KHON KAEN: The provincial public health office on Thursday reported a Covid-19 cluster at a childcare centre in Si Chomphu district with 42 cases.
Of them, 34 were children and the eight others teachers. Five others were waiting for test results, said Somchaichote Piyawatchvela, chief of Khon Kaen health office.
He said the first case of the cluster was a two-year-old who contracted the virus from her grandmother.
It was suspected she caught the virus from the child's mother who visited the family for a week before returning to work in Chon Buri.
Three people in the child's family were tested and the result for the child and her grandmother came back positive.
The two-year-old and the grandmother had pneumonia and were admitted to Srinagarind Hospital.
After the child tested positive, public health officials were sent to the childcare centre to investigate and a total of 117 people were identified as at-risk.
Dr Somchaichote said all 42 confirmed cases at the childcare centre were sent to Srinagarind Hospital and Khon Kaen Hospital where they would be treated and observed for at least 14 days.
He said the province initially planned to set up a field hospital to take patients from this cluster, but decided against it.
Most of the infected were small children and they would be safer under specialists' care at a hospital, he added.
