No one knows what Thailand is doing right, but so far it is working

BANGKOK – No one knows exactly why Thailand has been saved.

Is it the social detachment embedded in Thai culture, the custom of greeting others with a wai, a prayer movement, rather than a full hug, that has prevented the runaway transmission of the coronavirus here?

Did Thailand’s early adoption of face masks, combined with a robust healthcare system, mitigate the impact of the virus? Was it the outdoor lifestyle of many Thais, or their relatively low rates of pre-existing conditions?

Is there a genetic component in which the immune systems of Thais and others in the Mekong River region are more resistant to the coronavirus? Or is it some alchemy of all these factors that has isolated this country from 70 million people?

One thing is certain. Despite the influx of foreign visitors earlier this year from countries severely affected by the coronavirus, Thailand has recorded fewer than 3,240 cases and 58 deaths. As of Thursday, there had been no cases of local transmission for approximately seven weeks.

Thailand’s low infection rate appears to be shared by other countries in the Mekong River basin. Vietnam has not recorded a single death and has recorded about three months without a case of community transmission. Myanmar has confirmed 336 cases of the virus, Cambodia 166 and Laos only 19.

Yunnan, the southwestern province of China through which the Mekong flows before snaking to Southeast Asia, had fewer than 190 cases. Neither is active now.

“I don’t think it’s just about immunity or genetics,” said Dr. Taweesin Visanuyothin, a Covid-19 spokesperson for the Thai Ministry of Public Health. “It has to do with culture. Thais have no body contact when we greet each other. ”

“This is how the countries of the Mekong region also greet each other,” added Dr. Taweesin.

He did not always look so optimistic. In January, Thailand confirmed the world’s first case of coronavirus outside of China, in a tourist from Wuhan, the central city of China where the outbreak is believed to have started.

Another wave of infections was caused by people who came from Japan, Europe, and the United States. A Thai boxing event turned into a super broadcast event. But after a shutdown was imposed in March, closing businesses and schools, domestic broadcasts decreased. All recent cases in Thailand have been among people who came from abroad.

Dr. Wiput Phoolcharoen, a public health expert at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, who is investigating an outbreak of the coronavirus in Pattani, southern Thailand, noted that more than 90 percent of those who tested positive there were asymptomatic, much more than normal.

“What we are studying now is the immune system,” he said.

Dr. Wiput said that Thais and others in this part of Southeast Asia were more susceptible to certain serious cases of dengue, a mosquito-borne virus, than those on other continents.

“If our dengue immune system is so bad, why can’t our immune system against Covid be any better?” I ask.

Although Thailand’s hospitals have not been overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, the country’s tourism-dependent economy has been battered.

In April, Thailand banned almost all inbound flights, amid the strict blockade. Tourists stopped coming to Bangkok, once the most visited city in the world. Thailand’s tourism and sports ministry estimates that 60 percent of hospitality companies could close by the end of the year.

The International Monetary Fund predicts that the Thai economy will shrink by at least 6.5 percent this year. More than eight million Thais can lose their jobs or income in 2020, the World Bank has said, in a nation that has already been struck down by a huge gap between rich and poor.

Thai households have some of the highest debt burdens in Asia, and the most desperate have lined up in Buddhist temples to deliver rice.

After a promised disbursement of emergency government funds was promised in the bureaucracy, a woman swallowed rat poison outside a government building. She survived, but suicides have increased in Thailand.

Covid Thailand Aid, a charity created in the wake of the pandemic, has been inundated with pleas from Thais with just a dollar or two in their bank accounts, said Natalie Narkprasert, one of the group’s founders.

The country’s large migrant worker population, many of Myanmar and Cambodia’s neighbors, is also suffering. While some people managed to get home before the borders were closed, others are trapped in Thailand without wages from their jobs as hotel cleaners, cooks and food stall operators.

“Now is when people want more help because it’s been so long and it’s not going to get better,” said Natalie.

A sense of normalcy has recently returned to Thailand. Schools have reopened with children wearing face masks and studying at separate desks. And in early July, the first holiday weekend in months, the Thai New Year festivities were canceled in April, sparking an increase in domestic tourism.

Thailand has also allowed a trickle of foreigners to return to the country. But with newcomers comes the risk of contagion.

This week, it was confirmed that an Egyptian military pilot tested positive for the coronavirus, after he violated the quarantine and visited shopping malls in a Thai coastal city. Some schools in the area are now closed again. Two activists protesting the government’s handling of the quarantine violation were arrested on Wednesday for violating Thailand’s emergency decree.

Questions are also being raised as to why migrant workers who were deported from Thailand came home and immediately tested positive for the disease, despite not being included in the official Thai coronavirus case count. Thailand’s test rates remain relatively low.

“With the disease still in the making,” said Dr. Taweesin, a spokesman for the health ministry, “we have to keep our guard up.”

Muktita Suhartono contributed reports.