Public Health Permanent Secretary Dr. Kiattibhoom says the minister’s illness won’t hinder the government’s plans to welcome more overseas immigrants. Moreover, he said the minister was experiencing only mild symptoms and is not in need of hospitalization. It has been suggested that he self-isolates starting today, June 28.

It is possible that the minister was infected with the virus on his overseas trip, having met and spoken with many people. On June 19-21, he participated in the 170th General Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions in Paris and then attended the UNAIDS executive committee meeting from June 21-24 in Geneva.

The mask mandate was lifted last week, and now masks are voluntary to wear. People deemed to be at high risk are still urged to wear them. They should also be worn in places with poor ventilation.

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Wednesday’s figures did not include 3,955 positive results from antigen tests. This would raise the total to 6,254.

There were 19 coronavirus-related fatalities and 2,387 new cases reported on the previous day.

As of Wednesday, a total of 21,650 people were receiving Covid-19 treatment (up from 21,152 on the previous day), including 10,412 in hospitals (up from 10,279). Among the remainder, 1,091 were in field hospitals/hospitel facilities (up from 977) and 9,976 in home/community isolation (up from 9,726).

Of those in hospital, 602 were seriously ill patients with lung inflammation (down from 608) and 280 dependent on ventilators (down from 290).

The 24-hour period also saw 1,783 patients discharged from hospitals after recovering.

All but 10 of the 2,299 new cases found during the previous 24 hours were among the general population. Five prisoners and five new arrivals from other countries also tested positive.

Other central plains provinces further from the capital had four new deaths – two in Chon Buri and one each in Sa Kaeo and Suphan Buri.

The North reported two deaths in Lamphun and Chiang Rai.

The Northeast saw 10 new fatalities – three in Nakhon Ratchasima, two in Si Sa Ket and one each in Yasothon, Sakon Nakhon, Mukdahan, Ubon Ratchathani and Nakhon Phanom.

The South had no new deaths.

Since the pandemic started in early 2020, there have been 4,507,228 Covid-19 cases, including 2,283,793 this year, with 4,455,035 complete recoveries to date.

The accumulated death toll stood at 30,543 since the beginning of the pandemic, including 8,845 so far this year.

Global Covid-19 cases rose by 724,039 in 24 hours to 546.63 million. The worldwide death toll went up by 1,519 to 6.34 million.

The United States had the most cases at 88.44 million, up 93,837, and the most deaths at 1.04 million, up 390.

Source: Bangkokpost

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One of the cat’s two owners, who both had Covid-19, probably passed the virus to the cat, which then sneezed in the veterinarian’s face, according to a research paper written by scientists at Prince of Songkla University. Genomic sequencing confirmed that the cat and all three people were infected with an identical version of the virus, which was not widespread in the local population at the time.

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Would you like to travel again to Thailand- The Land of Smiles now that the Covid restrictions are eased. In the latest Thailand travel news, the country will be open to all from 1st June 2022. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated travelers around the world can travel freely now. Thailand is likely to attract a lot of international travelers in 2022, as it is one of the most preferred holiday destinations.

The Covid-19 vaccine is required for all travelers aged 18 and older at least 14 days prior to arrival in Thailand.

It is mandatory that children between 5-17 years of age traveling unaccompanied to Thailand receive a dose of an approved vaccine at least 14 days before their departure. Children traveling with their parents are exempt from this requirement.

A certificate of recovery from Covid-19 infection must be provided to travelers with a history of infection and who have received at least one dose of an approved vaccine post-infection.

Travelers who are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated can visit Thailand as there are two ways to enter the country. If they want to avoid quarantine, they need to take an RT-PCR test and upload the results into their Thailand Pass application. Otherwise, they can use the existing 5-day alternate quarantine scheme. They should conduct the test no more than 72 hours before the arrival date.

A valid Thailand Pass is required for anyone intending to travel to Thailand. After the pandemic, this requirement is particularly critical. Thailand Pass allows travelers to simplify and streamline their documentation process in Thailand as it supports Thailand’s “Ease of Travel” system.

For information about applying for a Thailand Pass directly, visit the MFA website. You should submit/register your Thailand Pass application at least 3 to 7 days before you are scheduled to depart. If you intend to travel to Thailand, ensure that you apply well ahead of time for a Thailand Pass.

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A study of BA.2 subvariants shows signs of severity. New research suggests that it could cause severe diseases and appear to be capable against vaccines.

Japan conducted tests on the BA.2 sublineage and discovered features showing that is also capable of causing illness. Like Omicron, appears to be immune to immunizations to a great extent. A booster dose restores protection, reducing the likelihood of infection-related sickness by 74%. BA.2 is also resistant to various therapies, including the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, which is now being utilized to treat Omicron.

The findings were published as preprint research on the bioRxiv platform on Wednesday, pending peer review. Normally, independent specialists review a study before it is published in a medical publication. Preprints allow researchers to disseminate their findings more rapidly, but they are published before the final review process.

“It might be, from a human’s perspective, a worse virus than BA.1 and might be able to transmit better and cause worse disease,” says Dr. Daniel Rhoads. He is the head of microbiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Rhoads reviewed the study but was not involved in the research.

Findings

When compared to the original Covid-causing virus that arose in Wuhan, China, BA.2 has a lot of mutations. It also features hundreds of gene modifications from the original Omicron strain. This has made it different from the most recent pandemic virus as the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta versions.

According to the findings, BA.2 should not be regarded as a form of Omicron and should be properly watched, according to Kei Sato, a researcher at the University of Tokyo who led the study.

“As you may know, BA.2 is called ‘stealth Omicron,’ ” Sato told CNN. That’s because it doesn’t show up on PCR tests as an S-gene target failure, the way Omicron does. Labs, therefore, have to take an extra step and sequence the virus to find this variant.

“Establishing a method to detect BA.2 specifically would be the first thing” many countries need to do, he says.

“It looks like we might be looking at a new Greek letter here,” agreed Deborah Fuller, a virologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who reviewed the study but was not part of the research.

Further study of the BA.2 subvariant is on the way

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Hence why some zoo animals in India acquire Covid-19 due to the zoo keepers touching the animal’s food while being infected with the virus, more on those stories here: 8 lions corona infected in Hyderabad, Four Vandalur zoo lions infected with Delta variant of Covid-19

In the yet-to-be published study, researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands studied pet dogs and cats of people who had tested positive for Covid-19.

A mobile veterinary clinic in the Netherlands, visited the homes of owners to take oropharyngeal and rectal swabs, and blood samples from their cats and dogs.

The swabs were used in PCR tests, which provide evidence of current infection, and the blood samples were tested for antibodies, which provide evidence of past infection.

About 156 dogs and 154 cats from 196 households in the Netherlands were tested in total.

The researchers found that six cats and seven dogs (4.2 per cent) had positive PCR tests and 31 cats and 23 dogs (17.4 per cent) tested positive for antibodies.

“If you have Covid-19, you should avoid contact with your cat or dog, just as you would do with other people,” said Els Broens, from Utrecht University.

“The main concern, however, is not the animals’ health — they had no or mild symptoms of Covid-19 but the potential risk that pets could act as a reservoir of the virus and reintroduce coronavirus it into the human population,” Broens said in a statement.

Eleven of the 13 owners whose pets had tested positive agreed for them to undergo a second round of testing one to three weeks after they were first tested for coronavirus.

All 11 animals tested positive for antibodies, confirming they had had Covid-19.

Three cats still had positive PCR tests and were tested for a third time.

All the coronavirus positive animals eventually cleared the infection and tested negative for the covid-19 virus.

Eight cats and dogs that lived in the same homes as the positive pets were also tested again at this second stage to check for virus transmission among pets.

The study found that none tested positive, suggesting the virus was not being passed between pets living in close contact with one another.

The research shows that COVID-19 is highly prevalent in pets of people who have had the disease, with pets in 40 out of 196 households (20.4 per cent) having antibodies for the virus.

The study was presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases held online this year due to the pandemic.

The researchers said that with other studies showing Covid-19 rates to be higher in pets that have been in contact with infected people, than in pets without such contact, the most likely route of transmission is from human to pet, rather than the other way round.

“Fortunately, to date no pet-to-human transmission has been reported. So, despite the rather high prevalence among pets from Covid-19 positive households in this study, it seems unlikely that pets play a role in the pandemic,” Broens added.

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Novel Coronavirus, a virus that has been threatening the entire human race for a couple of months now. A few months ago, nobody even knew the name of this hazardous pandemic that has now claimed the lives of thousands of people across the world in a very short span of time. On the very last day of the previous year i.e. December 31, 2019, the China office of the World Health Organisation (WHO) came to know the first reports of a pneumonia case in Wuhan, China that caused by Coronavirus. Notably, Wuhan has a good 11 million people within the city. Today, when I am writing this post on March 18, 2020, at noon IST, this pandemic has already affected as many as 198,729 people and claimed the lives of 7,989 across the globe. Unfortunately, the numbers may increase in the near future as there is no solid cure have come to the table as of now. However, what might give us some relief is that the number of people who have recovered from this pandemic is 82,779. Other than China, the Coronavirus has been spread across 150 countries with Italy, Iran and Spain are the most affected countries of all. On March 11, the WHO had announced the official name of the disease: COVID-19. According to the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses, Coronavirus is called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, or Sars-CoV-2 for short. On March 11, 2020, the WHO officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic.

How Did COVID-19 Pandemic Start?

It is reported that the COVID-19 disease was stem from Wuhan Seafood market – a marketplace where wild animals are traded ‘illegally’. In earlier stages, it was thought that the first people infected with COVID-19 must have a connection with the Wuhan Seafood market as Coronaviruses are generally transmitted from animals to humans. There have been some speculations that COVID-19 is caused by bats as the genetic sequences of coronavirus is 96 per cent identical to the coronavirus exists in bats. However, the analysis and study of the COVID-19 are still on.

How Do Coronaviruses Affect Us?

Coronaviruses affect the respiratory system of the humans and cause cold, cough, fever and some other severe infections. In some of the cases, the infection leads to severe respiratory tract diseases such as pneumonia and bronchitis. COVID-19 has a severe impact on older patients with pre-existing health conditions as their immune system is comparatively weak. In 2002 as well, the Coronavirus epidemic known as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was initially detected in Southern China, affected as many as 8000 people in 26 countries and claimed the lives of 774 people.

COVID-19, Spreading Across the World

As of today, March 18, 2020, the number of cases in China alone is 80,894 and the death toll has reached 3,237. Though the new cases of COVID-19 found in China as of today are just 13, which is extremely low as China has seen more than 5000 cases in a single day in Mid-February. However, what is causing distress across the globe is that the new cases of COVID-19 in other parts of the world have not been decelerating. Italy, today, is the most affected country after China that has more than 31,506 cases of COVID-19 with a death toll of 2,503. What is heart-breaking is the fact the entire country has been compelled to the point that it had to be locked down. Other countries with the highest number of COVID-19 cases include Iran with 16,169 cases and 988 deaths, Spain with 11,826 cases and 533 deaths, Germany with 9,367 cases and 26 deaths, followed by South Korea, France, the USA and Switzerland where the number of cases of coronavirus is 8,413, 7,730, 6,522 and 2,742 respectively.

COVID-19 Testing

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has not announced any standardized testing procedure as the information about this new Novel Coronavirus is limited. In many cases that have found in China, South Korea, Italy and Iran, it has seen that the symptoms of the COVID-19 are recrudesced. Meaning, when you do a coronavirus testing on a patient, it shows no symptoms. However, if you perform the test on the same person the very next day, it starts to show the COVID-19 symptoms. Even after recovering from the COVID-19 completely, coronavirus is reoccurring in patients after a while. Consequently, there are a total of 5 procedures for collecting samples to test COVID-19 that are mentioned below:

Swab Test – A medical practitioner takes the sample of your saliva from your nose and/ or throat using a special swab.

Nasal Aspirate – A medical practitioner injects a saline solution in your nose and/ or throat and remove the sample with gentle suction.

Blood Test – A Blood test can also be used to take the sample of your blood via arms. However, since COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, the blood test is not that reliable in such a scenario.

Tracheal Aspirate – It is considered as the most difficult test of COVID-19 as the medical practitioner would pass a catheter through the mouth of the patient that goes into your lungs. This thin and lighted tube is called a bronchoscope, which collects the sample.

Sputum Test – The sputum test is very common in which the medical practitioner would take the sample of the mucus from the patient’s nose with a swab.

Coronavirus Diagnosis

After collecting tissues samples of the patients, the process of converting RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) from those samples into cDNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) will be initiated. In this process, the medical practitioners will majorly focus on this conversion and will study the changes occurred. It is genuinely a very difficult test and hence, it takes 24 to 48 hours in the completion of the test.

COVID-19 in India and Thailand

While the entire world has fallen a victim to COVID-19, how can we Indians be unhurt to this pandemic? In India as well, we do have 148 cases of COVID-19 and death toll at 3. The number of COVID-19 patients is, fortunately, quite less as compared to what we have seen in the above mentioned countries. However, this number has been increasing with each passing day. Similarly in Thailand, there are a total of 212 COVID-19 cases and the death toll is restricted to one.

COVID-19 Testing in India

Amidst the chaos of this pandemic, the question arises in our minds that with COVID-19 blocking off the entire world, is India efficient enough to deal with this deadly disease? Since the test for COVID-19 requires some advanced testing and is a complex test, the Government of India has not allowed private labs to perform this test. The COVID-19 tests are only available in the government-owned labs where we have advanced medical facilities.

Government Precautionary Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19

Suspension of all Visas amid COVID-19

The Bureau of Immigration, Ministry of Home Affairs has issued Travel and Visa restrictions amid COVID-19 from March 13, 2020, to April 15, 2020. Under these restrictions, all the existing visas that had been issued to nationals from any country are suspended. The people with Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card who avail the visa-free travel facility in India are also included in this list. The visas of any foreign citizens who are already living in India remain valid. In a nutshell, the Government of Indian has suspended all the tourist visas.

There are some exceptions in the restrictions, basis which the visas issued to the following foreigners class remain unaffected:

• Diplomats who are working in embassies in India
• Any foreign government officials who are coming to India any government official work
• Any members of UN/ International Organisations
• Any person who is coming to India for employment
• Any person with project visa

Other than that, any foreign nationals who are willing to travel to India for ‘compelling reasons’ such as the medical emergency of a family member can get in touch with the nearest Indian Mission to apply for a fresh visa. However, the Indian Embassy has the right to accept or reject visas based on the reasons for travel.

Quarantine Rules by Indian Government

If any citizen, including Indian national, is arriving from or visited China, Italy, Iran, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Germany or France on or after February 15, 2020, s/he can be quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days.

Thailand has also cancelled Visa on Arrival for India, South Korea, Hong Kong, Italy and 14 other countries amid COVID-19.

The Central Government has issued a notice to close some major landmarks including Rashtrapati Bhawan. The Delhi Government has already issued a circular to close schools, colleges and movie theatres till March 31, 2020, amidst Coronavirus spread. The Mayor of Agra has urged the Central Government to close Taj Mahal till March end as there is no screening facility for thousands of Taj Mahal visitors on a daily basis.

Indian Government Proposed SAARC Fund to Deal with COVID-19

The Indian Government recently has proposed a voluntary contribution of US $10 million for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Fund to cope with Coronavirus. This fund can be used by any of the members of the SAARC countries in case of requiring any medical equipment, medical services or any other requirements to fight COVID-19. There are 8 members in the SAARC namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

The Indian Government has also assembled a Rapid Response Team of Doctors and Specialists who will be on standby and can be deployed to any of the SAARC countries.

The Indian Government has also offered to arrange online training capsules through sharing software by which all the doctors and specialists can share their experiments, experiences, findings and knowledge of the COVID-19.

The Global Impact of COVID-19

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has stated that as many as 50 million jobs could be lost in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic. Further, it said that the travel sector may shrink up to 25% in the year 2020 alone.

The WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has alerted all the countries that the chances of containing COVID-19 are decreasing with each passing day, especially after the recent outbreaks of Iran and Italy, which have no direct link with China. This is one huge concern for the healthcare authorities to stop the coronavirus from spreading more.

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