THE director of a hospital in Bangkok suggested in a Facebook post that an abandoned airport be rented out and turned into a high-end disease control and tourism zone for one to three years until a vaccine against the novel coronavirus is produced, PostToday reported this morning (23.4.2020)
Maj Gen Dr Rienthong Nanna, director of Mongkut Wattana Hospital, said in his post such a centre will be another option for tourists flying to Thailand.
If allowed to rent an unused airport from the Transport Ministry he intends to turn it into a full-equipped “forbidden city” similar to a US or UN military base and he would call “Camp Covid.”
Details of Dr Rienthong’s idea are as follows:
1.This airport will be a forbidden area to control the disease with entry and exit more strictly controlled than that imposed by the emergency decree.
2 The compound will be divided into the following zones:
- A quarantine zone in which an international hospital will be located with this able to increase the number of beds by thousands. It will be used to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak in Thailand and also used to separate, quarantine and treat infected foreigners until they are disease free after which they could holiday in Thailand.
- A residential zone will include bungalows, a nursing home and a home for the elderly and retired folk.
- A commercial zone will have a department store, shops, restaurants, a movie hall and other service outlets.
- A vaccine development and research zone.
- An international school from kindergarten to the secondary level.
- Others.
3. Thais will be given the priority for employment at both general and medical level.
4. Social responsibility:
- The international hospital in Camp Covid will help cope with the ripple effect of this panidemic … 2, 3, 4, 5 … for Thailand.
- Camp Covid will pay compensation to anyone who gets infected with Covid-19.
- Project duration: Camp Covid will be a temporary camp for one to three years until a vaccine against the coronavirus is produced.
- The intention is turn Camp Covid into a social enterprise by inviting aviation, tourism and hotel sectors to join in. The private sector will be given 20% stake, the general public 70% and the government to hold 10% with this venture expected to help drive the Thai economy.
However Dr Rienthong had already earlier posted a Facebook message to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to develop an abandoned airport into a tourism centre for Covid-19 refugees.
CAPTION:
Maj Gen Dr Rienthong aired a unique idea today. Photo: PostToday
