Thai police patrol sea border with Myanmar following Covid-19 spike

Thai police patrol sea border with Myanmar following Covid-19 spike

Thai police patrol the country's sea border with Myanmar this morning (September 7) following a spike in Covid-19 cases in the neighbouring country.

Officers used speedboats in the Andaman Sea off the coast of Ranong province in the south to scour the channels where Burmese workers can enter illegal by dodging immigration controls.

Thailand has recorded just one local transmission of the coronavirus in more than 100 days.

In contrast, Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, saw a sudden surge in infections at the end of August and has now recorded more than 1,419 cases of the virus as of September 7.

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Thanya Damkaew, the commander of the Border Patrol Police in Ranong, said he had been tasked with ''deterring illegal immigration from neighboring citizens who may have been infected with Covid-19''.

He added: ''The work has switched to patrols 24 hours a day since receiving orders to patrol the Andaman Sea.''