Phuket quarantines 130 tourists from countries deemed Omicron risks
Phuket’s health authorities ordered 130 tourists who entered the province from November 15-27 to go into quarantine for 14 days to prevent the Covid-19 Omicron variant from spreading, the Phuket Information Centre announced on Wednesday.
According to the centre, 126 of these tourists are from South Africa, while four hail from Namibia.
After the 130 complete their quarantine, they must undergo RT-PCR testing to confirm they are completely free of Covid-19.
On Saturday, the Public Health Ministry announced that from December 1 Thailand would ban visitors by air from eight African countries to prevent the new, more easily transmissible Covid-19 variant from spreading after it was reported on November 24 in South Africa. The other seven countries are Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
The centre also reported that from November 1-27, precisely 32,360 foreign passengers landed at Phuket International Airport.
Among these, 16,446 were in the Test & Go group, which saw 23 test positive for Covid-19, or 0.14 per cent.
Some 15,914 people entered under the Phuket Sandbox programme, 39 of whom tested positive, or 0.25 per cent.
Of the 62 infected visitors, none of them hailed from the eight African countries.