July 29, 2021 Thai Enquirer Summary COVID-19 News • Thailand
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July 29, 2021 Thai Enquirer Summary COVID-19 News Thailand recorded the highest infection and death rate today Today’s numbers are as follows: Total New Infections = 17,669 Community Infection = 17,408 Prison Infection = 261 Total New Death = 165 Total New Recovery = 9,798 Total month on month for the same 29 days of June & July June Infection for 29-days = 94,723 July infection for 29-days = 301,729 June deaths for 29-days = 939 July deaths for 29-days = 2,539 There are also reports that suggest that as many as 20%+ of people who are going to get their PCR tests done are testing positive. This could mean that 1/5 people are infected with the virus. The infection rate continues to rise and doctors have come out to warn that things could get worse before it gets better. Although some media reports have come out to say that the situation would be under control within 1-month, new clusters are starting to appear. A doctor from Ramathobdi hospital has come out to warn that the actual number of infection could be as high as 100,000/day. During the online conference by Ramathobodi hospital’s doctor who said that the number of people could be as high as 8-9x times being reported at the moment. He said that some simulation has been done and it shows that the numbers are higher by 8-9x those being reported. The doctor has suggested that the government should report ‘definite’ and ‘probable’ case to make it more clear Those in Intensive care unit (ICU) and on ventilators continues to rise with ICU - 4,325 as of July 28th Ventilators - 995 people Bangsue vaccination center is Thailand’s largest vaccination center and it seems as though hacker have hacked into the system of a mobile phone operator and are selling the queue to get vaccinated at 500-1,000 baht per queue. The hacker gets around 1,500 of the queues and have been selling the queue for the past 3-days. True Group has filed a complaint with police after it discovered its system for receiving vaccination registrations may have been breached, allowing for the abuse of Covid-19 jab allotments. The telecom, tech and digital media service provider said it detected irregularities in the system which is under its supervision at the Bang Sue Grand Station's vaccination point. According to the company, the breach led to abuse in vaccination allotments whereby some people may have wrongfully gained access to vaccine shots. True is one of four mobile phone operators authorised to accept vaccination registrations. Pichit Thanyodom, an executive at True, said the company came across a person who claimed to have secured a vaccination appointment via True's platform. However, the person failed to produce a QR code, prompting the company to check its registration file which confirmed the name was non-existent. The person told the company they had been given instructions that if they were caught, they must deny any knowledge of the vaccination registration and tell the authorities their relatives had made the appointments for them. Meanwhile a lot of people are posting on their social media that a lot of people are getting infected from going to Bangsue station for vaccination. The number of people at the vaccination center has been a big issue and warnings have been issued on its possible impact on the spreading of the virus. This was the scene at Bangsue station yesterday. While there continues to remain shortage of vaccines, some good news seems to be flowing in as the United Kingdom has decided to donate 415,000 doses of vaccine which should arrive in the next few weeks. This comes after Japan donated 1.05 million doses of AstraZeneca earlier this month. It also comes a day before 1.54 million doses of Pfizer vaccine are set to arrive from the United States of America (arrives on July 29th or July 30th). Earlier some media houses (Thai PBS) had reported that USA had increased its vaccine shipment to 2.5 million from 1.54 million initially set for Thailand, but there is some confusion to the allocation as the 1 million + is reportedly been seen to Cambodia not to Thailand as per Bloomberg story. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-28/u-s-sending-2-5- million-vaccine-doses-to-thailand-and-cambodia?sref=vMpMGW8x Meanwhile, there are reports that Parliament Speaker Chuan Leekai has made a direct call to Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, asking him to secure 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the United States. In response, Don told Chuan that his ministry is working on the request but has not achieved any result. Inoculation Update Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul still insisted that his ministry’s procurement to secure 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, pledging that an average of 1 million doses per day will be administered to people across all targeted areas from August. Despite this pledge Thailand’s inoculation numbers continues to remain low although data inoculation picked up on July 27th to 327,289 doses. This helped bring the total inoculation to just over 16 million although there is a need to inoculate 83.57 million more in the next 157 days (year end 2021) as per target set by Prayut Chan-o-cha to inoculate 100 million doses by December 31, 2021. These numbers also means that the planned opening of Thailand’s borders by October 14, 2021 as per the announcement by General Prayut Chan-o-cha as per his nationally televised address to the nation on June 16th to open the country within 120-days seems like a mission to the moon for Thailand. Prime Minister Gen Prayut yesterday chaired a meeting of the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) and governors of 12 dark-red zones of maximum COVID-19 control provinces, except Bangkok, to step up bubble and seal measures for factories and construction camps as they are at high risk of causing cluster cases, especially in Chachoengsao and Samut Prakan. These provinces are Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom, Chon Buri, Chachoengsao, Ayutthaya and the southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla and Yala. Gen Prayut even told provincial governors to consider locking down specific areas for 14 days to stop the outbreak from spreading if the situation worsens. The prime minister also told the public that he expects the COVID-19 situation in the country to ease in the next 4-6 weeks amid public concerns over a rise in daily coronavirus cases after the country saw a record high of 16,533 new COVID-19 cases and 133 new fatalities over the past 24 hours. Political News Unconfirmed reports suggests that the planned audience between General Prayut and His Majesty the King yesterday to mark HM the King’s 69th birthday saw only General Prayut going for the audience and the other 6 Deputy Prime Ministers were not asked to join the meeting (as per the initial plans). This was reported by MCOT news channel this morning but the information has not been confirmed yet. Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has once again instructed authorities to enforce the restrictions rigorously against the media, media personalities and all webpages allegedly engaging in disseminating “fake news”. The Prime Minister and leader of the 2014 coup makers threatened to resort to legal action against those who expressed opinions against the government based on “fake information”, citing the need for the government to impose restrictions on freedom of expression. In response to the Prime Minister’s move, the National Press Council of Thailand, the News Broadcast Council of Thailand, the Thai Journalists Association, the Online News Providers Association, the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association and the National Union of Journalists of Thailand yesterday issued a joint statement, demanding the government lift all restrictions, imposed under the Emergency Decree, on freedom of expression by people and media. The protest against the government of General Prayut continues to gain momentum despite the spreading of Covid-19 across the country. The Free Youth movement announced plans to stage a mass rally against Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha on August 7. The Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB) says nine groups are facing prosecution for staging protests and "car mob" rallies in defiance of the emergency law this month. The police are proceeding with legal action against nine groups of protesters: the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration which held a rally on July 2; the Thai Mai Thon protests on July 3, 10, 11; the Prachachon Khon Thai rallies on July 3 and 10; the car mob rallies organised by red-shirt activist Sombat Boonngamanong on July 3 and 10. The others are the Mok Luang Rim Nam group rally on July 3; the Bangkok Sandbox protest on July 6; the rally led by vocational students on July 9; the Free Youth gathering on July 18; and the protests engineered by the Mu Ban Thalufa on July 22 and 24. Pol Maj Gen Piya Tawichai, the MPB deputy commissioner, said yesterday 172 protesters are facing charges under the decree in connection with protests in Bangkok. While all this continued the most trending hashtag yesterday and today has been #ไว้อาลัยผู้เสียชีวิตจากโควิด (paying respect to those who have lost their lives to Covid) This along with wearing black as a sign of respect to those who lost their lives was the most trending hashtag in Thailand. In line with the surge of virus, Parliament Speaker Chuan Leekpai has chosen to defer a parliamentary meeting for another week but insisted that he will not let the outbreak to defer the 2nd and 3rd readings of the 2022 budget bill scheduled for August 18-20.