South Korean military officer returns from Thailand with COVID

Public health officials said this afternoon that they are investigating how a South Korean soldier became infected with the coronavirus while in Thailand for a military conference. 

Contract-tracing efforts are underway after the South Korean national tested positive for COVID-19 at Incheon Airport in South Korea upon returning Sunday from a planning session for next year’s Cobra Gold joint military exercises.  

Walairat Chaifoo, a top epidemiologist at the Disease Control Department, said the man entered Thailand on Oct. 17 and stayed in quarantine until Nov. 1. He tested negative twice during that time. 

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Walairat said the man stayed on Sukhumvit Road – he did not say which hotel – and is believed to have dined out at a restaurant, the name of which was also withheld. On Nov. 2, the unidentified man traveled by van to the Serene Phla resort in Rayong’s Ban Chang district for the Cobra Gold meeting. After it ended, he returned to Bangkok and stayed on Sukhumvit Road before heading to Suvarnabhumi Airport on Sunday for a flight home. 

The five-day Cobra Gold 21 planning conference ended Friday at the Serene Phla. The conference saw 202 soldiers – 12 Americans, five South Koreans, two Indonesians and two Australians as well as one representative each from Singapore, Japan, China and India. There were 177 Thai participants. Photos from the event showed attendees sitting in close proximity indoors with all appearing to wear masks – even the Americans. 

All foreign military personnel were tested on arrival for the coronavirus and placed in isolation for 14 days, according to Walairat.

Health officials have held off from concluding it is a case of domestic transmission. Though few, there have been several suspected instances of local infection in recent weeks. The infection of a diplomat was announced yesterday in the wake of a visiting Hungarian trade minister who was found to have COVID-19.

Those found to have come into contact with the South Korean soldier will be required to get tested and quarantine for 14 days.

He was not counted in three new infections logged today, all of which were found in recent arrivals under automatic quarantine. Since January, 3,847 infections have been confirmed while the death toll stands at 60.