Thai PM blames COVID-19 surge on illegal migration, hints at new curbs

    1. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Tuesday (Dec 22) blamed a spike in coronavirus cases on illegal migration, after the country’s biggest outbreak yet saw more than 1,000 infections, mostly among workers from Myanmar at a seafood market near the capital.
    2. Prayut said he might this week announce new health regulations ahead of new year celebrations and attributed the latest outbreak in Samut Sakhon province to networks smuggling people into Thailand, which has so far had among the world’s lowest coronavirus caseloads.
    3. “This latest flare-up of infections in Samut Sakhon is primarily due to such illegal immigrants and they have brought much grief to the country,” he said in a statement, parts of which he read in a televised address.
    4. Prayut said he would meet his COVID-19 task force this week and discuss “additional regulations that may be appropriate for the evolving situation,” without elaborating.
    5. Some 397 cases were migrants mostly from Myanmar, a major source of labour in the seafood industry, adding to an outbreak that emerged at the weekend when hundreds of tests among asymptomatic workers came back positive.

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