When Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha announced on June 16 that the country was gearing up for reopening in 120 days, many wondered if he had set himself an unattainable goal.
The country was languishing in the throes of the Covid-19 crisis and prognoses about the pandemic were not encouraging. The daily caseload was spiking at a time when the government had fumbled over vaccine procurement as it tried to figure out when the next batch of vaccines would come from.
It is now half-way through the 120-day deadline that falls in mid-October. Daily infections which peaked at more than 23,000 have retreated to around 18,000 in recent days. More…