BANGKOK: Thailand on Sunday set a record for the daily number of COVID-19 deaths for the second consecutive day, just as authorities step up the response to a rapid third wave of infection after about a year of relative success slowing the novel coronavirus’ spread.
The government reported 2,438 new coronavirus cases and 11 new deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 55,460 and fatalities to 140 since the pandemic started last year.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on his Facebook page on Saturday said provincial governors can close public venues and impose curfews if necessary to stop the virus spreading.
Authorities in the capital city of Bangkok have ordered the closure of venues including parks, gyms, cinemas and day-care centers from April 26 through May 9.
Shopping malls remain open but the Thai Retailers Association has restricted store opening hours in Bangkok as well as in 17 more of the country’s 73 provinces.
Thailand kept its number of infection cases far lower than many other countries throughout last year, but a new outbreak, spurred partly by the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant, has resulted in over 24,000 cases and 46 deaths in just 25 days.
The rising figures have prompted concern over the number of hospital beds, particularly as government policy is to admit anyone testing positive for the novel coronavirus, even those without symptoms.
Health officials have insisted there are still over 20,000 available beds nationwide.
To free beds quicker, the prime minister has said health authorities are considering reducing the quarantine period for asymptomatic cases to 10 days from 14, with the remaining four days to be spent in self-isolation at home.
Thailand sets daily record of COVID-19 deaths for second day
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Thailand sets daily record of COVID-19 deaths for second day
- Health officials have insisted there are still over 20,000 available beds nationwide.
- Thailand kept its number of infection cases far lower than many other countries throughout last year,
US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean
- Venezuela has relied on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains
- The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil
WASHINGTON: US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Sunday.
Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was apprehended in January during an American military operation.
Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight. The Defense Department said in a post on X that US forces boarded the Veronica III, conducting “a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding.”
“The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away,” the Pentagon said. “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.”
Video posted by the Pentagon shows US troops boarding the tanker.
The Veronica III is a Panamanian-flagged vessel under US sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil, TankerTrackers.com posted Sunday on X.
“Since 2023, she’s been involved with Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil,” the organization said.
Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, told The Associated Press in January that his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers left the Venezuelan coast in contravention of the quarantine.
The Trump administration has been seizing tankers as part of its broader efforts to take control of the Venezuela’s oil. The Pentagon did not say in the post whether the Veronica III was formally seized and placed under US control, and later told the AP in an email that it had no additional information to provide beyond that post.
Last week, the US military boarded a different tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Aquila II. The ship was being held while its ultimate fate was decided by the United States, according to a defense official who spoke last week on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing decision-making.
