{"id":11568,"date":"2021-09-17T22:51:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T14:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=11568"},"modified":"2021-09-17T22:51:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T14:51:46","slug":"bangkok-reopening-likely-to-be-postponed-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=11568","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok reopening likely to be postponed again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BANGKOK, Sept 17 — Even after postponing to Oct 15 the reopening of Bangkok to foreign travelers, there is a strong possibility it will be delayed further as the capital city is highly unlikely to achieve the 70 percent vaccination target for its adult population.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangkok Governor Aswin Kwanmuang painted a grim picture today\u00a0when he said though more than 70 percent of the adult population in Bangkok to date received at least one dose of the vaccine,\u00a0only\u00a037 percent have\u00a0been\u00a0fully vaccinated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPublic health is our top priority.\u00a0To ensure a safe opening, we must achieve the goal of 70 percent of the population in Bangkok being fully vaccinated\u2026 We do not want to see a new outbreak as it would be problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are expecting to achieve the vaccination target early as mid-October,\u201d he said at a press conference here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thailand is pushing to reopen more of its popular tourist destinations to vaccinated travelers starting October to revive its tourism industry hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic following the success seen in “Phuket Sandbox\u201d and “Samui Plus\u201d which was launched in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"bangkok\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Apart from Bangkok, Thailand expects to open four other provinces – Chonburi, Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, and Chiang Mai as early as\u00a0Oct 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said Bangkok\u2019s reopening would be postponed by two weeks to Oct 15 as the targeted vaccination rate has yet to be achieved for safe opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reopening of Bangkok and four other provinces are still pending approval from the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokesman Natapanu Nopakun said fully vaccinated tourists entering Bangkok and four provinces are still required to undergo 14 days quarantine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo date, current measures will remain until further approval,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last 24 hours, Thailand recorded 14,555 new COVID-19 cases and 171 deaths, bringing the total infections in the kingdom to 1,448,792 COVID-19 cases and 15,124 fatalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— BERNAMA<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BANGKOK, Sept 17 — Even after postponing to Oct 15 the reopening of Bangkok to foreign travelers,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7574],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-covid19"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","newsium-slider-full":"","newsium-featured":"","newsium-medium":""},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Asia<\/a> COVID19<\/a>","tag_info":"COVID19","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11570,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568\/revisions\/11570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}