BREAKING: Covid alert as 6 die last week in Bangkok

Thais are being warned about a rise in Covid-19 infections following the deaths of six people last week.

Dr Thira Woratanarat of the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, posted on his Facebook page on Monday that recent developments with the disease are concerning, referring to information from the Department of Disease Control (DDC).

Citing the DDC’s report for last week, Dr Thira said 16,607 people were reportedly infected between May 4 and May 10, compared to 14,680 the previous week

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Of those, six were reported to have died last week, double the number recorded in the previous week.

“The DDC report showed an increasing spread of the disease, which was contradictory to the statement that the Public Health Ministry had announced earlier,” said Dr Thira’s post.

Meanwhile, Dr Yong Poovorawan, a virologist in the Paediatrics Department of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, also took to Facebook, saying that the latest subvariants of Covid-19 are reported to be transmitted faster, yet have milder symptoms and can be treated similarly to other respiratory diseases.

Dr Yong’s post reaffirmed the report by the Public Health Ministry on Saturday, which said that although case numbers remain high, the virus generally causes mild symptoms.

Dr Yong said the study showed that Covid-19 virus subvariants mutate quickly, leading to more diverse virus strains. The later strains can also spread quickly, although with milder symptoms.

The newer strains of the Covid-19 virus cannot be protected against directly by vaccination because of the process of “immune imprinting”.

Immune imprinting is when the body creates antibodies and memory cells encoded with information about vaccines or viruses to which it has previously been exposed.

Newer strains do not respond to regular vaccination due to the vaccine’s capability to protect only against older strains of Covid-19. The report has led to a reduction in the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines for hospitals.

“Despite the large number reported recently, people with Covid-19 were reported to currently be treated seemingly as those with other respiratory diseases, with no quarantine period specifically designated,” said Dr Yong.

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