Pattaya officials and business leaders keep talking about reopening the city to foreign tourists Sept. 1, but even they don’t know if they’re wasting their breath.
Mayor Sonthaya Kunplome chaired yet another meeting July 12 with deputy mayors, city council members and representatives from the Chonburi Tourism Industry Council, Pattaya Business and Tourism Association and major tourism businesses.
They took turns talking about “Pattaya Move On,” a strategy to reopen the city Sept. 1 via a “sealed route” from Phuket or, perhaps, U-Tapao-Rayong-Pattaya Airport. But the proposal hasn’t even been submitted yet to the government, which has its hands full with skyrocketing numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths, a critical vaccine shortage and growing public discontent.
Chonburi, meanwhile, reported a record 513 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, with 128 of them in Banglamung District, which includes Pattaya. Thailand, as a whole, again reported more than 9,000 cases for the third time in four days.
For Pattaya to reopen, the number of cases would have to drop to fewer than 100 in a month in Pattaya, and 70 percent of the population would need to be vaccinated. Currently, fewer than 10 percent are.
Gov. Pakarathorn Thienchai said the province had ordered 200,000 BBIBP-CorV Sinopharm vaccine doses developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group. The order from Chulabhorn Royal Academy was funded by provincial funds and made because the government has supplied Chonburi with only a small fraction of the doses it needs.
The Sinopharm, enough for only 100,000 people, will be earmarked for security officials working checkpoints, teachers, slum residents, seniors, the chronically ill and people working in factories, tourist businesses and areas with high Covid-19 transmission rates.
Pattaya Business and Tourism Association President Boonanan Pattanasin said companies have been told by the government nothing that gives them confidence about the near-term future, what will happen after two weeks of the voluntary stay-at-home order, or what will be done to compensate closed businesses.
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