More than four dozen hotels in Pattaya are offering “hotel isolation” services to those arriving from overseas who test positive for Covid-19.
Ampai Sakdanukulchit Sliwinski, director of Chonburi’s Tourism and Sports Department, told the Pattaya Business & Tourism Association at its March 17 meeting at the Shambhala Hotel that Pattaya has more than enough hotel beds for coronavirus-positive tourists.
With Thai insurance companies now refusing to cover Covid-19 patients with minimal or zero symptoms, tourists who tested positive upon arrival in the country have refused to go to hospitals. To accommodate them, Thailand changed its policy of hospitalizing all Covid-19 patients and allowed such tourists to remain in their hotels.
Under the Room Isolation program, hotels must reserve 5% of their beds for such cases.
Ampai told business leaders concerned about the soaring number of coronavirus cases in Chonburi that Pattaya has 51 hotels with room-isolation beds, more than enough to handle the relatively small number of tourists who test positive on arrival.
Chonburi reported more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases on Friday, 1,256 from confirmed RT-PCR tests and 4,109 from antigen tests. Four deaths also were reported.
 |
 |
 |
