All Pattaya restaurants now require customers to show Negative Covid-19 Test

[reader]

I don't see how this could have been rationally promulgated or actually enforced. I'm only reporting it.

From Pattaya Mail

In a crushing late-night order, Chonburi’s governor mandated that customers of restaurants of all sizes produce a negative coronavirus test result before entering.

The arguably unenforceable dictate from Gov. Pakarathorn Thienchai late Jan. 1 replaced a less-restritive proclamation issued earlier the same day that had spared smaller restaurants from the onerous unfunded mandate.

Both orders were issued in reaction to the coronavirus omicron variant, which has now made its way to Chonburi on its march to inevitably becoming the dominant strain in Thailand.

The original order had applied only from Dec. 31-Jan. 2 and required all staff, including entertainment performers, at restaurants – and the thousands of bars masquerading as restaurants – to be tested daily with rapid antigen kits.

Customers, however, would only have to produce proof of a negative coronavirus test from within the past 72 hours or take a test on-site before entering if the venue regularly served more than 100 people or “looked busy or congested” even without actually serving 100 people.

The new order, however, does away with the time limit – it’s now in force until further notice – and requires all customers, regardless the size of the venue or the customer’s vaccination status, to either take a test on-site or provide proof of a recent negative test.

Restaurant owners unable or unwilling to foot the testing bill or make customers wait 15 minutes outside for test results are given no other choice than to simply close.

https://www.pattayamail.com/news/all-pattaya-restaurants-now-require-customers-to-show-negative-covid-19-test-385022

 

[Guest]

All this nonsense when Thailand has just 12 daily COVID deaths.   If it's anything like elsewhere in the world, some of those would be dead in a few months even if they had not got COVID.

Meanwhile, there has been over 200 road traffic fatalities in the last 4 days.   Probably mostly of people who would have had decades ahead of them. 

The government needs to recalibrate.  COVID will be around for some time and they need to learn to live with it.  A new milder variant should not lead to endless stupid restrictions, particularly when the death rate is very low compared with other causes of death. 

 

[vinapu]

sometimes I wonder why they simply evacuate Pataya like Pol Pot did to Phnom Penh, close whole place down and not bother with it anymore.

That's most idiotic on many idiotic decisions made over covid in Thailand. I wonder what's next? requirement to take PCR test and wait 24 hrs.  for result to get a dinner? 

 

[Gaybutton]

3 hours ago, vinapu said:

I wonder what's next? requirement to take PCR test and wait 24 hrs.  for result to get a dinner?

If that actually happens, will you be surprised?

They won't have to evacuate the city.  People will leave by their own choice.  I hope this won't result in massive free food lines and lost jobs yet again.

This bizarre edict is on my "I Don't Get It" list.  It makes no sense.  Why would anyone be more likely to get Covid in a restaurant than in any other venue?  I'm closer to many more people in a grocery store than I am in a restaurant.

Pattaya is a tourist dependent city.  What kinds of tourists will go to Pattaya and have to deal with this when they can go anywhere else - and I mean anywhere else - in Thailand and walk right into a restaurant perfectly normally?  And as a local living in Pattaya, I'm not going to deal with this.  I'll either do my own cooking at home or order from one of the food delivery services.

This rule is going to help what?  They talk about learning to live with Covid - so let us live . . .

[a-447]

1 hour ago, Gaybutton said:

 Why would anyone be more likely to get Covid in a restaurant than in any other venue?  I'm closer to many more people in a grocery store than I am in a restaurant.

Because you spend a longer period of time next to someone with Covid if you are sitting in a restaurant compared to passing them in the supermarket aisle.

In countries like Australia I sometimes think it's time we bit the bullet and just decided to live with Covid. And yet despite our advanced medical facilities, our hospitals  are struggling to cope with a mere 30,000 new infections a day across the whole country. It's not about how many are dying - it's a question of whether or not Thailand's hospitals would be overrun if they opened up.

With the vaccine roll-out, vastly improved knowledge of the virus combined with new medications to treat patients now starting to appear, I think we'll be over the pandemic sometime this year.

Unless a new variant appears!

 

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, Gaybutton said:

If that actually happens, will you be surprised?

 

I will be not, from what I saw when I was there in comparison with Bangkok and Chiang Mai, other cities I visited it looked like somebody is determined to kill the city. Rollercoaster closures of Boyztowen and Jomtien Complex night in , night out.

I suspect there's some method in that lunacy , somebody hopes to improve Pattaya's image using opportunity covid brought but it will lead to killing goose bringing golden eggs.

[vinapu]

4 minutes ago, a-447 said:

Because you spend a longer period of time next to someone with Covid if you are sitting in a restaurant compared to passing them in the supermarket aisle.

...........

With the vaccine roll-out, vastly improved knowledge of the virus combined with new medications to treat patients now starting to appear, I think we'll be over the pandemic sometime this year.

 

if that logic would apply,  first to be shut should be public transport like trains and long distance busses , not to mention planes. I probably can finish my dinner in less time it takes to get from Sanam Chai /Wat Po / to Sukhumvit MRT stations.

Restaurants can request proof of vaccination but require recent test or making customers  to take test on the site and wait for results 15 minutes  -it's probably first such lunacy in the world.

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, a-447 said:

In countries like Australia I sometimes think it's time we bit the bullet and just decided to live with Covid.

That's exactly what should happen. 

Omicron is likely to spread whether they like it or not.   Fortunately, it is less severe and Thais have now had the opportunity of vaccines. With vaccines and the new variant, it's likely to be comparable with flu.  So they should allow it to spread.

One Thai "expert" is worried about having both strains together.  Perhaps he hasn't seen UK data which shows a significant decline in Delta cases since Omicron appeared. 

[Boy69]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

suspect there's some method in that lunacy , somebody hopes to improve Pattaya's image using opportunity covid brought but it will lead to killing goose bringing golden eggs.

Yes this excatly what the current elites in Thailand are trying to do ,they want to eliminate the red lights districts everywhere they already did so at Chiang Mai and Patong and Pattaya is next . 

[Gaybutton]

4 hours ago, a-447 said:

Because you spend a longer period of time next to someone with Covid if you are sitting in a restaurant compared to passing them in the supermarket aisle.

Maybe, but when I go to a restaurant the only people I might be sitting next to are the same people I went with to the restaurant.  Other tables are far enough away that it shouldn't be a problem, even with masks off.

Another way of looking at it - in a restaurant you might be sitting close enough to strangers, but it's the same strangers throughout most of your meal.  The odds are they're not carrying Covid whereas in a grocery store you come in close contact with dozens of people.  Even though it might only be a second or two, that's enough to spread Covid.

When the local news publishes places where people did pick up Covid, it is always places such as grocery stores, department stores, and the like, along with labor camps.  I don't recall even one that was traced back to a restaurant. 

Why is the face mask, hand disinfectant, and temperature check enough to enter any other venue, but not enough to eat in a restaurant?  That's the part that makes no sense to me.

In my opinion, going to this extreme in restaurants is both absurd and unjustified.  Oh well, the powers-that-be forgot to ask my opinion . . .

[spoon]

5 hours ago, Gaybutton said:

Why would anyone be more likely to get Covid in a restaurant than in any other venue?

For the simple fact that people take off their masks while dining in. 

I dont agree with the rules especially when vaccinated people should already be protected from severe cases of covid. So with thailand respectable vaccination rate, and im pretty sure pattaya and bangkok rate should be much higher, these kind of rules are definitely go against making any sense.

[Gaybutton]

40 minutes ago, spoon said:

For the simple fact that people take off their masks while dining in.

Yes, the masks come off in restaurants.  Meanwhile, up to now, how many people contracted Covid eating in restaurants?

To the best of my knowledge, there have been no incidents of large or small numbers of people getting sick after eating in a restaurant.  I don't recall even one person getting sick that was traced back to a restaurant.

Are they basing this edict on fact and data or is the idea that eating in restaurants is dangerous something they simply made up?

If it's really so risky to eat in restaurants, then why is Chonburi the only province out of all of Thailand's 77 provinces and Pattaya the only major city in all of Thailand to impose this rule?

Have I missed something?  Is it really more likely to get Covid in Pattaya restaurants than restaurants anywhere else in Thailand?  Should we now expect other provincial governors to start saying, "What a great idea!  Let's do the same here."?

I have not been afraid to eat in restaurants and I see no reason to become afraid.  The way some of these people drive, I'm much more afraid trying to go to and from a restaurant than I am once I get there . . .

The good news is the information I'm getting is so far Pattaya restaurants have not been complying.  I am hearing that people going to restaurants not only have not been asked to do the Covid test, but have not been asked to produce any kind of proof or documentation at all. 

[vinapu]

4 hours ago, Gaybutton said:

 

If it's really so risky to eat in restaurants, then why is Chonburi the only province out of all of Thailand's 77 provinces and Pattaya the only major city in all of Thailand to impose this rule?

 

it's why I call it lunacy

[Gaybutton]

The good news is, according to a report in today's - January 4 - Pattaya Mail, restaurants outside the city part of Pattaya at least so far are ignoring the edict.

The last paragraph of the article says:

Quote

While places checked by police and the media were following the rules, there were copious reports online Monday from Pattaya residents who visited restaurants and bars in Jomtien Beach, Naklua and elsewhere away from the media spotlight that, as expected, weren’t bothering with the onerous new rules without any authorities bothering to check or enforce them.

Full article:  https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/pattaya-opens-4-free-screening-points-to-meet-covid-19-test-mandate-385101