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PATIENT No. 26
NATIONAL DISEASE DEPUTY DIRECTOR BLANKS PHUKET COVID-19 CASE
NEWS
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Hospital chief responds to whistleblower
LIFE
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Phuket L.A.Ds take Red Bull challenge
DDC Deputy Director Dr Kajohnsak Kaewjarus in Phuket on Wednesday (Mar 4). Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot
The Phuket News editor@classactmedia.co.th
T
he Deputy Director-General of the national Department of Disease Control (DDC) Dr Kajohnsak Kaewjarus, flew to Phuket from Bangkok this week only to refuse to confirm or deny whether a Chinese tourist in Phuket had contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus as confirmed by a report issued by the DDC last month. Dr Kajohnsak on Wednesday (Mar 4) instead would only say that the information in the report was unreliable. He would not elaborate on which parts of the report were considered accurate. The report had been uploaded online by the Bangkok Metropolitan
Authority, but was later pulled down. Copies of the DDC report posted online earlier this week have since gone viral on Thai social media. The 11-page report – marked as issued on Feb 12, Day 40 since MoPH began its virus-prevention campaign – lists 33 patients confirmed as infected with COVID-19. Patient No 26 on the list is reported as a Chinese national, 35 years old, who on Feb 3 presented him or herself at a private hospital and was later isolated at Vachira Phuket Hospital in Phuket Town. Patient No 26 was reported as having a body temperature of 37.7ºC and a sore throat. In the report’s column marked “Result of laboratory test”, Patient No 26, like all 32 others in the list,
is marked: “Coronavirus family: Detected” Dr Kajohnsak said he had checked the report himself and confirmed it was a genuine report issued by the DDC. “But the information inside this document is not reliable because it needs to clarified and updated before we publish it on our website,” he said. Dr Kajohnsak said that the report, featured on official DDC letterhead with a pink background, included “unfinished information”. “Reports with pink letterheads are not reliable to publish,” he said. The DDC posts official daily Situation Updates and daily News Release Updates with blue letterheads, which Dr Kajohnsak explained were the reliable “final” versions. Of note, however, is that the pink
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letterhead report now leaked to the public contains listed information on the patients who apparently had already tested positive for the virus. None of the finalised “blue” reports issued to the public have ever included that information. As for the leaked “pink” report for Feb 12, the “unreliable” report includes all the exact same information as featured in the final “blue” report for Feb 12 – except that the “blue” report features no information at all about any of the patients in Thailand who have tested positive for the virus. Asked specifically whether patient No 26 had tested positive for the virus, now that Dr Kajohnsak said that he himself had checked the report, the DDC Deputy Director refused to answer…
SPORT
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Laguna Phuket Marathon set to go ahead
