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BANGKOK, Dec. 20 (AP): Thailand reported more than 500 new coronavirus cases Saturday night, the highest daily count in a country that had largely controlled the pandemic.
The 548 new cases, most of them linked to a seafood wholesale market outside Bangkok, come after Thailand saw only a small number of infections in recent months due to strict border and quarantine controls. .
Health officials said on Sunday (December 20) that the new cases are mostly migrant workers from Myanmar related to the outbreak at the Klang Koong shrimp market in Samut Sakhon province.
All of them were linked to a 67-year-old seafood vendor who tested positive for the coronavirus previously, said the director general of the Department of Medical Sciences, Opas Karnkawinpong, in a press conference broadcast to all television channels on Saturday night. .
The first case on the market was confirmed on Thursday, followed by 13 more on Friday.
“While there is a possibility of finding more infections in crowded foreign communities around the shrimp market, they are low-risk groups because they are of working age and healthy,” said Opas.
He said that most of those who tested positive were asymptomatic.
Samut Sakhon Governor Veerasak Vichitsangsri said on Saturday night that strict measures, including a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and other travel restrictions, will be taken in the province to combat the outbreak.
The restrictions are in effect until January 3.
Samut Sakhon is 34 kilometers (21 miles) southwest of Bangkok, the capital.
With fewer than 5,000 cases and 60 deaths, Thailand has been able to control the virus.
Before this week’s outbreak, there were very few cases of local transmission and life had returned to normal. – AP
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