With only days to go until Pattaya reopens to fully vaccinated foreign tourists, the city’s dormant businesses are reopening as well.
More than 60 percent of beach chair vendors have popped open their umbrellas. Massage parlors, restaurants and other shops have started cleaning and putting signs out for recruitment.
Until recently, the only signs out were “for sale” and “for lease.”
Even though coronavirus cases decrease steadily – Pattaya and Banglamung District reported only 61 cases on Friday and only 299 in all of Chonburi were recorded – people are still scared of Covid-19.
Despite the fact that only 0.28 percent of tourists who entered Thailand through Phuket since July have tested positive for Covid-19, Pattaya residents fear reopening will bring a new wave of infections that could lead to another lockdown.
The plummeting number of cases in Pattaya – due to 80 percent of the population now being vaccinated against the coronavirus – means people are probably overreacting.
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