ONE more person was found infected with Covid-19 in Chiang Rai province today (Dec. 4) after four cases cropped up in this northern province yesterday with one of them being a young Thai man, Amarin TV reported.
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) announced at 11 a.m. today that there were a total of 14 new cases over the past 24 hours with one being a domestic infection in Chiang Rai, and the others were arrivals from various countries who had all been placed in state quarantine.
Of the overseas patients three each came from Myanmar and US, two from Germany, and one each from Ukraine, Nepal, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Norway.
The addition of these new cases takes the total to 4,053 cases, with 3,839 having recovered while 154 are under treatment. The death toll remains unchanged at 60.
Last evening Chiang Rai Deputy Governor Worawit Chaisawat revealed that there were four more cases that day.
Three of them were Thai women who had sneaked back via natural routes from Myanmar’s Tachileik border town while the fourth is a 28-year-old man who is a close companion of the young woman found infected in Phayao province.
The Phayao woman and this young man had visited the farm festival in Chiang Rai and many other places, he added.
Meanwhile the authorities in Chiang Mai yesterday issued a notice that all those who visited Tesco Lotus Kamthieng branch and Siri Wattana market (Thanin market) from from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on November 30 should assess themselves whether they might be sick as two coronavirus-infected women went shopping there during that time.
Dr. Kittiphan Chalom, an assistant to Chiang Mai Provincial Public Health Physician, said patients number 43 and 44, aged 25 and 23 respectively, had slipped back to Thailand and then travelled to Chiang Mai reaching the city on November 30.
They were tested for Covid-19 on December 1 and were confirmed to be infected that same day.
Three high-risk close contacts tested negative for this deadly disease as did one low-risk contact with the second low-risk contact still being monitored.
Based on their statements and surveillance camera clips, the two patients drove into the city in a private car with a third person travelling with them.
At 4.17 p.m. they went to a sister’s apartment but around half an hour later moved to a house in Santitham district. From 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. they shopped at this mall and market.
The next day the went to a hospital to find out the test result of a friend but when staff there found out they too had sneaked across the border, they were taken in for tests, and found to be infected.
CAPTION:
Top: The Myanmar checkpoint at the second Thailand-Myanmar Friendship bridge connecting the Thai Mae Sai district to Myanmar’s Tachileik district. Photo: Carlos Wang (CC BY 2.0)
