Top tourist zones WILL start opening for quarantine-free travel in July – TAT

[reader]

From The Thaiger

ull steam ahead. The Tourism Authority of Thailand’s insists that the sandbox re-opening plans for 6 of Thailand’s most economically sensitive tourist magnets will start on July 1… July 2021.

Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Koh Samui, Pattaya and Chiang Mai will, according to the TAT, be open to foreign tourists who have received 2 doses of Covid-19 vaccine (or 1 if that’s the vaccine dose of a registered vaccine in Thailand).

Phuket will be the first destination to lift quarantine requirements for vaccinated foreign tourists under the ‘Phuket Sandbox’ program. And the TAT say the date WILL be July 1, 2021.

“Tourists will be required to spend the first seven days on the island, before travelling to other Thai destinations.”

The media release doesn’t specify any of the paperwork or travel restrictions that may still be imposed on international travellers to the 6 targeted areas.

The TAT says that authorities continue to work on vaccination programs on the island “to safely achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 for 70% of Phuket’s population, including residents, workers in tourism-related businesses, and migrant workers.”

So far, the best intentions of Phuket officials have only vaccinated around 90-100,000 residents, less than 25% of the island’s resident population but well ahead of other parts of the country.

The Thai government are trying to acquire additional vaccines to reach the target of 100 million doses to vaccinate 50 million people across Thailand by the end of the year, according to the TAT.

“Bangkok, Phuket, Chon Buri which includes Pattaya, Chiang Mai, and Surat Thani which includes Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, as well as 8 other high-risk provinces were being prioritised in the rollout of the first vaccine doses.”

The Thaiger keeps receiving complaints from foreigners who are trying to register with the app but, like many Thai people at the moment, the app and Line registration have been crumbling under the initial high levels of registrations since it opened last Saturday. Foreigners will currently need a Pink ID card to register but many foreigners with even a Pink Thai ID card are reporting problems getting a receipt of their registration.

https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/6-of-thailands-top-tourist-zones-will-start-opening-for-quarantine-free-travel-in-july-tat

[Londoner]

Thaiger is a reliable source but.....July?  I'm not even confident of my October plans going ahead.

[tm_nyc]

I agree.  TAT tends to be highly optimistic about these matters.  I am hoping to get back to Thailand in the Fall but it's not looking good at this point.

[gerefan]

You would be foolish to book anything until he last minute. Things change so quickly....

[anddy]

21 hours ago, reader said:

the date WILL be July 1, 2021

yeah right.... TAT wishful thinking as usual. I'll believe it on July 2nd

[Patanawet]

On 5/4/2021 at 9:17 PM, Londoner said:

Thaiger is a reliable source but.....July?  I'm not even confident of my October plans going ahead.

Thaiger is reliably reporting TAT  -- never use TAT and reliable in the same sentence.

[macaroni21]

What Thailand does (even if optimistically) is only half the matter. My country requires all returning citizens to quarantine for two weeks at a designated facility. That puts a huge dampener on it.

[spoon]

Same situation for me here. Although the gov have said that vaccination is key to opening border but that might only happen when herd immunity achieve. 

[Vessey]

Encouraging I guess, but without Cabinet/PM's approval it wont happen.

[PeterRS]

Take the last six months. Thailand or parts of it has been on the point of opening, or opening Phuket, or not opening at all, or opening Phuket so that those who have quarantined there successfully can then travel to other parts of the country, then Phuket will not be opened, then quarantine will be reduced, then bars will be open, but then bars will be closed . . .Anyone who believes what the TAT and other authorities, even government departments, say is in some kind of cloud cuckoo land - that same part of the world where those making such predictions hang out. 

[Gaybutton]

July 1?  Less than 2 months from the time of this post?  With Covid cases and deaths still surging in record numbers? 

Even if that date becomes official this very day, is that really enough time for very much that would attract tourists to reopen and operate normally?  As it stands at the moment, you can't even eat in a restaurant - even if the restaurant is in the hotel where you are staying.

I'll have to see it happen to believe it. 

I would like to know who in TAT came up with this prediction and on the basis of what?

[anddy]

4 hours ago, Gaybutton said:

I would like to know who in TAT came up with this prediction and on the basis of what?

I would venture to guess on no basis, just with the aim of spreading rather useless) optimism about the reopening. The same could be observed from the government, constant stop and go (as @PeterRS highlighted in the post right above), apart from the usual reasons of incompetence etc, ostensibly in order not to squash the hopes of millions in the sector and to prevent suicides to skyrocket even further

Just one attempt in an explanation  

[anddy]

And as usual, there is another new twist in the story: now they say Phuket must have zero cases before they can re-open. 

Oh really, and why? If they achieve their goal of 70+% vaccination in Phuket and thus the coveted "herd immunity", then why would zero cases be necessary? A few cases here and there won't lead to another major outbreak and no hospitals would be overwhelmed. 

And, more importantly, even if they get the vaccination level AND the zero cases, then what happens if the inevitable happens and there are new cases after reopening??? As usual a policy not thought through at all, meaning it can be safely ignored.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2111667/cases-must-drop-for-sandbox-scheme

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, anddy said:

And as usual, there is another new twist in the story: now they say Phuket must have zero cases before they can re-open. 

Oh really, and why? If they achieve their goal of 70+% vaccination in Phuket and thus the coveted "herd immunity", then why would zero cases be necessary? A few cases here and there won't lead to another major outbreak and no hospitals would be overwhelmed.

As you say, it makes no sense at all to combine a Zero cases rule with the old plan of herd immunity + no quarantine on Phuket.   However, I've not heard reports of mass vaccinations on Phuket and even if Thailand had a good supply of vaccines, they might want to divert them to areas with more covid.

Applying a Zero cases requirement without herd immunity could make sense, if combined with quarantine. 

I would also like to know how they got to 70% as the herd immunity target.  The original virus allegedly had an R of 4, so each person would infect 4 others.     So one would think it's necessary to vaccinate over 75% of the population if vaccines were 100% effective.   Then if we allow for vaccines not being 100% effective and new mutations spreading faster, I would have thought the required vaccination percentage goes up.   Perhaps a favourable climate might push the required percentage down.

 

If the figures are accurate, the number of new cases appears to be leveling off.   Note, the graph really ought to have a log scale for the Y-axis.

 

 

[anddy]

4 hours ago, z909 said:

However, I've not heard reports of mass vaccinations on Phuket

They have indeed started there, over 100k people have already received vaccines (don't ask me if one or two shots and in what proportion), representing 25% of Phuket's population. Not so bad relative to the rest of the country. I just read this recently, but don't have the source handy. Presumably Bangkok Post or Khaosod or Thai Enquirer. 

[Patanawet]

And today -----

This is on a Reuters website today hmmmmmmm,

"Thailand plans to waive its mandatory quarantine for vaccinated visitors to its capital Bangkok and top tourist destinations from October, an official said on Friday, in a bid to revive a key industry battered by coronavirus travel curbs".

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1216343-thailand aims-for-wider-tourism-reopening-from-october/?fbclid=IwAR2ifgcwM5wvXE5cGACK23Hj6RYDriagEMP0OEb0C5e7v8lGjhLYPNxaGGY

[reader]

Reuters seems to have broken this story before the Thai media. I scanned the the leading local news outlets and couldn't find any mention of it as of as of 6:50 p.m. BKK time.

[Patanawet]

18 minutes ago, reader said:

Reuters seems to have broken this story before the Thai media. I scanned the the leading local news outlets and couldn't find any mention of it as of as of 6:50 p.m. BKK time.

You can usually see news items  on Richard Barrow's pages (Thaivisa or Facebook)  long before they appear on the B.P. site.

[Patanawet]

The price for a package of two shots of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine offered by private hospitals will be no more than 3,000 baht each.

Full story

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2112411/moderna-package-likely-below-b3-000

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Patanawet said:

The price for a package of two shots of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine offered by private hospitals will be no more than 3,000 baht each.

Full story

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2112411/moderna-package-likely-below-b3-000

That's slightly higher than it should be, but way cheaper than flying abroad.    Likely to be an easy decision for the expat board members. 

[anddy]

27 minutes ago, z909 said:

That's slightly higher than it should be, but way cheaper than flying abroad.    Likely to be an easy decision for the expat board members. 

why is that slightly higher than it should be? It's for the PACKAGE of two shots, so only 1500 per shot, seems very reasonable to me. The article states that the cost per dose is $37 -38 or 1200 Baht, so there is very little mark-up

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, anddy said:

why is that slightly higher than it should be?

Mainly because I misread it .    I agree that by the time they consider labour and overhead, it's very reasonable for two doses.

 

[Ruthrieston]

As to when expats will actually gain access to any vaccine, who knows? At the extremely slow rate that the "government" of Thailand is crawling, I think it sounds like October at the earliest. The stated goal of vaccinating 70% of the population by the end of the year seems unlikely.

[spoon]

Hopefully when their own vaccine production started, things will speed up.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, spoon said:

Hopefully when their own vaccine production started, things will speed up.

The Bangkok Post showed an estimated timeline for this (below).    That's 60 million doses of Astra Zeneca before the end of the year.    In which case, the high risk people should all have been vaccinated by then.

Today the Bangkok Post is also reporting that samples from test batches of Thai made vaccine has passed Astra Zeneca quality checks in Europe.