Health department tells food delivery operators to strictly follow Covid safety measures

“During the pandemic more people refrain from dining out and turn to food delivery services instead,” Dr Suwanchai Wattanayingjaroenchai, the department's director-general, said.

“Our latest Anamai Poll showed that up to 53.9 per cent of respondents residing in red zone provinces have used food delivery services in the past month, while 35 per cent of people residing in orange zone provinces also use the service.

“The poll showed that most food delivery staff follow disease control measures, such as wearing a face mask while working (97.5 per cent) and using e-payment methods to avoid touching cash [93 per cent],” he said.

“However, it is a matter of concern that 27.6 per cent of delivery staff said that they did not wash their hands before and after handling the food.

“The department has urged the companies to provide their staff with alcohol hand sanitizers and have them clean their hands before and after they touch the food packaging, even when they wear gloves,” he added.

“We have also urged them to follow other disease control measures, including screening staff using thermo-scanning before dispatching them, performing online self-evaluation every day on the department’s website (https://savethai.anamai.moph.go.th/), and logging staff travel history to help with contact tracing in case of infection.”

Meanwhile, users of food delivery services are also urged to wear face masks and stand at least a metre away from delivery staff, use cashless payment method or prepare exact amount of cash so the staff won’t have to give the change, and wash their hands thoroughly after accepting the food.