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Thailand tracking 200 people as infected returnees skip COVID-19 quarantine

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Reuters

<p>BANGKOK - Thailand was racing to track down about 200 people in its northern provinces on Monday to stop a potential coronavirus outbreak, after 3 Thai nationals entered the country illegally from Myanmar and tested positive days later.</p><p>Three women bypassed immigration checks and entered via natural border crossings last Tuesday and Friday, skipping the mandatory quarantine for new arrivals, Chiang Rai provincial governor Prachon Pratsakul said.</p><p>There were 356 people in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces potentially exposed, among them staff and customers of a hotel, shopping mall, cinema, restaurants and passengers in a van and taxi, Prachon told a news conference.</p><p>Thailand has strict measures and border controls to keep the coronavirus at bay having kept its cases to less than 4,000 and deaths at 60, although its tourism-reliant economy has suffered badly.</p><p>Most infections in recent months have been imported and found in government quarantine, with only a handful of community-transmitted cases reported, which each saw massive contact-tracing efforts launched.</p><p>So far more than 150 people in the northern provinces have been found and tested negative, senior health official Sopon Iamsirithaworn said in a separate news conference.</p><p>The first of the 3 new cases arrived on Nov. 24 in Chiang Rai and traveled to Chiang Mai, where she later showed coronavirus symptoms and went to hospital.</p><p>Two others who worked in the same entertainment venue in Myanmar returned on Friday. They stayed at a local hotel and later sought COVID-19 tests, which were positive.</p><p>Myanmar is currently seeing an average 1,447 new coronavirus cases each day, with nearly 88,000 infections and 1,887 deaths overall.</p><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DoET3faXzr4?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

<p>Thailand was racing to track down about 200 people in its northern provinces on Monday to stop a potential coronavirus outbreak, after 3 Thai nationals entered the country illegally from Myanmar and tested positive days later.</p>

Thailand was racing to track down about 200 people in its northern provinces on Monday to stop a potential coronavirus outbreak, after 3 Thai nationals entered the country illegally from Myanmar and tested positive days later.