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BANGKOK (AP) – Carpenter Tun Nye has been unable to send money to his parents in Myanmar to help care for his 11-year-old son for two months after Thai authorities shut down his yard of construction. concerns about the coronavirus.
No work meant no income for him or his wife, who were confined to one of more than 600 worker camps dotted around Bangkok, living in a small room in a dilapidated building with boards and blankets to cover. missing windows.
In Thailand’s worst virus wave to date, lockdown measures reduced to zero what Bangkok’s poor children had to zero. Groups of volunteers work to ensure their survival.
For Tun Nye, 31, the bag of rice, canned fish and other staples dropped off by Bangkok Community Help volunteers meant not having to go hungry that week.
“It’s been three or four months without money and we don’t have enough to eat,” he said after collecting his supplies. “And there is no option to return home to Myanmar, it is worse there.”
The government closed the camps in late June after clusters of delta-variant infections spread among workers living nearby, further exacerbating a spike in COVID-19 in Thailand. Many lost all income, and while employers were supposed to make sure everyone had enough food and water, many did not.
“You would have a camp that had a lot of supplies, they were stocked, and you walked 30 yards (yards) to another and they hadn’t seen their boss for two weeks and they were told to go fishing to get them.” feed, ”said Greg Lange, one of the co-founders of Bangkok Community Help, which delivers around 3,000 hot meals a day and up to 600“ survival bags ”like the one Tun Nye received.
Founded at the start of the pandemic last year, the organization has grown to more than 400 Thai and foreign volunteers like Lange, a 62-year-old Florida native in the restaurant business who has lived in Thailand for two decades and has relies heavily on social media to spread the word and solicit help.
Donations come from businesses, individuals and even governments. Some donate meals they have prepared themselves, others packaged or cash products. Rice in survival packs recently distributed in slums near Bangkok’s main commercial port facilities was paid for by Australian Aid; the apples were donated by the New Zealand-Thai Chamber of Commerce.
When hospitals became so overcrowded that COVID-19 patients could not be admitted, volunteer doctors and others brought oxygen to their homes, hoping to keep them alive long enough for an intensive care bed becomes free.
“We were mainly concerned with helping people get through this period with food supplies, basic necessities, but all of a sudden we were taking care of lives, people were dying in our arms – literally,” the co-founder said. de Lange, 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 the government’s home isolation program is working better, but we still send 20 to 30 people to the hospital every day, we still administer oxygen. . ” he said.
New infections in Thailand have hovered around 15,000 in recent days after peaking above 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 from the pandemic.
The government hopes the country is now on the cusp of emerging from this deadliest wave of the pandemic, which has accounted for 97% of Thailand’s total cases and more than 99% of its deaths.
After a much criticized slow start to vaccinations, around 35% of the population has now received at least one injection and around 12% are fully vaccinated. In Bangkok, over 90% have had one stroke and over 22% have had two.
“In terms of the number of cases, we see that it is still high but the trend is improving,” said Dr Taweesap Siraprapasiri, epidemiologist and senior adviser in the government’s disease control department.
Lockout restrictions have been relaxed last week, and many construction projects were given the green light to resume work, under close surveillance.
Taweesap said many construction workers have now received at least a first dose of vaccine and many construction sites have started operating under what authorities have called “bubble and seal” regulations – a “bubble” workers are kept together and isolated from outside contact to prevent COVID-19 from entering or spreading on the site.
“We are also applying this concept to other workplaces like factories,” he said.
When the camps were first closed, a group of Bangkok residents formed the We Care For Ourselves group, saying it was immediately obvious to them that many workers had been left in crisis situations.
They created an online platform to match needs in the camps with available donations to better target aid, sharing their information with Bangkok Community Help and other groups.
Even as things improve, group member Yuwadee Assavasrisilp said many unregistered workers are still unvaccinated and as rumor has spread about their group they are starting to learn more about them. current needs of the city’s slums.
When people test positive, they are forced to isolate themselves at home, which usually means the virus is spreading to family members, she said. And many are so poor that they come out of isolation to work just so they can feed their families.
“Without the volunteers, we would have seen many more people die because they couldn’t access the government system in time,” said Yuwadee, 32. “The number of volunteers in Thailand has increased – this shows the generosity of Thais during the crisis – but at the same time, it reflects the great failure of the government in handling this pandemic. “
A recent outbreak in the Tun Nye camp, home to a crew of 112 building a mansion for an oil tycoon, meant it had to stay closed longer than most, but the site was approved to reopen within the week. last. He and his wife both had the virus, but without severe symptoms and a negative test about a week ago means he can now return to work.
“Everyone is looking forward to him,” he said, his smile wide enough to be visible through his surgical mask. “We have been without income for so long. “
For volunteer groups, this is just another phase of a long pandemic.
Bangkok Community Help, working with the local government, last week opened a 52-bed isolation center at a primary school, unused due to the pandemic. And over the weekend, volunteers extensively tested an entire neighborhood for better data on infection rates.
“We’re not stopping,” Poldervaart said. “We just adapt. “
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Associated Press journalists Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul and Tassanee Vejpongsa contributed to this report.
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