Wanting to ease travel procedures, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has asked the Department of Disease control to consider getting rid of the second Covid-19 test requirement for international arrivals. The test is taken five days after arriving in Thailand. This news comes after the airline company AirAsia claimed that many tourists are discouraged from coming to Thailand because of travel procedures. Anutin is now working to balance recovering the economy, and people’s safety.
Anutin said to end the second test requirement, there must be increased preventative steps, such as speeding up vaccines. He said hospital beds and medicals supplies must be managed carefully, and the ministry is focusing on home isolation. This way, there will be enough beds available for severe cases. The director-general of the DDC said that even though new infections are on the rise, the number of severe cases has actually gone down.
Tourism operators are calling for all entry restrictions to be lifted. On Wednesday, several groups representing tourism operators submitted a letter to PM Prayut calling for restrictions to be lifted in March. The letter points to countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK, where nearly all Covid restrictions have been cancelled and the virus declared endemic.
“Thailand needs to further relax Covid-19 restrictions for tourists now, or else it may lose the ability to compete with other nations.”
SOURCE: Thai PBS World