Thailand's latest seasonal COVID wave enters 2024 with continuing upward surge

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

 

Thailand's latest seasonal COVID wave continued its now three-month-long upward surge with more significant increases in reported new COVID hospitalizations and counts of seriously ill COVID patients in hospital during the first week of 2024, according to the latest report from the Thai Ministry of Public Health.

 

New COVID hospitalizations in Thailand rose to 664 for the week of Dec. 31 to Jan. 6, up 11.8% from 594 the prior week, and reaching the highest new COVID hospitalizations count in the past six months since early July. Last week also marked the first time the weekly new COVID hospitalizations tally had topped 600 since mid-July.

 

Likewise, the count of currently hospitalized COVID patients considered in serious condition rose to 144 for the latest week, up 20% from 120 the prior week, and reaching the highest count in the past five months since early August.

 

COVID deaths reported by the Thai government, meanwhile, remained at low levels with only 4 reported for the latest week, up from 3 the prior week. The weekly COVID deaths reported by the Thai government have remained consistently at single-digit levels since 12 were reported for the first week of August.

 

The current year-end spike in COVID hospitalizations followed a prior spike that ran from mid-April to early June, the post Thai New Year period, with new hospitalizations then peaking at 3,085 for the week May 28 to June 3.

 

After that, the weekly new COVID hospitalization numbers generally declined and hit recent lows in October, bottoming out at 124 for the week of Oct. 8-14. Since then, the latest upward surge has seen new weekly COVID hospitalizations increase fivefold through the first week of January.

 

Thailand stopped publicly reporting COVID infection/case data last fall, as have many countries, so tallies of COVID new hospitalizations have become one of the key indicators that public health officials these days use to monitor the successive up and down waves of COVID infections.

 

According to the latest weekly report, Thailand has had 39,121 COVID hospitalizations and 852 officially declared COVID deaths since the start of 2023. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the MoPH has reported a cumulative total of 4.75 million COVID hospitalizations and 34,521 officially declared COVID deaths.

 

[worgeordie]

My daughter ,not feeling so well, stopped off at hospital on way home from work,

and they said she had Covid ,never said what strain , she bought some test kits

at 7-11 as hospital did not have any ..., and test showed positive for Covid 

 

She went back to hospital next day to get sick note , they gave her 3 days note,

but the Hotel where she works says she has to take holiday days off ,not on sick days !

 

She said hospital was full of people ,maybe a lot with Covid , about a year ago the

wife and I both got Covid ,but daughter did not , it was very mild ,did not know till

took test.

 

regards worgeordie

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 minute ago, worgeordie said:

she bought some test kits at 7-11 as hospital did not have any

 

That, if true, seems very surprising and strange.

 

[worgeordie]

2 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

That, if true, seems very surprising and strange.

 

Yes it's true ,she bought 5 at 7-11 @ 20 Baht each, so many people at the hospital

maybe they ran out ,,

 

regards worgeordie

[novacova]

17 hours ago, worgeordie said:

My daughter ,not feeling so well, stopped off at hospital on way home from work,

and they said she had Covid ,never said what strain , she bought some test kits

at 7-11 as hospital did not have any ..., and test showed positive for Covid 

Wife  got sick in July and bought several test kits from 7/11 and a pharmacy, all tested negative. She then went to the hospital and was tested positive, strain wasn’t noted. Makes me wonder about the test kits.

[rabas]

3 hours ago, novacova said:

Wife  got sick in July and bought several test kits from 7/11 and a pharmacy, all tested negative. She then went to the hospital and was tested positive, strain wasn’t noted. Makes me wonder about the test kits.

 

It's very possible that one brand/version/batch of a rapid test kit will not detect more recent strains of SARS-2-Cov, while PCR tests still work. This is in part because SARS-2 is a particularly infectious and rapidly mutating virus, possibly as a result of R&D programs studying such properties (as we now know).

 

Rapid tests only look at viral surface proteins, mostly from the changeable spike. PCR test's deeper in viral RNA and sees parts that rarely change. ATK manufacturers adapt to newer strains but it's a bit like trying to board a moving train.  So it's important to check the manufacturing date and try different brands. 

 

Here is a 2 minute video that explains clearly (from approved sources)

 

Why a rapid test might not detect all COVID variants

 

Edited January 12 by rabas

[Lorry]

On 1/12/2024 at 12:07 PM, rabas said:

This is in part because SARS-2 is a particularly infectious and rapidly mutating virus, possibly as a result of R&D programs studying such properties (as we now know).

I don't understand. 

What R&D programs?

[still kicking]

Well, all can say there is an uptick of infections where I live (OZ) I am lucky never caught covid, I have hundreds of test kits laying about never used any of them even, so we get them for free.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

 

 

Source link:

 

Edited January 23 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

All of the key COVID indicators reported by the Thai government for last week are at their highest levels in at least six months.

 

--The latest weekly report of 718 new weekly COVID hospitalizations is Thailand's highest reported number since early July (1,193).

 

--The latest weekly report of 11 new COVID deaths is Thailand's highest reported number since early August (12).

 

--The latest weekly report of 209 currently hospitalized COVID patients considered in serious condition is the highest reported number since mid-July (214).

 

--The latest weekly report of 149 currently hospitalized COVID patients requiring intubation / ventilation in order to breath is the highest since early July (166).

 

https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos_by

 

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

 

(the second website above also has all the history of weekly MoPH reports, but appears to be down / not responding at the time of this posting)