A NEW Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) regulation bans Bangkok restaurants from serving dine-in patrons from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. starting tomorrow, Jan. 5, with only takeaway allowed as a further effort to control the spread of coronavirus in the capital, Thai Rath newspaper reported this afternoon.
Pol. Capt. Pongsakorn Kwanmuang, BMA’s spokesman, said this regulation was approved by a meeting of the Bangkok Communicable Disease Committee as an additional Covid-19 measure because the capital is among the 28 provinces now most tightly controlled.
While restaurants in the capital can operate normally during the other half of the day they still have to implement strong measures including not serving alcohol, screening and keeping the details of diners and ensuring social distancing, particularly in queues.
Meanwhile the coastal Rayong province decided to lock down itself before the Public Health Ministry took action due to escalation in the number of coronavirus patients.
The provincial authorities issued order number 3 to lockdown the province just as Deputy Public Health Minister Sathit Pitutecha was today getting ready to ask Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to lock down three eastern provinces, that aside from Rayong include Chonburi and Chanthaburi.
Rayong’s administrators took this step after seeing the total number of cases soar to 386 in just a little over a week after the first case appeared in the current outbreak with there also being one death.
CAPTION:
Top: A table at a Bangkok restaurant. Photo: Thai Rath
