If you rely on an Internet cafe for your daily dose of Facebook, Twitter and email, you might want to find yourself a Thailand liveaboard and go hang out somewhere nice, such as the Golf of Thailand, for the next two weeks. Internet cafés have been ordered to shut down on July 13 and remain closed until July 28.

This, according to a Phuket Gazette report, is an initiative to help stem the spread of H1N1. Internet cafés in Thailand, as they are in many Asian countries, are social hubs where young people congregate to live their on-line lives. And, feels the Thailand government, it poses a very real risk of being a transmission source for bugs, including the potentially fatal H1N1 flu virus.

The Internet cafes are next on a list of public places ordered to shut down and thoroughly clean their environments to prevent any further incidents, such as the death of a university student last week who, it is believed, contracted the virus in a night club.

The whole of Thailand so far has had 2,700 cases reported with around 14 fatalities, mostly amongst those with chronic illnesses or immune systems already compromised by recent or other illnesses.

With no Internet access, and seeing as how divers are general in good health with strong immune systems, now is probably a good time to escape the crowds and join a liveaboard to some of Thailand’s remote and pristine dive sites.