Thai tourism businesses seeking early coronavirus vaccination face backlash; Phuket says ‘We cannot afford to wait’
- ‘We cannot afford to lose out on another high season’ for tourists, a representative of Phuket tourism businesses says, as they seek to fast-track vaccinations
- Thai government says Phuket and another tourist hotspot, Chiang Mai, will get vaccines early. A rights activist says vulnerable Thais should have jabs first
A year after Thailand closed its borders to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Phuket’s famous Walking Street, lined with colourful shophouses, is empty, its white sand beaches deserted.
But a proposal by local businesses to vaccinate a majority of the island’s adult population of about 300,000 before October 1, in time for the main tourist season so that inoculated foreign visitors may holiday without quarantine, could change that.
The Thai government, which launched vaccinations on February 28 and sent some doses to tourism-reliant provinces including Phuket, has not agreed to the “Phuket First October” plan, though, and human rights groups and others have criticised the idea.
“The Phuket economy relies 80 per cent -90 per cent on foreign tourists, but we accepted that we must keep our people safe, even though we have struggled a lot in the past year,” said Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, president of the Phuket Tourist Association (PTA). “But now, more people are getting vaccinated, and the only way to restart the economy is to let these tourists in without a quarantine, after we have ensured the local people are safe.”
The private sector has the resources to secure vaccines for 70 per cent of Phuket’s local population and have them inoculated before October 1, faster than the government’s proposed timeline, he said.