Thailand Ministry of Health reports 7,133 new COVID-19 cases and an additional 12 deaths since yesterday. The ministry also announced an additional 3,306 recovered patients.
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) sighted those cases may jump up to 20,000 cases a day. This is an estimate if precautions are not taken seriously.
Currently, the delta strain dominates the infections at 64.71% while omicron stands at 35.17%. An assistant spokeswoman for the CCSA, Sumanee Wacharasint sighted 5,397 omicron cases from 71 provinces. However, if we look into the cases from January 2 until January 8 only, 70.3% of all the cases are from the omicron variant. Permanent secretary for the Public Health Ministry Dr. Kiattiphum Wongrajit stated that “Even though new cases are high, deaths are low. This suggests that the new strain is highly transmissible but less severe.”
The Ministry predicts three possible outcomes depending on the cooperation of the public. The first where the public will fully cooperate shows cases would reach 10,000 a day. The second scenario where there is not much cooperation would peak at 15,000-16,000 cases a day. The third scenario where there is no public cooperation shows that it would peak at 30,000 a day.
The Public Ministry urges everyone to be vigilant and to follow COVID-19 regulations to avoid an outbreak. In a best-case scenario, the surge in cases will be under control within a month or two.