The Burmese migrant worker Tun Nai is sitting in a construction camp in Bangkok, Thailand on August 31, 2021. AP PHOTO
BANGKOK: Carpenter Tun Nye has not been able to send money home to his parents in Myanmar for two months to help them look after his 11-year-old son after authorities in Thailand closed his construction site over coronavirus concerns
No work meant no income for him and his wife, who were imprisoned in one of more than 600 labor camps across Bangkok and living in a small room in a ramshackle building with boards and ceilings to cover up missing windows .
In Thailand’s worst virus surge to date, lockdown measures have reduced what Bangkok’s have-nots had to zero. Volunteer groups are working to ensure their survival.
For Tun Nye, 31, the bag of rice, canned fish and other staple foods given by the Bangkok Community Help volunteers meant no starvation this week.
« We have three or four months with no money and not enough to eat, » he said after collecting his supplies. « And there is no way to go home to Myanmar, it’s worse there. »
The government closed the camps in late June after clusters of Delta variant infections spread among workers nearby had, which further escalated a Covid-19 surge in Thailand. Many lost all their income, and while employers were supposed to make sure everyone had enough food and water, many did not.
« You had a store that had plenty of supplies, you were taken care of, and you left 30 meters (yards) to another and they hadn’t seen their boss in two weeks and were told to fish for dinner « Survival Bags » like the one from Tun Nye supplies.
Founded at the start of the pandemic last year, the organization is based on more than 400 Thai and foreign volunteers such as Lange, a 62-year-old Florida native in the restaurant business, who Living in Thailand for two decades, relying heavily on social media, grown to get the word out and ask for help.
Donations come from companies, individuals and even governments You can practice meals that you have prepared yourself, other packaged goods or cash. Rice in survival packages recently distributed in the slums near Bangkok’s main commercial port complexes was paid for by Australian aid; Apples were donated by the New Zealand-Thai Chamber of Commerce.
When hospitals were so overcrowded that Covid-19 patients could not be admitted, volunteer doctors and others brought oxygen into their homes in hopes of keeping them on long enough Sustaining life so that an intensive care bed could be vacated.
« We were mainly concerned with helping people get through this period of food and necessities, but suddenly we were dealing with life, humans died in our arms – literally, « said Lange’s co-founder Friso Poldervaart, a Dutchman who has lived in Thailand for more than a third of his 29 years.
» Fortunately, this situation is a little better now, more beds are free and that Government home isolation program works better, but we still send 20 to 30 people to the hospital every day, we still give oxygen. » he said.
Thailand’s new infections have been around 15,000 in the past few days after peaking over 23,400 in mid-August, while deaths from Covid-19 remained high, with 224 reported on Sunday. The country has confirmed 1.2 million cases and more than 12,800 deaths in the pandemic.
The government hopes the country is now on its way out of this deadliest wave of the pandemic, which accounts for 97 percent of all cases in Thailand and more than Made up 99 percent of the deaths.
After a much-criticized sluggish vaccination start, around 35 percent of the population now have at least one vaccination and around 12 percent are fully vaccinated. In Bangkok, more than 90 percent have one syringe and more than 22 percent have two.
« In terms of the number of cases, we see that the number is still high, but the trend is getting better, » said Dr. Taweesap Siraprapasiri, an epidemiologist who is a senior advisor in the government’s disease control department.
Lockdown restrictions were relaxed last week and many construction projects have been given the green light to resume work under close supervision.
Taweesap said that many of the construction workers have now received at least an initial dose of vaccine and that many construction sites are operating according to what the authorities call « bubble and seal » – a « bubble » of workers being held together and sealed off to make contact prevent Covid-19 from entering or spreading beyond the site.When the camps first closed, a group of Bangkok residents formed the We Care For Ourselves group and said they immediately realized that many workers were left behind in crisis situations.
They created an online platform to make the needs available in the camps and shared their information with Bangkok Community Help and other groups.
Although things are improving, group member Yuwadee Assavasrisilp said many unregistered workers are still unvaccinated and as the news spreads about their group, they begin to hear more about the ongoing needs in the city’s slums.
When people test positive they are forced to isolate themselves in their own homes , which usually means the virus is spreading to family members, she said. And many are so poor that they sneak out of isolation to work just to feed their families.
« Without the volunteers we would have seen many more people die because they didn’t get on the government system in time could access, « said 32-year-old Yuwadee. « The number of volunteers in Thailand has skyrocketed – it shows the generosity of the people of Thailand during the crisis – but it also reflects the great failure of the government to deal with this pandemic. »
A recent outbreak in Tun Nyes Warehouse, where a 112-strong crew built a mansion for an oil tycoon meant it had to stay closed longer than most, but the site was cleared to reopen last week. He and his wife both had the virus, but can now go back to work with no serious symptoms and a negative test about a week ago.
« Everyone’s looking forward to it, » he said, his smile wide enough to pass through his face mask to be visible. « We have been without an income for so long. » Last week, Bangkok Community Help, in collaboration with the local government, opened a 52-bed isolation center in a primary school that has been unused due to the pandemic. And over the weekend, volunteers extensively tested an entire neighborhood to get better data on infection rates.
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