Thailand Make Preparations to Declare Covid-19 As Endemic Disease

[snoop1130]

 

BANGKOK (NNT) - The Ministry of Public Health is getting ready to declare COVID-19 an endemic before the end of this year.

 

According to Health permanent secretary Kiattiphum Wongrajit, the National Communicable Disease Committee has agreed to begin preparations in order to categorize Covid-19 as an endemic during a meeting on Thursday. He said the MOPH believes that while Covid-19 had spread for more than two years, trends indicated that the disease was currently under control and infections not too severe.

 

The Committee hopes for Covid-19 to naturally turn into an endemic virus but stressed the need to set guidelines and improvise measures to prepare for the transition. Before the transition can be considered, officials have established requirements that must be met. These criteria were as follows: no more than one death per 1,000 cases, 80 percent of the population fully vaccinated for protection against the Omicron variant, and a satisfactory efficiency in treating patients by the health system. The criteria’s details will be finalized later.

 

According to the permanent secretary, the implementation of plans, methods, and goals have been established. Once the criteria have been fulfilled and the situation appears promising, a declaration will be made for the virus to be treated as an endemic. Officials are hoping that this will happen within this year.

 

Meanwhile, the Committee also approved the establishment of adult vaccine clinics to offer daily walk-in vaccinations for adults who wish to be inoculated. The permanent secretary urged people to get their first vaccination or booster shots as soon as possible in order to boost their immunity against the virus.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2022-01-28

 

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[hotchilli]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

He said the MOPH believes that while Covid-19 had spread for more than two years, trends indicated that the disease was currently under control and infections not too severe.

Under control yet increasing?

[Excel]

Whilst cases may be increasing then if the UK is a good comparator then serious hospitalisations from omicron are not following that same trend. Given that and the majority of cases appear to be much milder symptoms then this has resulted in most regulations in the UK being relaxed. Now that suggests that Thailand, a country of similar population, although a slightly lower median age, then should they follow suit, would follow an even lesser trend given the statistics of the other variants contagion previously in Thailand.

 

So it appears that should they re-classify it as an endemic it will pave the way for Thailand to open up properly again and provide opportunities for the poor to regain employment and for those business that have suffered badly to hopefully improve their lives again,

 

But, and it is a big but, do this government really want that to happen ? rather is it their plan to keep the state of emergency running as long as they can manipulate it and call a snap election ? As with these powers they have with them the means   to deprive the general population, which they appear to despise so much, of allowing a fair election ?

 

However let's hope this regime put politics and their own cronyism to one side and Omicron is considered just another health hazard, like flu or the common cold and hence classified as endemic so that Thailand can hopefully recover from the sorry state it is currently in. Now that would really bring happiness back to the millions of people who have suffered economically.

[mikesil]

Why not just declare it "gone"?

[kelboy]

OMG 

[thaibook]

Criteria such as number of infections, proportion of severe cases or deaths to determine if a disease is endemic are sensible but the proportion of the population that is vaccinated is not a characteristic of the disease.  Is the common cold classified as endemic if 80% of the population carry handkerchiefs?

[NoshowJones]

5 hours ago, Excel said:

Whilst cases may be increasing then if the UK is a good comparator then serious hospitalisations from omicron are not following that same trend. Given that and the majority of cases appear to be much milder symptoms then this has resulted in most regulations in the UK being relaxed. Now that suggests that Thailand, a country of similar population, although a slightly lower median age, then should they follow suit, would follow an even lesser trend given the statistics of the other variants contagion previously in Thailand.

 

So it appears that should they re-classify it as an endemic it will pave the way for Thailand to open up properly again and provide opportunities for the poor to regain employment and for those business that have suffered badly to hopefully improve their lives again,

 

But, and it is a big but, do this government really want that to happen ? rather is it their plan to keep the state of emergency running as long as they can manipulate it and call a snap election ? As with these powers they have with them the means   to deprive the general population, which they appear to despise so much, of allowing a fair election ?

 

However let's hope this regime put politics and their own cronyism to one side and Omicron is considered just another health hazard, like flu or the common cold and hence classified as endemic so that Thailand can hopefully recover from the sorry state it is currently in. Now that would really bring happiness back to the millions of people who have suffered economically.

Good post, but does the soldier posing as a PM and his Junta really want this to become an endemic?

IMO and it is only an opinion, is that the protesters will arrive in Bangkok in larger numbers than they did before, and we will see something similar to what happened with the red shirts, unless of course the soldier "PM" resigns and we have a proper democratic election, or as near to it as possible.

[AustinRacing]

Thailand the world leaders in making BIG calls. Declare this, order that, predict this, estimate that together with the trump card “misunderstanding”. How can you go wrong?

[Kwaibill]

8The World Health Organization made the pandemic determination based on the definition of a global epidemic. Worldwide people are still getting sick and numbers dying.

Can Thailand believably make a unilateral determination this way?

I think it is a socio-political move vs any medical/ scientific determination.

Will it have the desired effect in the face of ongoing infectivity?