Partial lockdown in Bangkok to quell virus surge - Asia Times
▻https://asiatimes.com/2021/01/partial-lockdown-in-bangkok-to-quell-virus-surge
The capital also announced yesterday that public schools will be closed for two weeks, while more than a dozen virus checkpoints were set up Saturday across the city.“We don’t want to use extreme measures like a lockdown and putting up a curfew, but we need a stronger medicine to prevent the new surge,” said Taweesin Visanuyothin, a spokesman for Thailand’s Covid-19 taskforce. Nationwide restrictions and closures are expected to go into effect from January 4 to February 1, he added, allowing a two-day “grace period” for business owners to prepare. Authorities worried about inciting alarm nationwide had been reluctant to classify the new emergence of the virus as a “second wave”.But anger resounded across Thai social media Saturday on the renewed restrictions, with business owners expressing frustration with the partial lockdown. “I comply with the measures strictly, yet I now need to close my business while there are many people scrambling on the skytrain everyday,” wrote Aksika Chantarawinji, a spa owner, on the official Facebook page of Bangkok’s governor. Thailand’s economy has been hit hard by the coronavirus, and is among the worst-affected in Southeast Asia due to its reliance on tourism and exports
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