Some 7,000 people have been issued their “Fit to Travel” permits and have been granted permission to leave the island to travel back to their home provinces, said Phuket Provincial Police Chief Maj Gen Rungrote Thakurapunyasiri.
More than 40,000 people have registered to leave the island, mainly due to lack of income as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
Some were allowed to leave on Friday (May 1) before the checkpoint was closed as officers were overwhelmed.
Officers will continue to process people so they can cross the bridge until 8pm tonight, Gen Rungrote said.
Of the 7,000 people issued their Fit to Travel permit, 3,600 people have been allocated travel times so that officers at the checkpoint will not be overrun as had happened on Friday, he added.
“We plan to process up to 700 people an hour. People who do not pass the screening by health officials will not be allowed to leave. Everyone who has registered must leave on time,” Gen Rungrote said.
“It takes time to go through the checkpoint, as everyone has to be screened by health officers, in order to build confidence for those destination provinces that those people [leaving Phuket] have passed the screening process,” he explained.
“So far, 72 provinces have been registered as the destination provinces. The Royal Thai Police Commander has ordered police in each province to facilitate those people travelling back to their hometown,” he said.
People can still register to leave Phuket by completing an online form at https://www.phuket.go.th/FIT-to-Travel
Once people have been approved and issued a Fit to Travel permit, the registrants must complete a “Queue registration form” on the Phuket Provincial Police website in order to book their preferred departure time. Times can be booked in hourly increments.
The form is available here.
People can register their preferred time to leave the island through the online form from 8:30am to 4:30pm only.
Also, the form allows people to book a period to leave only for the day after they are applying online. For example, today, people could only book to leave tomorrow (May 4).
Once people have registered their preferred time to leave the island, they will be allocated a period to present themselves at the Phuket Check Point in order to be screened and approved to leave the island.
Provincial Police will inform the registrants of what time they are to present themselves at the checkpoint, Gen Rungrote said.
Alternatively people who have completed the queue registration form will be able to check their allocated departure time at the Phuket Provincial Police website, he added.
Gen Rungrote made no comment on the scores of people who presented themselves at the checkpoint yesterday in the hope of being allowed to leave the island, Some reports online claimed that some people were allowed across the bridge.