Thailand’s Disease Control Department reported 2,012 new COVID-19 cases, 15 additional deaths and 695 critical cases on ventilators this morning (Wednesday).

Cumulative infections, since early last year, are 61,699, with 21,119 still being treated in hospitals. The death toll has jumped to 178.

The department also noted that, since the beginning of this month, 32,836 people have become infected and 84 have died. Daily new infections have exceeded 2,000 for six days in a row.

In Samut Sakhon province, which was the source of Thailand’s second wave of the pandemic, Governor Veerasak Vichitsangsri said today that the province is ready to accommodate COVID-19 patients from Bangkok and its peripherals, to help ease the burden on the hospitals there.

At the height of the second wave, Samut Sakhon opened huge field hospitals, capable of housing thousands of mostly asymptomatic cases among migrant workers from Myanmar. The governor himself was infected and was sent to Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, for treatment of a severe lung infection, which required him to be placed on a ventilator.

The governor said that there are, currently, rare infections among migrant workers and the new COVID cases are mostly among local people, frequently among family members.

He appealed to people in Samut Sakhon not to reject patients from other provinces, saying that this is a time for everyone to help one another and to have compassion.

He said he understands why some residents in the province oppose the idea of accepting patients from elsewhere, noting that, during the second wave of pandemic, people from Samut Sakhon were stigmatized when they visited other provinces and motorists would not even open their car windows when travelling through the province.

“People in Samut Sakhon will have to travel to other provinces for trade or work. Their children have to go to schools outside the province and they have to communicate with other people. If other provinces do not survive (the pandemic), there is no way for Samut Sakhon to survive either. So we must help one another, said the governor.