BANGKOK: Thailand’s total number of Covid-19 cases crossed the three million mark on Saturday, as health authorities step up efforts to fight the latest wave of outbreak.
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) said over the last 24 hours, Thailand recorded 22,818 new cases via RT-PCR tests and 52 deaths, bringing the total infections in the kingdom to 3,004,814 cases and 23,176 fatalities since January 2020.
Over the same period, a total of 33,085 people had tested positive for Covid-19 via antigen test kits. However, the figures were not included in the daily tally.
Deputy Director-general of the Disease Control Department Dr. Sophon Iamsirithavorn said the highly contagious Omicron variant is the cause of the current Covid-19 wave in the kingdom, with an average of 22,000 cases per day for the past two weeks.
“The number of serious cases, such as lung infections requiring hospitalisation, has increased 1.5 times in the same period,” he was quoted saying by Thai PBS.
Meanwhile, Dr Sophon urged the elderly especially those with underlying disease and unvaccinated to get Covid-19 jab before the Songkran festival in mid-April as infections may soar when families exchange visits and reunite during the festive season.
He said statistics showed about 2.17 million senior citizens remain unvaccinated.
“Vaccination reduces the risk of infections and severity of symptoms. Therefore, the elderly and senior citizens need to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” he said.
Since January this year, 928 elderly have died from Covid-19 in Thailand where most of whom were not vaccinated. – Bernama
