Chonburi –
Officials from the Chonburi Provincial Public Health were deployed to inspect venues in Pattaya that have been recorded as a previous ‘cluster’ with Covid-19 transmission yesterday night, January 8th, after the province reached the highest number of Covid-19 patients in the country.
Dr. Apirat Katanyutanon, Chief of Chonburi Public Health, led the department to inspect the Pattaya area and encourage all venues to strictly comply with the government’s preventive measures and conduct ATK tests more frequently on customers and travellers before visiting as well as on employers and employees, to include any performers or musicians.
Apirat told TPN reporters: “The venues must conduct an ATK (Rapid antigen kit) test for all customers before entering. Self-tests at home or “photos” of a negative test are no longer allowed because some of them may not present the latest results of the test. Additionally, there have been reports of people “faking” test results at home. Certified test results with a proper date in a proper bag are acceptable like provided at official checkpoints with public health staff.”
“Some venues still did not follow this measure and allowed customers who did a self-test in. If there possibly was an infected person entering the service, another cluster may follow. This is still considered a huge issue.”
Recently, some shops and restaurants are facing insufficient numbers of ATK test kits. The demand for the test kit is high, and some people must buy them at high prices. The government officials now acknowledge the issue and will provide assistance as soon as possible. They suggested sending customers or staff to official checkpoints like in Treetown or Walking Street. Meanwhile, legal proceedings may be put into effect if the places are found to not comply with the preventive measures.
Apirat also stated that if venues did not follow the rules, the Department of Public Health could be forced to entirely close alcohol-serving venues again or bring back despised alcohol bans, which they didn’t want to do as they knew it hurt people’s livelihoods and income.
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Source: The Pattaya News
