BANGKOK -- The local government of Thailand's capital Bangkok will start prohibiting restaurants from serving dinner indoors from Tuesday until further notice, as a part of countermeasures to control the kingdom's rapid coronavirus resurgence, which has become apparent since mid-December.

Bangkok Metropolitan Administration decided in a meeting on Monday to only allow restaurants to operate for takeaways between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. People can still eat breakfast and lunch at restaurants with proper hygiene and social distancing.

Thailand reported 745 new cases on Monday, the largest number of daily cases in a single day, bringing the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 8,439. Thailand had contained the first wave of the virus epidemic well. The kingdom reported virtually no local transmissions for months, but the resurgence in mid-December caught the country off-guard.

A large cluster arose among migrant workers at a shrimp market in Samut Sakhon, a province adjacent to southwestern Bangkok. Since then, other related or unrelated clusters have been found across the kingdom. Currently 28 out of 76 provinces in Thailand are considered highly controlled. A total of 4,108 cases have been found since the resurgence on Dec. 20, accounting 49% of total reported in Thailand since the emergence of the virus.

The city already imposed a ban on alcohol consumption at restaurants on Saturday. The ban came ahead of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha's endorsement on Sunday of a series of preventative measures for the highly controlled provinces proposed by governmental coronavirus control body the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration. Prohibiting restaurants from serving alcoholic beverages was one of the measures.

The endorsement also gave each province flexibility to ramp up or curb the proposed measures according to the epidemic situation. Taneewan Kulmonkol, president of the Association of Thai Restaurants, said on Saturday the industry organization is sending an open letter to Prayuth, urging him to refrain from banning customers from dining in.

Bangkok's decision could deal a fatal blow to businesses that were badly hurt by business lockdown measures imposed by the government for a few months from March to contain the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic. According to a local report, Taneewan claimed that the new ban, if imposed, could cause about 100 billion baht ($3.3 billion) in damage to the sector and related businesses such as farming. Even though Bangkok decided to allow restaurants to operate for breakfast and lunch, a sizable impact is still expected.

Other measures Prayuth signed off on included a cut in operating hours of commercial complexes. The Thai Retailers Association and Thai Shopping Centers Association both decided to close all malls under members' ownership by 9 p.m. effective Monday.

Closure of schools, educational institutions, and entertainment venues such as pubs and bars were a part of the endorsed measures. Encouraging employees to work from home, strict health screening of interprovincial passengers, and banning high-risk activities including banquets, meetings and seminars were also advised.

A fast-spreading B117 strain of the novel coronavirus was found in Thailand for the first time in a family of four, who were all in quarantine after arriving from the U.K. on Dec. 21. The Ministry of Public Health will consider banning the entry of British visitors, according to a local report.