Thailand gears up for long haul in Covid-19 fight ahead of Sinovac vaccine roll-out
- The head of the Thai National Vaccine Institute says it will take another two years for life to return to ‘somewhat normal’
- Thailand is preparing to launch its inoculation drive with 200,000 doses of the Sinovac Biotech vaccine
Since December, over 6,000 new cases have been detected in more than 50 of Thailand’s 77 provinces, said Dr Nakorn Premsri – surpassing the total of some 4,000 infections recorded between January and November last year.
Most of the cases in the new outbreak have been migrants working in Samut Sakhon, the centre of Thailand’s US$5.4 billion seafood industry. Cases rose to 10,547 on Monday, and the death toll stood at 67.
“The cluster this year is bigger than last time, so it will take longer to contain it,” Nakorn said. “Despite the vaccine roll-out globally, it’ll take another two years for things to go back to being somewhat normal.”
The comments by Nakorn come as Thailand prepares to launch its inoculation drive next month with 200,000 doses of the Chinese-developed Sinovac Biotech vaccine.
While Thailand has managed to keep its infection levels far below that of some countries in the region, it has not escaped the economic damage the virus has brought to economies across the world.
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Thailand, Japan and China face new coronavirus outbreaks
The country has so far resisted imposing a second national lockdown after its three-month lockdown last year led to an economic contraction of 12.1 per cent in the second quarter.