Phuket will remain open to tourists despite a sharp rise in new Covid-19 infections, its governor said on Wednesday.
The province will keep receiving tourists under its Phuket Sandbox tourism promotion programme, said Narong Wunsiew, the provincial governor.
"As we aim to contain Covid-19 while boosting the economy, we have received pleas for us not to shut down the island as to do so would affect the province's economy again," he said.
From Saturday to Monday, a total of 10,132 foreign visitors arrived in Phuket, a jump from about 500 per day in the early stage of the sandbox programme, he said.
As Phuket is testing between 3,000 and 5,000 foreign tourists a day for Covid-19 infections, the number of cases has gone up substantially, he said.
On average between 30 and 50 tourists test positive for Covid-19 each day.
The province had found about 66 hotels which are willing to serve either as so-called hospital-cum-hotels (hospitels) for people with mild symptoms.
On Tuesday, Phuket recorded 215 new Covid-19 infections, the highest daily number in a month, Mr Narong said.
Most of these infections were visitors who arrived under the Phuket Sandbox programme, he said. However, the majority had mild symptoms of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The infection rate among Phuket Sandbox tourists was initially about 0.3% and later rose to 0.5% as overseas arrivals rose from about 500 to 4,000 a day, Mr Narong said.
