A Pattaya city councilman believes that the city could again become a tourist “sandbox” if daily coronavirus cases can be reduced.
Thanet Supornsahatrangsi, who also heads the Chonburi Tourism Industry Council, dismissed the fact that Pattaya is not an island and that tourists required to stay in Pattaya’s sandbox for a week are impossible to control.
The Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration last month suspended the Test & Go tourist-entry scheme and reduced the number of sandboxes to one: Phuket. On Jan. 11, Surat Thani Province islands Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao were added, along with Phangna and Krabi.
Like Phuket, access to those southern Thailand regions are easy to control. Tourists who arrive there cannot leave without being noticed.
That’s not true for Pattaya, which has twice been shown as tourists who left their quarantine hotels elsewhere early, ended up in the city.
But Thanet said he believes the CCSA will agree to make Banglamung and Sattahip districts in Chonburi as well as Koh Sichang, Bang Saray and Siracha sandboxes again, once cases drop substantially.
Chonburi on Tuesday reported 583 more cases, of which 220 were in Banglamung, which includes Pattaya.
As for keeping sandboxers in the sandbox, Thanet said he has faith in the mobile phone battery-killing Mor Chana tracking app, which records a tourist’s location. Sandbox tourists are required to install it and keep it active during their stay.
Thanet claimed that if a sandboxer left the area, the app would alert authorities.
Technical experts say that it doesn’t work that way.
Mor Chana collects, tracks and disseminates only basic information, such as infection data entered by the user, probability and risk of Covid-19 in certain areas, and observations of the outbreak situation from data provided en masse.
No alerts are sent to the government, although authorities could use the use GPS to track the number registered with Mor Chana.
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