Local business leaders gave Pattaya’s mayor a list of 10,000 tourism-industry employees eager to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, only to be told to have them register online or by phone.
Pattaya officials previously had asked tourism-sector businesses to survey companies to determine how many industry personnel need Covid-19 jabs.
On May 14, Thanet Supornsahatrangsi of the Chonburi Tourism Industry Council, and Pattaya Business & Tourism Association President Boonanan Pattanasin presented the results – a list of 10,000 people – to Mayor Sonthaya Kunplome only to have him say thank you, but the list couldn’t be used.
Instead, Sonthaya told the business leaders, employees must register for vaccination on the government’s Mor Phom smartphone app, call the Pattaya Call Center starting next week or wait for the city’s technical geniuses to build yet another smartphone app for Pattaya.
Thailand lags behind all of Southeast Asia in vaccinating its citizens due to the government’s slow moves to procure vaccines, train enough people and build the logistics network required to get shots into arms.
To date, the country has vaccinated less than 1.5 million of its 67 million residents.
