Update: The government on Monday updated the figure of people who tested negative to 6,200.
BANGKOK (Xinhua) — More than 5,500 people, earlier feared to have been at risk of COVID-19 infection due to a possible spread from two infected foreigners in Thailand, have tested negative, confirmed a government official on Sunday.
Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) spokesman Taweesilp Visanuyothin confirmed a total of 5,565 people in Rayong province and Bangkok have tested negative while results of the tests with 814 others are yet to come out and be announced shortly.
Those people were reportedly located at places where an infected Egyptian air force airman was in Rayong province and an infected Sudanese girl was in Bangkok earlier this month.
Of those who have tested negative, 5,201 people visited a department store where the Egyptian airman went to in downtown Rayong near U-tapao airport where his air force plane had landed.
Meanwhile, 364 people stayed at a condominium where the Sudanese girl and her family temporarily stayed in Sukhumvit area of Bangkok, according to the CCSA spokesman.
The 43-year-old Egyptian airman and his colleagues left Thailand on July 11 while the nine-year-old daughter of a Sudanese diplomat is currently undergoing medical treatment at a Bangkok hospital.
Neither of them had taken a 14-day state quarantine upon arrival to Thailand, given military and diplomatic status earlier provided under emergency rule.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha earlier blamed the Egyptian airman for lack of military discipline as he went out of the hotel where he had checked in and visited the crowded department store nearby. Prayut visited shoppers and vendors at the department store in the eastern province and pledged to never let such panic-raising incident take place again.
Foreign diplomats and their dependents arriving in Thailand are no longer exempted from the 14-day state quarantine, according to the CCSA spokesman.
