BANGKOK, March 11 (TNA) – The government plans a full-scale factory to produce medical masks amid concerns about mask shortages due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak.
Announcing the plan, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said that a large-scaled company proposed to build the factory. He asked the public not to think that the government was favoring an investor.
“At present, existing factories in the country are making over 1 million medical masks a day. Of them 700,000 masks are sent to medical personnel and the rest 500,000 masks go to general people,” Gen Prayut said.
“I ask officials to use them at hospitals only. Someone might have given masks to their family members.”
He said officials were supervising all medical mask factories and found no irregulatiries about product distribution.
The prime minsiter also said that China was sending masks and vaccines to Thailand to support disease control and would develop a COVID-19 cure with Thailand.
Gen Prayut confirmed that the COVID-19 outbreak in Thailand remained at its second stage and the government planned to use application software to monitor returnees from COVID-19 risk countries on a voluntarily basis.
He added that the government prepared various stages of assistance for virus-affected operators including small and medium-sized enterprises. (TNA)
