Pattaya’s Sinopharm coronavirus vaccination campaign got underway Tuesday, but at just 2,000 doses a day, it will take weeks to inoculate the 30,000 people registered.
Mayor Sonthaya Kunplome cheered on health workers and vaccine registrants at Pattaya Hospital, which is administering the Chinese-made vaccines the city purchased for 88 million baht.
Instead of using the Eastern National Indoor Sports Stadium to inoculate all the registrants in a few days, Pattaya chose to trickle them out at the tiny Soi Buakhao medical center. It will take more than two weeks to administer all the first doses.
The first-day operation went smoothly and quickly, without congestion. All appointments were made through SMS.
Sonthaya said that the 100,000 Sinopharm doses the city bought, along with the meager allotments of AstraZeneca Plc. and Sinovac Biotech vaccines the central government gave, Pattaya should be able to reach its goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the adult population by Oct. 1, the date chosen for reopening Pattaya to foreign tourism.
He added that “herd immunity” could be reached by January, allowing for an unfettered reopening to tourism instead of the severely restricted “Pattaya Move On” plan offered for October.
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