Pattaya, Thailand –
Pattaya City is targeting to vaccinate 10,000 people with Covid -19 vaccines per day from June, starting with people in tourism industries and hospitality related businesses like hotels, restaurants, and bars.
A meeting was held yesterday (May 12th) at the Pattaya City Hall and was led by the Pattaya City Mayor Sonthaya Khunpluem via a ‘Zoom Online’ conference call with other relevant officials from a variety of agencies including multiple tourism related groups, hotel associations, and the Thai Tourism Authority.
The meeting was about implementing a goal of 10,000 doses of Covid – 19 vaccines to be injected for people in Banglamung in June per day, with a focus on hospitality and tourism workers. In August, a total of 100,000 doses of vaccines per day is the goal for people in Chonburi province as a whole as the area aims to get Covid19 under control to reopen the city to both domestic and foreign tourism hopefully later this year.
A special amount of 30,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines will be injected for people in Banglamung at five locations over the next few weeks before June: Eastern Indoor Athletics Stadium, Pong Municipality, Prachum Kongka Temple, Mueang Pattaya Hospital and Bangkok Pattaya Hospital.
The main vaccination center will be the Eastern sports stadium. Thai Nationals can currently register to be vaccinated through an online application. A majority of these doses will go to frontline medical staff and vulnerable who have not yet been vaccinated.
Moreover, 190,000 doses of Astrazeneca vaccines will arrive sometime in June for Pattaya and Banglamung and be primarily for hospitality and tourism workers. The goal is to reach 70 percentage of the local population so that the city can reopen to tourists.
The exact number of residents in Banglamung is debatable, according to city officials. The last major census was in 2019 with around 119,000 residents estimated. However, due to Covid-19, some estimates have said this number could be as much as fifty percent lower due to people who have left the area due to lack of employment.
Pattaya, along with Phuket, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, and a few other locations is designated as an economic priority zone and will get faster access to vaccines. Additionally, due to being a deep red zone in terms of government mandated Covid19 restrictions Pattaya and Chonburi has been given additional high priority to vaccines by Thai government officials.
Currently, the majority of the cities famous tourist attractions and businesses are closed either by force order or voluntarily.
The Pattaya News notes public health officials have continually stated that foreigners will be allowed to get a vaccine but that process has not yet been explicitly spelled out. It is expected, however, that this may be able to start from June for interested local residents, primarily with the Astrazeneca vaccine. Walk-in vaccine appointments are also expected to be officially announced in June as stated by the Public Health Ministry yesterday, May 12th.
Private hospitals have the opportunity to secure private vaccines, primarily Moderna, at a cost in the near future as well. There have been some reports of residents, including foreigners, having luck pre registering for this at private hospitals but your mileage may vary greatly and reports are mixed. These vaccines are expected to be available as early as June at some hospitals, but without specific dates.
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