The announcement on Tuesday that the Test & Go scheme had been suspended was followed by what has become the traditional shambles in explaining exactly what had changed and exactly who were affected.
It took a day to clarify that of the 200,000 who had already been approved to enter Thailand through the Test & Go Scheme, actually 110,000 had been approved and a further 90,000 had applied but had yet to be approved. Getting such a simple number wrong probably tells everyone all they need to know about how well the Thailand Pass system is working, or worse, about those operating it.
Even 48 hours after the announcement the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) was still explaining on its website that the second RT-PCR test now mandated on Day 5-6 of any persons still allowed into the country would be by antigen test kit (ATK). That has now been fixed. (See here.)
Yet, it has to be said, the clarifications came relatively quickly compared with previous efforts.
One thing the central government got right was keeping the Phuket Sandbox open. It would have beggared belief that shortsightedness or a lack of understanding of their own protocols would have overlooked that this system was launched in response to much more dangerous variants of the virus. It works, keep it going.
Leading Phuket tourism figures were quick to praise the government for this move, and rightly so. Bangkok needs to know that while all the gloss looks pretty, showing tourists returning, people on beaches and even traffic starting to return to the island, much of the tourism recovery so far has not reached most of the people on the island.
Eveen Patong Mayor Chalermsak Maneesri is finding himself caught up in at-odds situations exemplifying the exact state of affairs right now.
He attended the fireworks-studded grand opening of the Roi Nhat Yod Dai food festival on Patong Beach last Saturday night with a brave face welcoming an event to draw more tourists to the town, then joined teams from the Social Welfare Division of Patong Municipality in providing assistance – and shelter – to homeless people living in abandoned buildings in Patong six days later, on Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile, private efforts to provide assistance to people in need during this season of giving are continuing.
The suspension of the Test & Go scheme is to be reviewed on Jan 4, only nine days from now, and many people’s hopes are riding on the suspension being called off. Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul noted on Friday, “I also want to ask people to avoid panicking as long as the information from the Department of Disease Control [DDC] shows Omicron has much less severe symptoms than Delta.”
He may be only echoing what Thailand has learned from abroad, as Europe and especially the UK are doing much of the real-world research on the actual effects Omicron is having on those infected, but so far he is not wrong. While the likes of France and Germany have again nearly shut down, even the UK with its record-setting figures of infections is starting to treat Omicron as a threat to the economy, not to life.
In Phuket, we may have some tourists now, but we still need what we can get. A realistic understanding of Omicron would go a long way to alleviating much fear, and financial hardship, for those living on the island.