BANGKOK -- No one knows exactly why Thailand has been spared.Is it the social distancing embedded in Thai culture -- the habit of greeting others with a wai, a prayerlike motion, rather than a full embrace -- that has prevented the runaway transmission of the coronavirus here?Did Thailand's early
Is it the social distancing embedded in Thai culture — the habit of greeting others with a wai, a prayerlike motion, rather than a full embrace — that has prevented the runaway transmission of the coronavirus here?
Thailand’s low rate of infection appears to be shared by other countries in the Mekong River basin. Vietnam has not recorded a single death and has logged about three months without a case of community transmission. Myanmar has confirmed 336 cases of the virus, Cambodia 166 and Laos just 19. Dr. Wiput Phoolcharoen, a public health expert at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok who is researching an outbreak of the coronavirus in Pattani in southern Thailand, noted that more than 90% of those who tested positive there were asymptomatic, much higher than normal.Wiput said Thais and other people from this part of Southeast Asia were more susceptible to certain serious cases of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne virus, than those from other continents.
The International Monetary Fund predicts the Thai economy will shrink by at least 6.5% this year. More than 8 million Thais may lose their jobs or income in 2020, the World Bank has said, in a nation already cleaved by a yawning gap between rich and poor. The country’s large population of migrant workers, many from neighboring Myanmar and Cambodia, is also hurting. While some people managed to make it home before the borders closed, others are stuck in Thailand with no wages from their jobs as hotel cleaners, kitchen hands and food stall operators.
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