Thai government sets 600 million baht aside for Oxford University Covid vaccine

Siam Bioscience Co. says the July due date for delivering its locally-produced Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccines is still feasible. The company is currently sending vaccine samples to laboratories in Europe and the US for quality inspections. If they are approved, then the samples will be sent to AstraZeneca for final inspections. After that, the vaccines will be registered with Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration to be greenlighted for mass production. Siam Bioscience says it is capable of producing the vaccines domestically at almost the same rate as Australian and South Korean manufacturers as it is using the same technology from AstraZeneca.

The deputy government spokeswoman says that between 6-10 million doses of the vaccine will be ready to be administered in June. The corporate communication director of Siam Bioscience, Nualphan Lamsam, says the company is working as fast as it can.

“All parties concerned are working against time to produce the vaccine as fast as possible and make it an alternative to help save lives.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told Thailand’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration that the company has improved the vaccine’s efficacy against the Brazilian and South African strains of the coronavirus. But, there is no word yet on whether the company is also planning to improve the vaccine’s efficacy against the UK virus variant, known as B117. In Thailand, 608,521 people have now received at least their first dose of Covid vaccine.

Today, Thailand has reported the highest ever daily amount of new infections at 1,767. The spokesperson for the CCSA also reported that there were also 128 people in serious condition, with 28 people on ventilators. The third wave of Covid-19 has caused concern amongst authorities after announcing plans to reopen Phuket in July. The plan was to allow those foreign tourists, who are fully vaccinated, to enter the tourist island without needing to undergo a quarantine.

Thailand’s Sports and Tourism minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn is acknowledging that Phuket’s ‘Sandbox’ model will need “a major revamp.” He says he plans to meet with “all related agencies” this week. Apart from the latest national re-surge in new infections, Phuket has been unable to get its hands on sufficient vaccines to meed its deadline of 70% of the island vaccinated by July 1. Thailand’s limited supplies of the vaccine – including some 930,000 doses designated for Phuket – are being rerouted to other provinces as the government prioritises the limited supply.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

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1,767 new Covid infections were reported this morning, the highest ever daily report of new cases in Thailand. The spokesperson for the CCSA also reported that there were also 128 people in serious condition, with 28 people on ventilators.

608,521 people have now received at least their first dose of Covid vaccine.

Bangkok continues to lead the way in the new infections although the clusters are popping up right around the country now. Bangkok reported 347 new infections, Chon Buri with 229, Chiang Mai with 164, Nonthaburi, just north and west of Bangkok, 100, Prachuap Khiri Khan 66 and Samut Prakan 64. Locally, Phuket officials announced an additional 26 cases today, taking the tall in this latest cluster to 156 infections.

Only 2 cases today were imported, everyone else was living in Thailand.

Readers should also realise that the local provincial health officials report daily as well. Those totals don’t usually find their way into the national daily tally until the next day.

Some provinces are adding their own restrictions, including demanding negative Covid tests if you’ve arrived from a red zone – Krabi and Trat have announced this already. The only exceptions are if you’ve had full doses of Covid vaccine or have just come from quarantine. Chiang Rai has announced a ‘request’ that citizens stay at home for the next 14 days.

In Phuket, the closure of entertainment venues has been further extended to the start of May.

Expect more provinces to make similar announcements in the next few days.

If you are travelling, or planning to travel, it would be recommended to pre-load the Mor Chana app on your phones and fill out the information. This will help avoid some delays as you arrive in new provinces.

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Today marks a grim milestone as the Covid-19 pandemic officially crosses 3 million deaths around the world, with outbreaks still surging in various parts of the world. Over a year into the pandemic, and we are currently seeing over 700,000 new infections and 12,000 deaths per day, with Brazil, India, and France facing growing crises.

The 3 million figure reflects official numbers, though many suspect that real totals could be much higher, pointing at government conspiracies and early deaths that were not attributed to Covid-19 when little was known about the novel coronavirus in the early days.

Still, the official number is overwhelming enough – equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine, or the state of Arkansas in the US, and larger than world cities like Lisbon, Caracas, Dubai, Manchester or Chicago. Imagine nearly one-third of the people in Bangkok wiped out, or the entire nation of Armenia or Jamaica.

Following a steep decline in both new infections and deaths at the start of this year, the graph is again in an upward trajectory, both in terms of new cases and deaths from Covid.

The World Health Organisation laments the dire condition of the world dealing with the pandemic after 16 months and so many opportunities to prevent the spread with basic safety precautions. Brazil has spiralled out of control, racking up 3,000 deaths a day, nearly 25% of all the Covid-19 deaths in the world in the past few weeks. New variants have been spreading like wildfire throughout Brazil as more dangerous strains have wriggled their way into countries around the world.

In India, the distribution of vaccines has been thwarted by swelling Covid-19 outbreaks and deaths. In New Dehli, 13,000 infections were reported in a day amongst the 29 million residents, but the city only has 178 ventilators available as of Wednesday.

Only 1.1% of the Indian populations has been vaccinated, and officials faced criticism of their vaccine exports while so many need jabs domestically. In Thailand, the percentage of people vaccinated is even lower.

700 million vaccines have been distributed worldwide, but they have been shipped disproportionately to the wealthier populations throughout the world. In rich countries, 1 in 4 people have been vaccinated, while in poor countries that number is less than 1 in 500. In fact, 87% of the vaccines distributed worldwide have been to wealthy nations, and the delays in India due to increasing Covid-19 deaths will not help close that gap for many months to come.

SOURCE: Sky

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