UPDATE: The Phuket office of the Public Relations Department this morning (Apr 30) confirmed that foreigners may register to leave Phuket.
The Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket) announced the project in a video posted on its official Facebook at 2:18pm yesterday.
People could register their intent to leave Phuket by informing their village chief (Phu Yai Baan) or subdistrict chief (Kamnan), or by online form.
People had until 9pm to register, by that time more than 14,000 people had done so, PR Phuket reported.
The “registration” is only a “survey” of how many people want to leave Phuket so they can get home, as requested by the Phuket Communicable Disease Committee, PR Phuket explained in a later post.
At a meeting of the committee yesterday, it was discussed that “best practice guidelines” would be followed in the domestic repatriation project, whereby:
- Provincial officials will make a list of names of those wanting to leave Phuket and send this to the “destination provinces” so people’s movements can be tracked
- People who leave Phuket must self-quarantine themselves at home for 14 days.
- All people leaving Phuket must be “screened” by having their body temperatures checked before leaving Phuket
“At the moment, the province is gathering information to plan for the management of people to be done in a neat way and observing social distancing by gradually releasing people out with time management so that the people who travel do not get caught by the curfew, which is from 10pm to 4am the next day,” PR Phuket explained.
“Please follow further government announcements for the next opportunity to register for their project,” PR Phuket said in its post last night, casting doubt on whether the registration process was actually a ”survey”.
The “first round” form, in Thai language only, is no longer available, but now links to a “second round” form, also only in Thai, though PR Phuket has yet to announce that is available.
The Phuket News has so far been unable to confirm whether or not the project is open to foreigners to register.
Thai social media sites this morniing reported that more than 30,000 have now registered for the project. That number has yet to be confirmed by officials.