COVID-19: Thailand reports 18,885 new coronavirus cases, 29 deaths, 10,946 recoveries

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

11 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

Agree, its the ICU and ventilated cases that are important as well and they are not anywhere near the levels of the delta wave, although its still a large burden on the health service to have so many normal hospital beds taken up in covid wards.

 

Interesting piece from Bill Gates yesterday:

 

Bill Gates says Covid risks have ‘dramatically reduced’ but another pandemic is coming

 

KEY POINTS

Bill Gates told CNBC Friday that the risks of severe disease from Covid-19 have “dramatically reduced” but another pandemic is all but certain.

Speaking at Germany’s annual Munich Security Conference, Gates said that a potential new pandemic would likely stem from a different pathogen.

Advances in medical technology could cut vaccine production times to six months, Gates added.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/18/bill-gates-covid-risks-have-reduced-but-another-pandemic-will-come.html

It looks like he made very similar comments at the same event back in 2017:

 

Munich Security Conference

Bill Gates
Munich, Germany
February 17, 2017

 

"The point is, we ignore the link between health security and international security at our peril.

 

Whether it occurs by a quirk of nature or at the hand of a terrorist, epidemiologists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. And they say there is a reasonable probability the world will experience such an outbreak in the next 10-15 years.

...

You might be wondering how likely these doomsday scenarios really are. The fact that a deadly global pandemic has not occurred in recent history shouldn't be mistaken for evidence that a deadly pandemic will not occur in the future.

...

That is the situation we face today with biological threats. We may not know if that weapon is man-made or a product of nature. But one thing we can be almost certain of. A highly lethal global pandemic will occur in our lifetimes. "

 

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/speeches/2017/02/bill-gates-munich-security-conference

 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[anchadian]

 

Thailand’s public health system is reaching a critical point, with hospitals at full capacity and Covid-19 infections rising by tens of thousands per day, a medical expert warned on Saturday.

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012536

 

More than 50 per cent of Thailand’s hospital beds are still available despite the surge in Omicron cases, the Department of Medical Services reports. #COVID19 #hospital #ThailandNews #TheNation

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012526

[anchadian]

‘Stealth variant’ BA.2 rising fast in Thailand, lab tests show it blocks vaccines

 

Infections with the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron are rising fast in Thailand, leading virologist Yong Poovorawan said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/life/40012534

[Bkk Brian]

37 minutes ago, anchadian said:

 

Thailand’s public health system is reaching a critical point, with hospitals at full capacity and Covid-19 infections rising by tens of thousands per day, a medical expert warned on Saturday.

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012536

 

More than 50 per cent of Thailand’s hospital beds are still available despite the surge in Omicron cases, the Department of Medical Services reports. #COVID19 #hospital #ThailandNews #TheNation

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012526

Who to believe? I guess one possibility being that the medical expert is referring to beds in covid wards and the Medical Services is referring to all hospital beds?

[mommysboy]

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 Ya right....except:

 

"Somsak added that since Covid-19 infections were still rising, the department will divert patients with mild symptoms to home, community and hotel isolation to ensure that there are enough hospital beds to treat those with severe symptoms of Covid-19 and other diseases."

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012526?fbclid=IwAR3oHWuEqiPokoiVflAep7xU2IVkWUbC8n8p8P68Q2xEMcPwSjXyrlKBVRk

 

And, in case you hadn't noticed, the volume of COVID patients hospitalized increased by almost  5,000 just in the past day...  So if so many of them will be out "within a few days," then there must be a WHOLE LOT MORE coming in the doors every day.... because the overall COVID hospitalization figures are climbing like a rocket.

 

Despite continuing misperceptions by some here, I think it's pretty clear the days of the Thai authorities hospitalizing asymptomatic DOMESTIC COVID cases just because of positive tests only are long gone.

I'm not talking about asymptomatic.  True, all countries can be different, but in the UK even at its worst hospitalizations were about 3000 per day, and that was with up to 200,000 cases per day. 

 

The figures don't stack imo in relation to cases and deaths.  Another possibility is that cases are being vastly under-reported, which is perfectly possible, but in that case deaths would be much higher.

Edited February 19, 2022 by mommysboy

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

58 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

Who to believe? I guess one possibility being that the medical expert is referring to beds in covid wards and the Medical Services is referring to all hospital beds?

 

It's a good example of some part of the TH goverment doing PR blather, as I posted on earlier in the thread with the very misleading The Nation article talking about the occupancy rate for TOTAL beds.... when they should have been, but didn't, talk about the occupancy rate for beds suitable for COVID patients, meaning isolation, which are far fewer in number.

 

 

 

[Danderman123]

5 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

I noticed this detail wasn't included in the OP report above... just to keep some sense of perspective:

 

For the past 24 hours:

 

New general public "official" domestic cases -- 18,554

Imported cases from travelers -- 224

 

How many of those imported cases were positive tests on Day 5, ie tourists who caught Covid after arrival in Thailand? 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

"The Ministry of Public Health is planning to open more hotel based isolation facilities, to accommodate those infected who cannot remain in isolation in their condominiums or who may not find it convenient to remain in community isolation facilities."

 

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thailands-hospitals-and-hospitels-half-full-again-as-covid-19-continues-to-spread/

 

Perhaps this is part of the government's response to the recent pleas from the Minor Group exec for them to make things easier on the tourist industry...  Let's go out and get more hotels into the COVID business.... But who's going to pay the daily "hospitel" hotel rates for ordinary Thais?  I don't think that's covered under their standard government health insurance program... ????

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

4 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

How many of those imported cases were positive tests on Day 5, ie tourists who caught Covid after arrival in Thailand? 

Saw no such breakdown on that national number....

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Somebody obviously has forgotten to tell a bunch of the Asian countries that people are "done" with COVID after 2 years and everything is getting back to normal (sarcasm alert). Chart below since the start of 2022, per capita cases by country.

 

 

Source link

 

And if I remove the high testing countries from the chart like South Korean and a couple others, this is what the remainder including Thailand look like:

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

And before someone says, well Tallguy, those are just CASES... And they don't really matter with Omicron... What really matters are things like hospitalizations.

 

Well, unfortunately, Our World in Data doesn't have comparative COVID hospitalization data on all of the Asian countries in the charts above. But they do have on a couple, as shown below -- rates doubled to almost quadrupled since the start of the year:

 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

 

And here's Thailand daily counts of COVID patients in hospital since the start of the year, showing the same kind of spike (more than quadrupled):

 

Jan 4 -- 17,280

Feb. 1 -- 40,590

(Past Week)

Feb 14 –- 60,558

Feb 15 –- 60,303

Feb 16 -- 62,752

Feb 17 –- 64,919

Feb 18 -- 69,943

Feb 19 – 74,697

 

SOUTH KOREA:

 

"SEOUL, Feb 18 (Reuters) - South Korea's new daily COVID-19 cases topped 100,000 for the first time amid its Omicron outbreak, with authorities saying social distancing measures would be only slightly eased ahead of the March 9 presidential election.

...

Other anti-pandemic rules such as a six-person cap on private gatherings, a seven-day quarantine for international arrivals, mask mandates in public spaces, and vaccine passes for a range of businesses, will be in place until at least March 13, officials said, after the election."

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skorea-daily-covid-19-cases-top-100000-first-time-kdca-2022-02-18/

 

MALAYSIA:

 

"Malaysia’s new coronavirus cases reached a record high, exceeding the level seen last year when the nation was in the throes of the delta wave.

 

The country reported 27,831 new daily infections on Wednesday, driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant, data from the health ministry show. That was the most since the previous record on Aug. 26, when daily cases hit 24,599.

 

Malaysia joins neighbors Singapore and Indonesia in grappling with the worst daily Covid caseloads of the pandemic to date. New infections in Thailand rose to a five-month high last week, while Vietnam reported record cases on Tuesday.

 

“We need to brace this omicron storm together,” Malaysia’s Health-Director General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a tweet, as he urged citizens to take their booster shots. “Many countries in our region are seeing an upward trend.”

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-16/malaysia-hits-new-daily-covid-record-as-omicron-surge-continues

 

-----------------------

 

The main question now seems to be how long these major upward case and hospitalization spikes will continue here in the region, before they presumably will ultimately peak and decline, as they've already done in the West.

 

In short, not done by a mile.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Meanwhile, great news out of the U.S. (sarcasm alert):

 

Only about 2,000 people per day on average are dying of Omicron COVID there right now. You know... that "mild" disease that's not much more than the "flu."

 

That news comes as the U.S. is heading toward 1 million total "official" COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic (926,497 at last count).

 

But hey, we're SO done with COVID...  ????

 

 

CDC Source link

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Danderman123]

Although Covid is declining in Europe, it continues to infect large numbers of people. The decline is very slow, unlike the initial spike. 

[thisisrascal]

Covid is pretty much done and dusted in Europe. People will get sick and die of course but that happens every winter *shrugs* 

[Danderman123]

1 hour ago, thisisrascal said:

Covid is pretty much done and dusted in Europe. People will get sick and die of course but that happens every winter *shrugs* 

Meanwhile, daily deaths from Covid in South Africa are spiking up. Although case numbers declined in South Africa, deaths did not decline.

[anchadian]

Figures kept rising: 18,953 new infections & 30 deaths reported on Sunday. 13,962 discharged. 162,460 still being treated. #WhatsHappeningInThailand #Thailand #COVID19 #Omicron #โควิดวันนี้ #โควิด19 #โอมิครอน

 

https://twitter.com/PravitR/status/1495197169946488833

 

[anchadian]

https://twitter.com/ThaiNewsReports/status/1495189420437569536

 

[anchadian]

https://twitter.com/ThaiNewsReports/status/1495189190753288193

 

[Bkk Brian]

The predictable weekend effect

 

PCR test positive cases, total of 18,953 official new infections. 30 official covid deaths recorded.

 

Rapid tests positive cases, 8,814 bringing the total of PCR and ATK results to 27,767

https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/

 

Rolling 7 day average chart from 18th Feb

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/thailand

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Doing a new, expanded update format starting today, for Sunday's stats:

 

 

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

 

[mommysboy]

18 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Doing a new, expanded update format starting today, for Sunday's stats:

 

 

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main

 

Nice stats!

 

Thailand has an incredibly high hospitalization to confirmed case ratio.  One can only hope there is a simple stat based explanation for it, or the implications will be awful for all of us- lockdown on the cards.  Even countries with advanced health care systems were creaking at the seams at 2500 per day.

 

One possible explanation is the need to take patients in for IV drip as Thailand is a very hot country, and dehydration a big danger for old people.

 

I think the confirmed cases figure is likely hugely wrong.

[NoshowJones]

On 2/19/2022 at 10:45 AM, mommysboy said:

Whilst Omicron poses little threat to reasonably healthy people especially children, it is still a significant threat to those with severe illness and immune suppression.  But that is also the way with many URT viral infections. It's a real dilemma what to do for the best. Thailand needs to get hold of a few million Paxlovid pills sharpish.  A game changer will be Evusheld which is a type of passive vaccine for the immune suppressed. Pfizer and AZ at the forefront again.

Probably a good idea, but I am convinced that the unelected soldier posing as a PM and his Junta will want to prevent Thailand getting anywhere near normal for as long as possible.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Dunno if it's been noted here before, but the recent govt. stats now say they've finally reached their original goal of getting 70+% percent vaccinated with two shots -- now 2+ years into the pandemic.

 

Just in time for Omicron to change the playing field, and now basically require 3 shots total to be substantially effective.  On the 3 shot measurement, the government says Thailand only has 27.4% of its population triple vaxed thus far. Today's update from MoPH:

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/5073570

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Our friend Dr. Yong posted a useful chart earlier today, showing Thailand's trends in COVID cases and deaths over time.

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/yong.poovorawan/posts/7233353436707211

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Also, dunno if this was updated here previously, but I saw this as a follow-up to some info that previously had been posted in the forum.

 

"The death of 12-year-old boy after getting his first shot of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine last month was not caused by the vaccine itself, Department of Disease Control (DDC) said. "

 

"Chawetsan said that a lab biopsy showed the patient had died from septic arthritis at the knees and septic shock. There was no sign of infection at the point where the vaccine was administered. Doctors therefore ruled that the death was not caused by the vaccine but by other events that occurred at roughly the same time as vaccination."

 

"Chawetsan added that Thailand had administered over 120 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine since February last year, and 2,081 people had died after their vaccination. Of these deaths, 1,464 cases were investigated by medical experts, who ruled that 938 cases were not related to the Covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile 250 cases are awaiting additional evidence, while 272 cases were ruled inconclusive. This leaves only four fatalities related to Covid-19 vaccines.

Two people died due to vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), one from severe allergic reaction and shock, and one from Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis."

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012524?fbclid=IwAR3rCMYW3oI9D2lsnyZnY5tWN-ziWS_iMhZ9jT7u8JyBqpdCUVc56ai-QzQ

 

[mommysboy]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Also, dunno if this was updated here previously, but I saw this as a follow-up to some info that previously had been posted in the forum.

 

"The death of 12-year-old boy after getting his first shot of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine last month was not caused by the vaccine itself, Department of Disease Control (DDC) said. "

 

"Chawetsan said that a lab biopsy showed the patient had died from septic arthritis at the knees and septic shock. There was no sign of infection at the point where the vaccine was administered. Doctors therefore ruled that the death was not caused by the vaccine but by other events that occurred at roughly the same time as vaccination."

 

"Chawetsan added that Thailand had administered over 120 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine since February last year, and 2,081 people had died after their vaccination. Of these deaths, 1,464 cases were investigated by medical experts, who ruled that 938 cases were not related to the Covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile 250 cases are awaiting additional evidence, while 272 cases were ruled inconclusive. This leaves only four fatalities related to Covid-19 vaccines.

Two people died due to vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), one from severe allergic reaction and shock, and one from Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis."

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012524?fbclid=IwAR3rCMYW3oI9D2lsnyZnY5tWN-ziWS_iMhZ9jT7u8JyBqpdCUVc56ai-QzQ

 

Yes it should be noted that just as true deaths from Covid in youngsters are rare, so too are deaths from the vaccines.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

16 hours ago, mommysboy said:

Yes it should be noted that just as true deaths from Covid in youngsters are rare, so too are deaths from the vaccines.

COVID deaths, even in the young, are vastly more. Not even any comparison.

 

[mommysboy]

2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

COVID deaths, even in the young, are vastly more. Not even any comparison.

 

It's a posting I gave great thought to having listened to many sources, including very recently 'More or Less' on BBC podcasts. Check it out- fascinating and 100% reliable.  But I should have defined the young as under 11, perhaps. I think stats tend to be examined a little more in the UK, even if they do go against the grain.

[Petey11]

9 hours ago, mommysboy said:

It's a posting I gave great thought to having listened to many sources, including very recently 'More or Less' on BBC podcasts. Check it out- fascinating and 100% reliable.  But I should have defined the young as under 11, perhaps. I think stats tend to be examined a little more in the UK, even if they do go against the grain.

Listened to that show tonight driving back from dropping my daughter off and found it interesting and enlightening. Think they said there were 136 deaths of children (sub 18yrs) within 28 days of positive test and 76 of those were from covid, and hospitalisations were nearly all from children with quite severe co-morbididity factors. This was over the last 2 years, but child excess deaths over the last 2 years we're 15% less than expected, due to the lower amount of other viruses circulating like flu, etc. Plus they were also throwing into the mix the high probability of covid cases been greatly under counted in children due to the fact that a large percentage are in fact asymptomatic and have never tested for it. Another figure I heard reported was that they estimate 73% of children in the UK have had covid since the pandemic begun. My overall take on it is that the risk to healthy children is extremely low. Personally I'm leaning towards the non-vacvination of my own daughter. A pro vaccine advert from NHS England quoting 1 in 100 children who have covid are admitted to hospital was withdrawn with them saying the data was out of date. In reality a pediatrician said that figure came from incidental admissions where children were testing positive after been admitted for traumas, etc, totally unconnected to covid.

[webfact]

Thailand reports 18,883 new COVID-19 cases, 32 deaths, 14,914 recoveries

 

File photo

 

Thailand on Monday (February 21) reported 18,883 new COVID-19 cases, 14,914 recoveries and 32 additional deaths over the past 24 hours. 

 

Full story: https://aseannow.com/topic/1250961-thailand-reports-18883-new-covid-19-cases-32-deaths-14914-recoveries/

 

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