Starting today, Bangkok and nine other provinces are imposing increased pandemic restrictions that include a ban on dining-in, limited opening hours for shopping malls and the closure of worker camps.
The latest set of regulations to curb the coronavirus outbreak in Thailand were published in the Royal Gazette in the early hours of Sunday morning and will be implemented for at least 30 days – from June 28 to July 27 – in 10 provinces: Bangkok, Nakhon Pathom, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon, Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and Songkhla.
Shopping malls in Bangkok and its metropolitan areas must close by 9pm. No gathering of more than 20 people is allowed.
Due to an alarming increase in COVID-19 infections detected at workers’ sites, a total of 575 such camps in Bangkok and its metropolitan areas have been sealed off. Authorities have been sent to several sites to ensure that the venues have been sealed off. Some migrant workers on Sunday, in the hours after the announcement, were seen leaving their working sites to avoid being incarcerated for a month.
Nightlife venues have been shut since April and are unlikely to reopen anytime soon.
The Royal Gazette further decreed that checkpoints will be installed in these provinces to limit interprovincial travel and monitor people who travel across the four southernmost provinces that connect to Malaysia, due to fear that people who enter Thailand illegally may harbor COVID-19 and one of its more transmissible variants.
Although the new restrictions do not amount to a “lockdown,” #BangkokLockdown has been trending on Twitter since Sunday. Most netizens have expressed anger and frustration towards the government for announcing the measures without warning and at 1am on Sunday.
“Do you even see us at all? What should we do to cope with this?” wrote the owners of Ma-ke Inu, an izakaya in Bangkok’s Lat Phrao area. “The announcement which will be effective in only one day and bans dining-in until further notice, yet no compensation for any businesses at all … If you’re still human, please treat us like one too.”
“You announce the measures at 1am, what would the people who have prepared their food and stuff to sell the next day do?” tweeted Miss Universe Thailand pageant Chayathanus “Cheraim” Saradatta. “Some people invest day by day and live from hand to mouth and they would wake up in the morning to see they won’t be able to earn the bread that day?”
“One day you’ll wake up to see that you’ve lost your power and everything. You borrow the power from the people and you’re killing their lives, too. We’ll have our vengeance,” she added.
ประกาศล็อกดาวน์ตอนตี 1 แล้วคนที่เตรียมวัตถุดิบ เตรียมขายของแล้วจะทำยังไง บางคนลงทุนวันต่อวัน หาเช้ากินค่ำเพื่อจะได้ตื่นมารู้ว่าวันนี้จะไม่มีกินเหรอ วันหนึ่งพวกคุณจะตื่นมาแล้วพบว่าเสียอำนาจ เสียทุกอย่างไปหมดแล้ว ยืมอำนาจประชาชนแล้วยังจะเอาชีวิตประชาชนอีก เดี๋ยวพวกเราจะเอาคืน
— ฎOMAชโญ (@blukometen) June 26, 2021
“When government fails, we all pay the price. This sentence is always true,” tweeted political scientist and professor Prajak Kongkeerati.
When Government fails, We all pay the price. ประโยคที่เป็นจริงเสมอ
— prajak kong (@bkksnow) June 27, 2021
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