The newly opened border post at Rong Kluea market, in Thailand’s Aranyaprathet district, has seen high infection rates amongst 2,300 Cambodians returning to their home country. According to the Phnom Penh Post quoting the Royal Armed Forces, three other border posts also received returning nationals and the infection rate overall was around 20 percent in the last four days. But all land borders remain tightly closed for foreigners seeking visa renewals or hoping to go on holiday.
The provincial governor Um Reatrey said that there were 20 large reception centers to take care of infected Cambodians which have been described as quarantine warehouses. Although the Thai government has allowed economic migrants from neighboring countries to stay extra time up to a year here, if they wished, it’s mainly Myanmar workers who have taken advantage of the immigration discretion because of the violence following the military coup last February.
Thailand in the past had up to four million documented and undocumented foreign workers from neighboring countries, but the pandemic has seen the numbers shrink to less than half that number. Factories have been closed by provincial governors seeking to flatten the spike in infections and many work camps have been padlocked, although usually with the occupants having already fled to wherever they could find shelter.
Another complication is that Thailand’s slow-starting inoculation program has largely ignored the guest workers because of the shortage of vaccines. The emphasis has been on Thai frontline workers, the elderly and the vulnerable and, latterly, farang expats. No statistics are available for the Covid testing of economic migrants, but the total is likely to have been very low indeed.
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