasinee Kaewleklai, a coordinator for the Migrant Workers Rights Network in Thailand. “If they get sick, they will never go to the doctor or hospital to get themselves checked.”

The dangers of overlooking foreign laborers, even those who are registered with the government, was made clear in Singapore, where the virus spread fast in crowded dormitories for migrants. While meticulous contact tracing suppressed outbreaks in other communities, the laborers were not monitored as closely, making them more vulnerable, rights groups said.

In Malaysia, thousands of foreign factory workers tested positive for the coronavirus at Top Glove, the world’s largest disposable glove maker, which went into overdrive to supply personal protective equipment. Malaysian authorities are now pursuing legal action against the company for keeping its workers in cramped conditions in which Covid proliferated.

And in Saudi Arabia, the virus spread unchecked in filthy migrant detention centers filled with workers from Asia and Africa, who were often abused and deprived of wages. When migrants were eventually deported to their home countries, some took the coronavirus with them.

Vigilance against the virus has been heightened in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, which sits directly across the Moei River from Myawaddy, Myanmar. Soldiers wearing camouflage and face masks patrol the riverbank. Before the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people used to cross the river every year to work, study and play in Thailand, where roughly five million migrants normally find work, only about half of them legally.

At the narrowest point of the river, children could toss a ball between the two countries. In the dry season, migrants wade across the Moei, and in the rainy season they hop on skiffs.

Continues with photos

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/world/asia/covid-thailand-myanmar-migrants-border.htm