Bangkok (VNA) – Thailand’s Industry Ministry has saidthat COVID-19 has spread to the manufacturing sector at a worrying rate of 13infected factories a day, with the food and electronics industries at the topof the caseload table.

Local media quoted a latest survey of 749 factories in 62provinces between April 1 and Aug 17. The ministry found new infections in 13factories and some 800 workers a day, making up 4 percent of total dailyinfections in Thailand.

The top five industries where infections were reported are food (136factories), followed by electronics (103), metal (65), garments (64) and plastics(57).

The ministry did not consider the infections to be newclusters because the number of COVID-19 cases was lower than 100 in manyfactories.

Factory operators and state officials are working together to contain thespread of the virus through the Thai Stop COVID-19 scheme, which assesseshygienic standards at factories. Those with acceptable standards are givene-certificates.

Up to 20,032 factories, or 31 percent of 64,038 factoriesregistered with the ministry, have joined the scheme.

Decha Chatutananant, inspector-general for the ministry and chairman of theCrisis Management Centre said that 66 percent, or 13,235 factories, passed thecriteria, while 34 percent, or 6,797 factories, failed the assessment. Thelatter needs to improve their hygienic standards, he added.

He suggested some factories adopt bubble-and-seal measuresto better protect workers against disease transmission.

On August 19, Thailand confirmed 20,754 new infections and 301 deaths.

Earlier, through his Facebook account, Thai PM PrayutChan-o-cha called on all people to strictly implement pandemic prevention andcontrol given by the government./.