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Easing of Entry Rules for Thailand?
Transcript of the above video
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing easing of Entry Rules to Thailand. This first came to my attention via TAT News, that is Tourism Authority of Thailand their News website, tatnews.org and the announcement is titled: Thailand Lifts RT-PCR Testing Requirement for International Arrivals from May 1, 2022, so we are talking about this prospectively as of the time of this video. This will not begin until May 1st of 2022. Quoting directly: "Bangkok, 22 April 2022 - Thailand's Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) today approved the lifting of the RT-PCR testing requirement for international arrivals beginning May 1, 2022 and introduced two new entry schemes specifically customized for vaccinated and unvaccinated travellers." So for purposes of this video we are going to concentrate on the vaccinated. We will do another video contemporaneously with this one where we discuss issues for unvaccinated travellers.
New entry rules for vaccinated travellers:
International Travelers who are fully vaccinated will no longer be required to show proof of pre-arrival negative RT-PCR test nor undergo an arrival test. They will still be required to register for a Thailand Pass with a Certificate of COVID-19 Vaccination and an insurance policy with coverage no less than US$10,000. Once arriving in Thailand, they will be allowed entry and are free to go anywhere in the Kingdom.
So all good news for the vaccinated I would say. I have some qualms about the fact that we are still dealing with Thailand Pass and I will get into that in another video. For purposes of this video today, understand yes things are going to be easing up. The RT-PCR test is not going to be required from May 1 and those who are vaccinated, can prove such and deal with Thailand Pass, you basically enter Thailand, no Mandatory Hotel, you are good to go. So for now, it is definitely an improvement over what we have been dealing with over the, well past months now.
That said, we are still not at the end of this yet and as I have noted in other videos previously and I am going to be discussing in other one's coming up, this isn't a great, I think Thailand needs to get rid of this Thailand Pass sooner rather than later. I will get into details on that later but comparatively Thailand is not as easy to get into as other countries and probably won't be considered such until Thailand Pass is gone. That being said, this is definitely an improvement so credit where credit is due, we are moving in the right direction. Hopefully things will get better as the weeks and months move ahead. We will keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.