Record-breaking 1 million Covid-19 vaccines given yesterday
Thailand set a domestic record yesterday with more than one million Covid-19 vaccines administered in one day. PM Prayut Chan-o-cha thanked the public and everyone involved in making yesterday Thailand’s most successful vaccination day and expressed confidence that Thailand will reach its inoculation goals by the end of 2021.
The massive campaign of 1 million vaccines was launched as a celebration of Mahidol Day, the holiday that commemorates the death of Prince Mahidol Adulyadej in 1929, who is widely considered the father of modern medicine and public health. Government officials stated they chose this day as a nod of appreciation to the monarchy.
Aside from first and second vaccines, yesterday kicked off the government’s booster shot program, giving a third vaccine to those who had previously received 2 Sinovac vaccines. Previously, booster shots had mainly been administered to medical personnel and frontline workers. At Bang Sue Grand Station, a campaign was launched yesterday to give booster shot vaccines to 15,000 people per day over the weekend and 10,000 a day for several weeks after.
Thailand has now given over 50 million vaccines though the latest figures from the Department of Disease Control is on September 23 and lists a total of 47.6 million injections given. In those figures, just a few thousand shy of 30 million first doses had been given, just under 16.7 million second doses administered and 988,000 third booster shots. The data on booster shots have been inconsistent with figures from September 18 listing just shy of 916,000 third vaccines given, but the data from September 19 mysteriously dropping 162,000 to 754,000 third vaccines.
Regardless, PM Prayut announced through a government spokesman that he is sure that Thailand will reach a 70% vaccination rate for teh target population by the end of 2021. They expect to administer a total of 100 million doses to 50 million people, though that does not account for third vaccines being administered as booster shots.
SOURCE: National News Bureau of Thailand
