The latest news about the police frantically searching for a tourist who evaded Covid-19 regulations is deeply worrying, but hardly a surprise.
In a news report that indicates another failed attempt by local authorities to trace and track groups at risk of spreading Covid, a 29-year-old male tourist left his hotel on Saturday in Bangkok without waiting for the result of his RT-PCR test, which came back positive.
Thong Lor police issued an arrest warrant and officers were deployed to find him, without any success. The tourist finally turned himself in at a police station on Samui Island on Wednesday and subsequently took two RT-PCR tests, both of which came back negative.
However, the Ministry of Public Health ran a laboratory check yesterday and confirmed the man had been infected and was capable of spreading the disease to others.
This dismaying news about the weaknesses of our Covid testing and tracing schemes is not a surprise. Last month, authorities spent days looking for 272 travellers from eight risk-prone countries in southern Africa who had entered the country on Nov 15. The ministry relied on the MorProm tracing app to find them, but was only able to locate 44 of them and give them RT-PCR tests.
What is unsettling is the system our authorities depend on to track and trace groups that pose a high risk of having or spreading Covid. It is shocking that in an era when digital innovation means people can be found relatively quickly and easily, Thai authorities still rely on intensive manpower just to track down a single visitor. This of course begs the question: How can the government monitor the 90,000 tourists due to arrive soon under the Test & Go scheme?
More worrying still is whether the authority has any plan or system to trace high-risk groups at all. The authorities are deploying police to ensure tourists have to wait for the results of their Covid tests. At the same time, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) on Monday opened an Emergency Operation Center (EOC) in 50 districts to try and get a grip on Covid over the New Year period.
These measures are useful but little more than knee-jerk reactions that will fail to deal with Omicron's lightning speed of infection.
The authorities have launched digital track-and-trace mobile app known as MorChana, which they have been urging people to download since last year. The system is handled by the ministry so that medical officials can keep track of people's movements across Thailand. Because of privacy and security concerns, however, using the app is not mandatory for the public, despite it having been downloaded several million times. That being said, tourists entering under the Test & Go scheme since Nov 1 have been required to do so.
Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, the minister of tourism and sport, says the app requires people's cooperation, especially tourists.
It is shocking that after two years of living with Covid, the government has still not established a well-tested system to trace and track high-risk Covid groups.
Omicron may be bringing the global battle against Covid back to square one. But the authorities cannot rely on the same old playbook. They need to up their game to thoroughly track and trace Omicron -- not to mention future variants that will no doubt be even smarter and faster.
