There is an expectation that the first groups of tourists who are under the new scheme for Special Tourist Visa will be landing some time on the 8th of October in Phuket. According to reports by the Bangkok Post, the flight from Guangzhou from southern China will be carrying 120 tourists which will first be spending their 14 quarantine within the ASQ or Alternative State Quarantine and will be using the latest issued government STV.
Should some of the arrivals not pass the initial health screening setup they will be transferred to specially selected hospitals and will receive a “Patients under investigation” as for those who pass the screening will then first be sent to the ALSQ’s and go through quarantine once they get through immigrations.
The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration spokesperson has stated that the resort islands for Phuket and Koh Samui will be one of the first resorts to begin welcoming travellers from abroad who will be bearing the STV scheme and since Guangzhou has no new recorded cases of COVID-19 for a prolonged period of time the tourists coming in are deemed as low risks. This assertion is confirmed and validated from the data received from the wordometer.info website which contains the records of worldwide COVID-19 cases.
There will still be a limit of 300 foreign tourists that will be allowed to enter the country at any given time and shall be reviewed once the first phase has been completed, according to the CCSA reports. As usual, all those who arrive must go through the mandatory 14-day quarantine until such a time that the risk is minimal that this waiting time will be decreased to 7 days. However, there is no intention of reducing the quarantine time as of yet during this initial stage. With assurances with the Phuket governor, Narong Woonsiew, the province is more than ready to begin welcoming new arrivals with COVID-19 testing labs in place at the airport and officials with the training and drills to ensure that they are well-rehearsed for the coming days.
Source: The Tiger.com