Thailand’s Department of Disease Control says nearly 4,000 people have been hospitalised with Covid-19 infections in the last week, and 107 deaths have been reported. According to a Nation Thailand report, 3,961 patients received hospital treatment between December 4 and 10, meaning an average of 566 a day. During the same period, 107 died from the virus, or an average of 15 Covid fatalities a day.
Since January 1, there have been 11,694 deaths from Covid-19, according to the DDC, and as of December 10, 649 people are still being treated for lung infections. Of those, 385 required ventilators.
The renowned lung specialist, Dr Manoon Leechawengwongs, took to Facebook yesterday to say Thailand needs to be on guard for new Omicron sub-variants that have been reported in India. Manoon, who is based at Vichaiyut Hospital, says he believes the new sub-variants will be detected here soon.
He adds that the kingdom needs to prepare for the XBB variant, which followed the BA.2.75 variant in India. Manoon believes the same pattern will emerge in Thailand and warns that XBB is much more contagious and can evade both vaccine-derived immunity and that which is naturally-acquired from prior infection.
Meanwhile, Yong Poovorawan from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, says Covid-19 will continue to spread until around February. He says the infection is similar to the flu, in that infections will be higher during colder and wetter winter seasons.
He believes case numbers will begin to drop after February and could rise again in June when Thailand enters its wet season. However, Yong adds that by next year, he’s confident most people in the kingdom will have acquired immunity against the virus.
Phuket public health officials are not publishing daily infection numbers at this time.
SOURCE: Nation Thailand
