This morning the public health ministry has announced 3,382 new cases of Covid-19 and 17 new deaths across Thailand. The daily numbers, again, are oddly statistically consistent with the daily toll around 1,900 – 2,500 for the past month (with few variations). Although the daily totals, even without the prison numbers, are slowly creeping up, mostly as a result of clusters in Bangkok, Samut Prakan and Chon Buri around workers accommodation and high-density housing areas.
460 infections announced in the past 24 hours came from the Thai Prison system.
The Thaiger will report all provincial totals just after lunch.
• In Chon Buri province, including Pattaya, 91 new infections of Covid were announced this morning. The new clusters are centered around industrial areas and factories in the outskirts of the main city Chon Buri area with many workers who live in Phan Thong.
The Chon Buri Governor is ordering the temporary closure of a company in the Nong Mai Daeng Sub-district of Chon Buri city zone. The estate will be closed for at least 2 weeks. All workers have been quarantined and not allowed to leave while they are checked for Covid-19. The province continues increased testing and a cluster at a factory and migrant worker camp dormitory for the factory in a nearby district.
• The so-called South African (B.1.351) strain of Covid-19 has been detected among a cluster of infected illegal migrants in Narathiwat province, Deep South of Thailand on the Malaysian border.
The Covid-19 Network Investigations group reports that they found the B.1.351 variant in samples the Thai public health ministry collected from the cluster in Tak Bai, a coastal district, right on the border, 10 days ago.
Although research is ongoing, it is considered that most of the current vaccines have reduced efficacy against the B.1.351 strain.
SOURCE: FRB | Bangkok Post
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Can we get a graph or bar chart of the daily infection in Thailand since say, April 1
As a resident of Phuket, what, in your opinion restrictions will be relaxed May 31 in Phuket as Phuket infection are still lower single figures.
Given that the government intends to open Phuket to general international travel on July 1, they’ll have to lift all restrictions by the end of June. You’d think. Be assured there are games being played between the government, TAT, local Phuket officials and business-people. The push for vaccination is still on, so…. we don’t know.
To correct the statement that all current vaccines have refuced effectivity against this variant, the AstraZeneca vaccine has no effectivity! In S Africa this vaccine was removed as their preferred choice and in 4 months they built a production plant for the J&J vaccine and also imported the Pfizer one. Both of these are highly effective. Their nationwide vaccination plan is well under way across the general population. But Thailand is still utterly dependant on a vaccine that cannot protect against this highly contagious variant & that has already been in the wild for 10 days. And still the general public await the start of what will turn out to be a less than effective vaccination programme.
I am sure there are games being played with Phuket, but time will tell….inevitably…. The truth will come out. It always does…eventually. But better to have an ambitious target and go for it, than talk about next year, the year after and vague assurances. Phuket is a good test case for all of Thailand. I am confident it can work in Phuket. Only vaccinated international tourists (of course). All residents vaccinated (or as many as possible…over 80%). The question is can Phuket get itself fully vaccinated in time and are there enough vaccines to do that. I think everyone is over political games.
— The daily numbers, again, are oddly statistically consistent with the daily toll around 1,900 – 2,500 for the past month —
Moah: 3382 – 460 = 2922 – about 20% more than the upper limit in the 1900 – 2500 range..
@Ian Bromley – To be fair Ian, Astra Zeneca does work and is saving lives every day. Agreed it’s protection of “mild to moderate cases” of the South African variant is greatly reduced from the heigh 60’s to as low as 10%, it is still extremely effective at preventing serious illness or death from this variant. I believe they are currently working on a new version to cover this shortfall.
The disadvantage with the existing serum, is that in not protecting against mild to moderate infections, it gives the virus more opportunity to mutate and for example produce a Thai variant.
Overall, on the basis that it is effective against the Original virus, the U.K. and the Indian variant, whilst preventing serious illness and or death against the South African variant. It needs to be used until stocks of other better options are available.
If people decide to wait until better options are available, then they have to accept, that day may never come for them.
Agreed @Bobby. There is no magic “one size fits all” at the moment. They key thing is to try and get cases down and stop this virus having the chance to mutate so quickly. I fully appreciate what the medical experts are attempting to do and getting just about any vaccine now (assuming it’s passed correct testing etc) has to be better than none. Ultimately, of the vaccine doesn’t protect you catching it, but only results in you having bad flu symptoms for a week, then that’s a result. I’ve had my first dose of AZ vaccine and hope to get my second in the next month or so. I’d happily take most of the vaccines currently available.
Exactly Nigel. Well done and I hope you get your second dose on time my friend, as it is crucial to get the maximum protection.
“I fully appreciate what the medical experts are attempting to do”
evidently you don’t. @Nigel, since the medical experts are not all saying that “getting just about any vaccine now (assuming it’s passed correct testing etc) has to be better than none” – unless you’re saying that vaccines like Sinovac which has not had WHO approval have not “passed correct testing”.
ARE YOU?
Or are you sitting on the fence, particularly as you’ll never have to take Sinovac?
If you’re not, and you’re saying Sinovac and the like are fine, then you’re overlooking the reality that Sinovac doesn’t have enough efficacy to give herd immunity even with 100% vaccination, even ignoring the variants.
Pretending that it does and removing restrictions (mask wearing, social distancing, travel, etc) will potentially make the virus spread quicker – if so the result isn’t “better than none” but considerably worse.
Nobody also has any idea what the result will be of administering, say, a Moderna or Pfizer “booster” shot after two shots of Sinovac, and nobody is trialling it as the WHO hasn’t approved Sinovac – a number of such tests are under way, though, with AZ, J&J, etc, plus Pfizer and Moderna.
You can’t just undo the vaccines once given, and the combination could have unknown side effects.
Instead of ploughing ahead thinking “anything is better than nothing” without thinking it through, why not consider the consequences of delaying for, say, a month until AZ is ready ( ? ) and use only AZ instead of both Sinovac and AZ?
Or a total re-think and re-tooling later, after a year and sufficient AZ doses have been produced, so Siam BioScience can then produce Pfizer or Moderna under licence instead?
It’s far from as easy or as binary as “anything is better than nothing”.
@Simon Small – you are right simon small, those addicted to thailand cheap livestyle would inject themself anything in order to go back to the land of smile asap, without taking in consideration the long term effects,