CHIANG MAI – Market vendors refuse to let them buy food. Some banks won’t allow them to enter their premises. Hotels and guest houses double-check that non-Thai speaking Asians who seek to check-in are not from neighboring Myanmar.
It all began on December 17 when a 67-year-old Thai working in a shrimp market in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province southwest of Bangkok tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.
Tens of thousands of Myanmar migrants have worked for years in the market and nearby seafood-processing plants, often doing thankless jobs that most Thais are unwilling to do.
It’s become clear by now that Covid-19 spread quickly through Mahachai’s cramped and congested living quarters, similar to the ghetto-like dwellings and dormitories where the disease has thrived among migrants in Singapore and Malaysia.
As such, Myanmar migrants are now being…
