<p>The black leather party masks that performers May and Som wear for their fetish shows in Bangkok are definitely not the sort to stop the coronavirus.</p>.<p>Behind closed doors, they practise for the day when health restrictions are lifted and tourists return, but they have no idea when and worry that the city's infamous Patpong red-light district could be very different by then.</p>.<p>"This kind of place will be the last to reopen," said May 31. Like Som, she goes only by her Thai nickname.</p>.<p>"Even when it does reopen, customers will be worried about their safety," she said at the BarBar club on Patpong's Soi 2 street. BarBar and other clubs such as "Bada Bing" and "Fresh Boys" are shuttered and the nights are largely silent.</p>.<p>Thailand shut bars and clubs in mid-March as coronavirus cases surged. It halted international passenger flights, stopping the tourism that had made Bangkok the world's most visited city for four years.</p>.<p>Patpong went dark.</p>.<p>But residents say the decline had already begun for a red-light district that flourished in the 1970s as a rest stop for U.S. forces in Indochina.</p>.<p>"This COVID-19 is an accelerant of change," said Michael Ernst, an Austrian 25-year veteran of the district and former bar owner who opened the Patpong Museum weeks before the new coronavirus reached Thailand.</p>.<p>"The go-go bar and its very one-dimensional concept of a stage and ladies dancing on it with a number. I think that's already over, they just don't know that yet."</p>.<p>SHIFT</p>.<p>The number of go-go bars in Patpong district has waned in recent years as business has moved to other parts of Bangkok or online and as sex tourism has become a smaller part of the overall tourism industry for Thailand.</p>.<p>For decades, tourism figures were skewed towards men. But the growing importance of Chinese visitors in particular changed that. In 2018, more than 53 percent of tourists were women.</p>.<p>Nonetheless, Patpong's nightlife district employed thousands of people, mostly young women. Most are now among the 2 million Thais the state planning agency believes may be made unemployed this year because of the impact of the virus.</p>.<p>BarBar is still paying some workers. But the manager of at least one go-go bar on Soi 2 just abandoned the lease.</p>.<p>Patpong had never known it as bad, said 70-year-old Pratoomporn Somritsuk, who for 35 years has run the Old Other Office drinking den.</p>.<p>"A lot of ladies here working in nightlife are mostly from a poor family or upcountry," she said. "They have no chance to go work in a company."</p>.<p>The lockdown has meant the whole sex industry has collapsed. Online escort service Smooci said activity in Bangkok fell to 10 percent in April.</p>.<p>Thailand has now begun to lift some movement restrictions with infections at over 3,000 and deaths nearly 60, but neither rising rapidly. There is talk of tourism resuming.</p>.<p>But a health ministry spokesman said that nightlife venues would be among the last to reopen.</p>.<p>"In the new normal, Patpong will have to adapt a lot. It may end up looking different, but this change will be for the better," Rungruang Kitpati said.</p>.<p>Social distancing and the sex industry are hard to make compatible, however.</p>.<p>"I can provide alcohol gel or temperature checks," said 38-year-old Jittra Nawamawat, one of BarBar's founders. "But staying one metre apart is impossible."</p>
<p>The black leather party masks that performers May and Som wear for their fetish shows in Bangkok are definitely not the sort to stop the coronavirus.</p>.<p>Behind closed doors, they practise for the day when health restrictions are lifted and tourists return, but they have no idea when and worry that the city's infamous Patpong red-light district could be very different by then.</p>.<p>"This kind of place will be the last to reopen," said May 31. Like Som, she goes only by her Thai nickname.</p>.<p>"Even when it does reopen, customers will be worried about their safety," she said at the BarBar club on Patpong's Soi 2 street. BarBar and other clubs such as "Bada Bing" and "Fresh Boys" are shuttered and the nights are largely silent.</p>.<p>Thailand shut bars and clubs in mid-March as coronavirus cases surged. It halted international passenger flights, stopping the tourism that had made Bangkok the world's most visited city for four years.</p>.<p>Patpong went dark.</p>.<p>But residents say the decline had already begun for a red-light district that flourished in the 1970s as a rest stop for U.S. forces in Indochina.</p>.<p>"This COVID-19 is an accelerant of change," said Michael Ernst, an Austrian 25-year veteran of the district and former bar owner who opened the Patpong Museum weeks before the new coronavirus reached Thailand.</p>.<p>"The go-go bar and its very one-dimensional concept of a stage and ladies dancing on it with a number. I think that's already over, they just don't know that yet."</p>.<p>SHIFT</p>.<p>The number of go-go bars in Patpong district has waned in recent years as business has moved to other parts of Bangkok or online and as sex tourism has become a smaller part of the overall tourism industry for Thailand.</p>.<p>For decades, tourism figures were skewed towards men. But the growing importance of Chinese visitors in particular changed that. In 2018, more than 53 percent of tourists were women.</p>.<p>Nonetheless, Patpong's nightlife district employed thousands of people, mostly young women. Most are now among the 2 million Thais the state planning agency believes may be made unemployed this year because of the impact of the virus.</p>.<p>BarBar is still paying some workers. But the manager of at least one go-go bar on Soi 2 just abandoned the lease.</p>.<p>Patpong had never known it as bad, said 70-year-old Pratoomporn Somritsuk, who for 35 years has run the Old Other Office drinking den.</p>.<p>"A lot of ladies here working in nightlife are mostly from a poor family or upcountry," she said. "They have no chance to go work in a company."</p>.<p>The lockdown has meant the whole sex industry has collapsed. Online escort service Smooci said activity in Bangkok fell to 10 percent in April.</p>.<p>Thailand has now begun to lift some movement restrictions with infections at over 3,000 and deaths nearly 60, but neither rising rapidly. There is talk of tourism resuming.</p>.<p>But a health ministry spokesman said that nightlife venues would be among the last to reopen.</p>.<p>"In the new normal, Patpong will have to adapt a lot. It may end up looking different, but this change will be for the better," Rungruang Kitpati said.</p>.<p>Social distancing and the sex industry are hard to make compatible, however.</p>.<p>"I can provide alcohol gel or temperature checks," said 38-year-old Jittra Nawamawat, one of BarBar's founders. "But staying one metre apart is impossible."</p>