Senior health officials including the Director of the Communicable Disease Department have urged the public to be calm but also vigilant. The man was jailed in recent days on drug charges and had worked as a pub DJ and coffee shop worker in central Bangkok. His family have been quarantined. The Governor of Nonthaburi adjacent to Bangkok has ordered the closure of the bar and restaurant where the man worked.
Thailand’s 100 day run without a case of local transmission in the kingdom appeared to come to an end on Thursday when a test carried out at Mahidol University on a new prison inmate on Wednesday came back positive.
Thailand’s Director General at the Department of Disease Control at the Ministry of Public Health has called on the public to keep calm and to guard against the Covid 19 virus after a new prison inmate tested positive at a prison in the Chatuchak area of Bangkok on Thursday.
The man had been sent to the institution for quarantine purposes after being sentenced on August 26th. He was later to be transported to a prison within the Corrections Department.
Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoen said the incident was not linked to any threat of a second wave in the kingdom and officials believe the situation is under control.
‘If we keep the situation under control, there will be no new outbreak,’ he told the media.
Health officials scramble to track down the man’s family and contacts but assure the public that things are under control as they retest 2nd sample
It comes as health officials scramble to isolate the man’s family who lived in a condominium complex in Bangkok and test fellow prisoners as well as officials at the corrections facility.
It is understood that the man, arrested on an illegal drugs charge, was moved from the prison on Wednesday night with the test for Covid 19 coming back on Thursday.
Another sample is now being sent to the Department of Medical Science. The test on the inmate and others at the corrections facility was carried out by Mahidol University on Wednesday.
34 other people at the institution had negative results while the man, a DJ who works at a bar in central Bangkok and a coffee shop on the Khao San road, had his first Covid 19 test result come back positive.
Worked as a pub DJ in a bar and restaurant chain in central Bangkok before being jailed for drugs
The man worked at a pub and restaurant chain known as the 3 Days 2 Nights in central Bangkok with two outlets near Rama III and Rama V road as well as the coffee outlet on the Khao San Road.
Health officials are stressing that the public who attended the venues are not considered to be at risk while authorities are reaching out to the man’s lawyer and up to twenty people who may have been in court with him before he was jailed.
The Governor of Nonthaburi, Suchin Chakchumsak, on Thursday night following a meeting with top officials, ordered the bar and restaurant on Rama V closed.
Authorities are reaching out to staff at the bar and already 10 have been taken into state quarantine as protection measures are being put in place.
37 year old imprisoned on drug charges
The public was briefed on the case by Taweesilp Visanuyothin of the Centre for Covid 19 Situation Administration. He identified the man as a 37-year-old imprisoned at the Central Social Correction Institution in Bangkok on drug charges.
The man is now reported to be in hospital and his family of five, who live at the Ban Suan Thon condominium complex in Bangmod have been quarantined.
‘They are a risk group,’ revealed Walailak Chaifu, the Director of the Epidemiology Bureau on Thursday.
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