High/medium/low risk countries for travelling to Thailand

[reader]

From The Thaiger

Update: Under the “Phuket Sandbox” and “Samui Plus” travel models, travellers not only need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to be eligible to enter Thailand under the schemes, but they also need to be travelling from countries classified by Thailand’s Department of Disease Control as a low to medium risk for Covid-19.

The DDC posts a new list on the 1st and 16th of every month. The information is mostly in Thai. Click HERE to go to the DDC website.

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/the-list-of-high-medium-low-risk-countries-for-travelling-to-thailand-now

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From Reuters

Shut construction sites, seal off camps to contain virus

BANGKOK, June 25 (Reuters) - Thailand will close hundreds of construction sites and prevent workers from leaving their camps for a month, its prime minister said on Friday, in an effort to tackle the country's worst coronavirus outbreak so far.

The order followed the emergence of more clusters in construction camps in the capital, which has 575 such sites in total housing about 81,000 workers. Since May, 37 clusters have been found in Bangkok camps.

Sites in some provinces near Bangkok and four in the south near Malaysia will also be closed from next week.

"Let's implement this for a month. Things should improve then," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters.

The labour ministry will compensate for the costs of halting construction projects, he said.

Labour minister Suchart Chomklin said police will inspect camps for safety and make sure no one leaves, while authorities aim to test everyone inside. Many camp residents are migrant workers.

Details of measures targeting specific businesses and areas are expected to be announced before Monday, Prayuth said, adding that he wanted to avoid a blanket lockdown.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailand-shut-construction-sites-seal-off-camps-contain-virus-2021-06-25/

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From AFP

Thailand races to roll out coronavirus jabs to prisoners

Barefoot Thai prisoners rolled up their sleeves to get coronavirus jabs into tattooed arms Friday, as the kingdom seeks to tackle a mass infection outbreak in its overcrowded jails.

Authorities have been trying to contain a recent virus surge in the penal system, where some inmates have less space to sleep than the inside of a coffin.

There have been more than 35,000 positive cases inside prisons and inmates have been encouraged to wear masks even when they sleep at night.

The government has begun rolling out an initial batch of 300,000 Sinopharm doses across the kingdom's jails.

Inmates at Chonburi Central Prison, two hours southwest of Bangkok, lined up Friday morning to receive their jabs.

"Overcrowding in prisons is a factor making it difficult to prevent this kind of disease," the institution's director, Chan Vachiradath, told AFP.

He said the nearly 6,300 inmates at his prison had so far remained coronavirus-free, but staff are on guard.

Every prisoner had to undergo a swab test before their vaccination and priority was given to elderly inmates and those suffering underlying medical conditions that made them more vulnerable to severe virus cases.

Thailand has around 311,000 prisoners, according to International Federation for Human Rights figures from earlier this year -- more than two and a half times the system's official capacity.

Four out of five prisoners are serving time for drug charges because of harsh anti-narcotics laws that can see offenders jailed for a decade for possessing just a few methamphetamine pills.

https://news.yahoo.com/thailand-races-roll-coronavirus-jabs-085328809.html

 

[spoon]

Thailand just put itself under high risk category, so thailand citizen not allowed to visit phuket?

[Guest]

I wonder how they got to that list ?    Can't be the Indian (Delta) variant, as Thailand already has that.

Japan is allegedly HIGH risk, but has fewer cases than many medium risk countries.   e.g. Mongolia, Colombia (see map)

Chile medium risk, despite a high rate of cases & another variant.

 

Thailand probably has access to better data than me and experts to analyze it, so I expect there are good reasons.  

Possibly adjusting for countries which have no clue how many cases they have ?   

Or any country which didn't send the right paperwork (with stamps) ?

Figuring out how they decide kind of matters for travelers.   As according to the opening article, they revise the list on the 1st and 16th of the month.   So anyone planning a trip may well find the list is revised between booking and travel.  

 

 

 

 

 

[spoon]

They just use daily cases without factoring population. Any countries that is more than 5000 daily cases is high risk. At least thats what i understand from the original thai language lists. It has 4 different lists, so im not sure what other criteria they use, maybe for the laat 14 days average etc. 

[vinapu]

6 hours ago, z909 said:

I wonder how they got to that list ?    Can't be the Indian (Delta) variant, as Thailand already has that.

Japan is allegedly HIGH risk, but has fewer cases than many medium risk countries.   e.g. Mongolia, Colombia (see map)

Chile medium risk, despite a high rate of cases & another variant.

 

may be they  go by number of vaccinated?

Whatever logic for that list is, likely they will go by that so it's good to be aware where our countries are , regardless of Thais reasoning

[spoon]

Criteria used extracted from the thai document translated using google lens.

And one of the 4 groupings they have in the document. Too lazy to translate all 4

[abidismaili]

I am very angry The Netherlands is in the higher risk list. We are now as good as 100% back to normal. Facemasks per today not needed in shops anymore. Entertainment venues per today open. 

[Guest]

1  Using total number of cases without adjusting for population size would be just crazy.  

2  The UK has 259,000 active cases according to World Meters, which puts it #7 on the world list at present.   However:

   (a) The level of daily deaths is exceedingly low, due to vaccination.   Incidentally, over half of the daily deaths are also amongst the ~7% of anti-vaxxers over 50 years old, ie it's voluntary.   Most of the cases are among younger people. 

   (b) The UK finally has quite an active test programme and also has what might be one of the most comprehensive genetic sequencing programmes.     So whilst the UK has a lot of cases, that's due to a lot of testing.   Our actual positivity rate is below a lot of other countries.      

Looking at the table Spoon provided, the UK is in the 4th column, along with a selection of other countries including Canada, Germany etc.   The UK number of cases far exceeds 500, but the GCI score is over 60.    Looking that up it's 62.58 and declining, although that trend ought to improve  shortly as the percentage of the population with no antibodies is declining at some pace.      

Japan has a GCI score of 63.4 and is High Risk ????

There may well be a perfectly sensible formula to combine factors, but what it is is another question.     

[spoon]

If u look at the table, they put japan under GCI < 60 probably the value when they did this list, so for the next update of the list, i believe japan will be downgraded. 

[anddy]

On 6/25/2021 at 7:53 PM, spoon said:

Thailand just put itself under high risk category, so thailand citizen not allowed to visit phuket?

That's so funny! Technically, you are probably right, they shouldn't be able to visit. Practically, however that probably hasn't even occurred to them because the whole sandbox regulation package is for foreign visitors, and Thailand is not a foreign country. Hence, those rules to not apply. but a separate set of rules that basically says "Thais can visit if fully vaccinated. Period."

As for trying to make sense of the list and the placement of individual countries, the sensible posts in this thread make it clear that that is an entirely futile undertaking. TiT. Case in point:

6 hours ago, z909 said:

Using total number of cases without adjusting for population size would be just crazy.  

It would be crazy anywhere else, but it's par for the course in Thailand, we all know that. 

[vinapu]

10 hours ago, anddy said:

 

It would be crazy anywhere else, but it's par for the course in Thailand, we all know that. 

and this is why we love Thailand so much