Thailand’s Immigration Bureau told reporters on Thursday that over 227,000 tourists from China are currently in Thailand, of that number 2,730 are from the coronavirus-stricken city of Wuhan.
From the period between January 1 to January 28, over 930,000 tourists from China visited Thailand with 20,271 from Wuhan City.
The Ministry of Public Health said on Thursday that they were monitoring 67 patients for signs of coronavirus, down from Wednesday’s figure of 96.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited Bangkok’s major airports on Wednesday to reassure the public of government response.
After the inspection, Prayut felt signs of fatigue and fever with doctors ordering the sexagenarian to bed rest. The Prime Minister’s Office said later that it was not a case of coronavirus.
Thais took to social media on Wednesday to criticize Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai and the government.
Currently, we all know that Thai government has already provided the airplane to evacuate Thai citizens in Wuhan , but still waiting for green line from Chinese government.However, according to what prime minister has said in the interview was completely different #รัฐบาลเฮ็งซวย
— PJ (@ppgepp) January 29, 2020
The minister told reporters earlier in the week that Thailand was currently not looking to evacuate citizens from China as it had not received Chinese permission to do so.
Don said that he trusted the Chinese government to effectively blockade Wuhan as it has experience from the SARS epidemic. Don added that he also trusted the Chinese government to look after Thai citizens in the area.
Local media reported on Wednesday night that Thai military officials on exchange in China had been evacuated and had already returned to Thailand.
Cabinet ministers have since reversed course and said they were looking at options in bringing back the Thai citizens including chartered flights as China would not allow a military plane into their airspace.
Flight to Wuhan
In a Facebook live chat on Wednesday night with concerned citizens, Anutin added that he was prepared to go to the Chinese city himself to rescue trapped Thai civilians.
“I will go get them in Wuhan personally, I will be in the plane that goes to get them. There is nothing to fear.”
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that it had made mistakes in failing to flag the coronavirus epidemic as a high-risk event as case numbers rose past 6,000 in China.
The United Nations body said in a report last week that the coronavirus outbreak was not an international public health emergency and that while risk was high in China, it only assessed that global risk was moderate.
Now the WHO is revising and saying that global risk from the disease was high, with risk “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”
According to an analysis by The Washington Post, the WHO likely had political considerations in failing to flag the disease as high risk.
(Photo Credit: Ministry of Public Health)