Hundreds of Khlong Toei residents get jabbed after virus erupts in riverside quarter

Around 1,000 people in a sprawling, squalid community by the Chao Phraya River lined up to get vaccinated Tuesday, the first day of a campaign to inoculate 50,000 residents in the densely populated area. 

At a Tesco Lotus on Rama IV Road and the Khlong Toei Witthaya School, residents of Khlong Toei, as the large informal c0mmunity is known, arrived to get doses of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines amid the latest outbreak which has seen the highest ongoing death toll since the pandemic began.

The campaign came after at least 300 Khlong Toei residents became infected. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration expects to complete the campaign within two weeks by vaccinating 2,000 to 3,000 people per day. Officials said they plan to proactively administer around 20,000 COVID-19 tests by May 19 on the Khlong Toei population.

Upward of 100,000 people are estimated to live…