End of state of emergency and Covid-19 centre

The government will on Oct 1 lift the state of emergency imposed to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and dissolve the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration.

CCSA spokesman Taweesilp Visanuyothin said after Friday's meeting that the centre resolved to end the state of emergency imposed since March 24, 2020, and dissolve itself, because the local and global Covid-19 situation was improving, with new cases and fatalities declining.

"People and businesses have resumed normal activities and the Public Health Ministry is redefining   Covid-19 as a communicable disease under surveillance, instead of a dangerous communicable disease," Dr Taweesilp said.

On Oct 1 the Public Health Ministry would label Covid-19 a communicable disease instead of a dangerous communicable disease.

The government would continue to provide people with free Covid vaccinations, but the response to Covid-19 would be under the jurisdiction of the public health minister, Dr Taweesilp said.

The spokesman also said the number of visitors to the kingdom rose from 427,869 last year to 5.2 million visitors this year as of Wednesday, and they had spent 211.97 billion baht in the country.

During the same period this year Thais made 98.7 million domestic trips and spent 432.89 billion baht.

Dr Udom Kachinthorn, an adviser to the CCSA, said there were 800-1,000 new Covid-19 inpatients and 13,000-14,000 people testing anti-gen positive for the disease on an average day.

"The number of infected people whose cases are not logged would​ betwo to three times as many. So, there are 30,000-40,000 new Covid-19 cases a day. Most have mild symptoms, and this is the reason why Covid-19 is redefined as a communicable disease under surveillance instead of a dangerous communicable disease," he said.

However, Dr Udom advised people to keep wearing face masks unless they were outdoors because, he said, the fatality rate of Covid-19 cases had not dropped below 0.1%.

"Covid will continue to be an issue for at least another year before becoming an endemic disease. So, people must take care of themselves by wearing face masks and keeping their distance," he said.

He also said that vaccination was still necessary, to prevent severe illness and death and that booster shots could protect people from long Covid effects.

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

The country registered nine more Covid-19 fatalities and 752 new cases admitted to hospitals during the previous 24 hours, the Public Health Ministry announced on Friday morning.