Sixteen Chinese casino workers were arrested after trying to dodge a Covid-19 ban by SWIMMING into Thailand. <br /><br />The exhausted lads were picked up after crossing the Moei River from neighbouring Burma on Monday (13/07) morning. Some were wearing their clothes and others had stuffed their belongings into plastic bags.<br /><br />They were all arrested in Tak province in the north of the country and taken to the police station for interrogation. They allegedly said they had been working at a casino in Burma, or Myanmar, and were trying to find a way to return home to China. <br /><br />Police Colonel Phubet Saengaram said they will try to find a way to help them but they will have to test for COVID-19 infection first.<br /><br />He said: "We have not decided to charge them yet but we will work on it and in the meantime we will have them tested for the COVID-19 before contacting the Chinese embassy.<br /><br />''They were exhausted because the river is powerful and in some places they were walking on a sinking base, so some of the group lost their shoes. It was highly dangerous.''<br /><br />Thailand effectively closed its borders to international tourists on March 22 and the only passenger flights into the country have been repatriation planes.<br /><br />The strict measures appear to have worked, with no local transmission of the coronavirus for 50 days.<br /><br />However, fears of a second wave emerged this week when an Egyptian military official tested positive for Covid-19 in Rayong province. He had been stopping over in Thailand and visited a number of public buildings including a shopping mall.<br /><br />The nine-year-old daughter of a Sudanese diplomat in Bangkok has also tested positive this week after the family arrived in the country and were allowed to self-quarantine at home instead of in state-monitored facilities.<br /><br />There have been 3,227 recorded cases in Thailand, including those repatriated who picked up the disease abroad. Hospitals have recorded 58 deaths due to the pandemic.
