Thailand emerged from the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the best performing countries in the world in terms of minimising cases and deaths. But 2021 has been a different story.
A surge in infections since the beginning of April has seen thousands of new cases each day and a spike in deaths. While authorities moved to close parks, gyms and cinemas (although shopping malls stayed open), mandated face masks in public and tightened quarantine requirements for travellers, the virus was already rampant in settings where social distancing wasn’t possible, including the country’s notoriously overcrowded prisons.
1,228 more inmates infected at 14 prisons
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published : 27 May 2021 at 17:52 The Corrections Department s hospital in Chatuchak district. (Bangkok Post file photo)
Another 1,228 inmates at 14 prisons across the country have been diagnosed with Covid-19, says deputy chief of the Corrections Department.
Corrections Department deputy director-general Veerakit Harnpariyan said on Thursday that another 2,054 infected prisoners have fully recovered while 16,319 are under treatment at prison facilities.
On social media reports that a man recently released from the Bangkok Remand Prison where he got infected with the virus disease was found dead on a footpath on May 26, Dr Veerakit explained that the man underwent Covid-19 testing at a Corrections Department hospital before being freed. On May 9, the result showed that he was infected.
Thai govt under fire over Covid-19 outbreak in prisons
More than 10,000 inmates at notoriously overcrowded prisons are known to have been infected
Updated: May 20, 2021 04:38 AM GMT
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A field hospital set up to treat inmates with Covid-19 in Bangkok as Thailand battles its latest surge in infections partly due to outbreaks in prisons. (Photo: Department of Corrections/AFP)
A leading human rights group has slammed the Thai government over an outbreak of Covid-19 in the country’s prisons after more than 10,000 inmates were found to be infected.
On just one day, May 17, nearly 4,000 cases were reported among inmates at Chiang Mai Central Prison in northern Thailand, which is just one of several correctional facilities where mass infections have been documented.
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