Thailand Ministry of Health reports 10,490 new COVID-19 cases and an additional 21 deaths since yesterday. The ministry also announced an additional 8,479 recovered patients.
The Department of Disease Control forecasts that the cases should begin to decline by mid-year. The daily infections should be down by 200 a day by August. DDC Director-General Dr. Opas Karnkawinpong predicted this outcome if no new variants emerge. The model shows that the cases will be down by 4000 a day in June. This will fall further to 1000 by July and eventually 100 by August.
A new surge in cases since yesterday prompted the government to remind the public of the measures. They asked the public to continue to tighten measures. The urge is attributed to the relaxing of entry measures as well as clusters. As the Test and Go were revived, some of the cases counted are from tourists. They were tested at the airport prior to their entry.
“Please do not worry about the figure. It is not important as long as our public health system can effectively manage the outbreak,” Dr. Opas said. “The most important point is that we have large-scale vaccination, especially of booster doses now having reached 21.4% [of the population],” he added.
The government is planning to declare COVID-19 as an endemic this year. This is due to the falling number of cases as well as the severeness of the symptoms. This scenario is possible if there is a new stronger variant that will emerge.
Omicron BA. 2 is now in 54 countries however further studies are needed to see its difference from the original. So far scientists confirmed that it is more contagious but not necessarily deadlier.
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