BANGKOK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th July, 2020) Thailand has changed the entry rules for foreign diplomats amid the COVID-19 outbreak, making them undergo a 14-day quarantine solely in local state facilities, Taweesilp Witsanuyotin, a spokesman for the country's coronavirus response center, said on Friday.
Previously, Thailand mandated a two-week self-isolation for the diplomatic corps members but allowed staff to do it in embassies or diplomatic residencies.
Earlier in the month, a nine-year-old daughter of a Sudanese diplomat tested positive for COVID-19 one day after she arrived in Bangkok and went straight to her family's residence for the mandatory quarantine. A similar case involved an Egyptian serviceman who also tested positive shortly after arrival, but only after he and his colleagues visited several public locations.
"The security subcommittee of the pandemic response center, headed by the secretary general of Thailand's national security council, has decided to send all foreign diplomats and their family members entering the country to state quarantine facilities for 14 days, without exceptions," Witsanuyotin told journalists.
He has also informed the press about three new COVID-19 cases all from the same flight that brought the Sudanese diplomat's daughter, bringing the total number of the infected arrivals from that flight to 12.
Thailand has confirmed a total of 3,239 cases, with a death toll of 58.
