Monday Covid-19 Update: 2,713 new cases and 30 deaths, provincial totals

2,713 new Covid-19 cases and 30 coronavirus related deaths were reported today in Thailand, raising the total case count since the start of the pandemic to 135,439 and the death toll to 806. The are now 45,307 active Covid-19 cases in Thailand.

Out of the new cases reported today, 206 infections were at correctional facilities. Thousands of inmates at around a dozen Thai prisons have tested positive for Covid-19 this month. The outbreaks have prompted Thai government to tackle its longstanding problem of overcrowding in prisons. There’s now talk that a number of inmates will be released to help prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Other major outbreaks are concentrated in crowded areas including Bangkok’s slums, construction camps, markets and factories. Health officials are using the so-called “bubble and seal” method at hotpot areas in crowded areas, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nagaland Nopakun, who gives the CCSA report in English. Field hospitals are being set up onsite at factories and markets have reported outbreaks.

Covid-19 situation committees have been organised in each of Bangkok’s 50 districts to combat the spread of the coronavirus, Natapanu says.

While Bangkok has been the epicentre of infections in the latest wave of cases, a new hotspot was reported at a factory in Phetchaburi, around 170 kilometres southwest of the capital, where more than 2,000 people tested positive for Covid-19.

Mutated variant

With the Covid-19 variant first found in India now reported in Thailand, Natapanu says the AstraZeneca vaccine, the primarily vaccine in the nationwide Covid-19 immunisation campaign, is effective against the B.1.617 strain. The variant was detected in 15 patients at a construction camp in the Laksi district. Natapanu says the new strain spread a similar to other mutated variants, but it does not appear to be as severe as the common coronavirus.