Thailand reports record 23,557 new Covid cases

Thailand reports record 23,557 new Covid cases

Travellers protect themselves from infection at Suvarnahumi airport in Samut Prakan on Wednesday when the country logged 23,557 new Covid-19 cases and 38 more fatalities. (Photo: Wichan Charoenkiatpakul)
Travellers protect themselves from infection at Suvarnahumi airport in Samut Prakan on Wednesday when the country logged 23,557 new Covid-19 cases and 38 more fatalities. (Photo: Wichan Charoenkiatpakul)

The Public Health Ministry on Thursday reported a record daily increase of 23,557 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, as the kingdom deals with an outbreak driven by the Omicron variant.

The number of daily Covid-related deaths, however, was 38 -- well below the 184 fatalities reported on Aug 13 last year, when Thailand recorded its previous daily record of 23,418 infections.

A World Health Organization official said last month there is evidence the Omicron variant causes milder symptoms than previous variants and while case numbers have surged to records in many places, hospitalisation and death rates have often been lower than in earlier phases of the pandemic.

Up to now, about 69% of people in Thailand have been fully vaccinated, compared with about 12% at the end of August.

There are currently just below 181,000 people receiving treatment in hospital or isolating in the community, versus more than 212,000 on Aug 13 last year, data from the health ministry showed.

The 38 new fatalities were between the ages of seven and 97 years old.

Bangkok had 10 new deaths while there were four more fatalities in the adjacent provinces of Nakhon Pathom (2) and Samut Prakan (2).

Other central plain provinces further from the capital recorded seven more deaths - two each in Lop Buri and Chanthaburi and one each in Rayong, Samut Songkhram and Saraburi.

The Northeast had two new fatalities in Nakhon Phanom and Buri Ram.

The South reported eight more deaths - two in Phuket and one each in Krabi, Chumphon, Trang, Phangnga, Phatthalung and Satun.

The North saw seven new fatalities in Phitsanulok (3), Phichit (2), Chiang Mai (1) and Tak (1).

During the previous 24 hours, 16,131 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovering from the coronavirus.

(Screenshot from https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/thailand)

The new caseload was 2,335 more than the 23,557 announced the day before.

Of the 23,557 new cases, just 228 were detected in new arrivals from other countries. The rest were all local transmissions, including 96 in prisons.

The figures did not include 22,240 positive results from antigen tests over the past 24 hours. 

Bangkok still had the most new cases at 3,236, followed by 1,250 in Chon Buri, 994 in Samut Prakan, 899 in Nakhon Si Thammarat, 875 in Nonthaburi, 790 in Samut Sakhon, 666 in Ratchaburi, 645 in Phuket, 642 in Rayong and 629 in Nakhon Ratchasima.

The 228 imported cases included 58 from Russia, 26 from Cambodia, 20 from Germany, 13 from the United Kingdom, 11 from Singapore, 10 from Kazakhstan and eight each from Myanmar and France.

On Wednesday 180,993 people received Covid-19 treatment at hospitals (up from 173,605 on the previous day), including 905 seriously ill patients with lung inflammation (up from 882) and 240 dependent on ventilators (up from 229).

Since the pandemic started in early 2020, there have been 2,794,350 Covid-19 cases, including 570,915 cases this year, with 2,590,589 complete recoveries to date.

The accumulated death toll stood at 22,768, including 1,070 so far this year.

Global Covid-19 cases rose by 1.84 million in 24 hours to 430.11 million. The worldwide death toll went up by 10,559 to 5.93 million.

The United States had the most cases at 80.37 million, up 75,300.

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