CCSA predicts that Covid-19 infections may have peaked

Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration officials are saying that there are encouraging signs that Covid-19 infections are levelling off and have peaked. The news comes despite some doctors predicting up to 400,000 new cases, or even, as one doctor suggested, half the Thai population having or having had Covid-19 by the end of the next 100 days without mass vaccination.

The CCSA said that the new Covid-19 infection numbers have peaked and are no longer sharply rising and have levelled off, albeit at around 20,000 infections a day. Provinces are seeing a 59% rate of infection, while the Greater Bangkok region has a 41% infection rate, which they expect to hold steady, but they urge vigilance as even vaccinated people can still be infected.

Wait times for hospital beds for critically ill people are also decreasing as community and home isolation programmes for lower-risk patients free up many beds in medical facilities. Nearly 9,500 beds are currently in 70 community isolation centres throughout Bangkok. 14 community centres are equipped to perform standard RT-PCR tests and 7 are about to treat mild symptoms in 1,000 patients.

A urologic surgeon says that the third wave of Covid-19 is past its peak but the outbreak is not nearly over. He analysed 2 weeks of local infections as well as the nature of the outbreak and data from other countries to conclude that it will be slowing down. He believes that Thailand peaked at 23,000 infections in a day recently and will start to slow like India who peaked at 400,000 daily infections and then quickly slowed down.

He says though that it took a few months for the infection rate to swell so high, so it will take several months to come back down as well, and predicted numbers will drop to under 20,000 and slowly ease back to 10,000 and below over time. With that curve, he expects another 300,000-400,000 Covid-19 infections during that time and predicts as many as 3,000 more deaths.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post