Some schools, including kindergartens, in Thailand’s northeast have been ordered closed over COVID-19 concerns following infections found among students and teachers, only in the first week of reopening of many schools across the country.

A high school in the province of Mukdahan was ordered closed, from today (Friday) until November 11th, after 80 students and staff were found to be infected with the coronavirus.

Health, other officials and medics from Nikhom Kham Soi district were dispatched to Khamsoi Pittayasan School to conduct the COVID-19 tests. All the infected were sent to a field hospital for observation and treatment as district officials appealed for public donations of food and drinking water. Students who tested negative were immediately sent home.

The head teacher then ordered the school, which had reopened on November 1st, like many other schools across the country,to close for a week.

Meanwhile, the provincial health office reported yesterday that 19 new infections were found in the province, most of whom are believed to have contracted the disease from a patient at the provincial hospital.

Between April 1st and Wednesday, 2,307 infections have been recorded in this north-eastern province, with nine deaths to date.

In another north-eastern province of Bueng Kan, a kindergarten called parents to pick up their children from school as it was found that a teacher trainee contracted the virus, and the school has since been closed.

In the northern province of Chiang Mai, where COVID-19 infections are spreading, Deputy Governor Voravit Chaisawatyesterday ordered a community isolation facility, at the Muang District’s in-door stadium, to accept migrant foreign workers who test positive using rapid antigen tests.

Vaccinations and mass screenings have been stepped up as provincial health officials try desperately to contain the spread of the virus.

492 new COVID-19 cases were logged on Thursday, making Chiang Mai one of Thailand’s provinces with the highest rates of new infections.