Fisherman survives night of terror at sea after falling overboard
A fisherman who fought for his life for nine hours in the dark after falling from a trawler off Nakhon Si Thammarat province got a lucky break on Monday.
The Royal Thai Navy launched a rescue mission on Sunday night and eventually found the man floating, exhausted, in the sea. Personnel from the Second Naval Area Command plucked him from the water and sent him to hospital.
Front-line medics get donated Pfizer as US pledges another $55m for Thailand
Front-line health workers in Bangkok rolled up their sleeves to receive the first of 1.5 million Pfizer jabs donated by the US on Tuesday.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield hailed the health workers as Thai heroes as she witnessed the mRNA vaccine going into arms at MedPark Hospital in Klong Toei district. She also pledged another $55 million (1.85 billion baht) in relief aid for Thailand.
“This morning, I met frontline healthcare workers – Thailand’s heroes – as they received their first doses of the vaccine. And I was inspired to hear about their life-saving work,” said Thomas-Greenfield, who is visiting Thailand as President Joe Biden’s representative.
She said the US had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Thailand for over 200 years.
“We do so much together, from our trade and people-to-people exchanges, to our steadfast military alliance, to our cooperation on public health.”
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Front-line medics get donated Pfizer as US pledges another $55m for Thailand
The 1.5 million Pfizer doses for Thailand are part of over half a billion doses that the US is donating to over 100 nations, “with no strings attached”, said a US Embassy press release.
“We are proud to say we will soon be providing another 1 million doses [for Thailand],” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“President Biden has committed America to providing vaccines to the world. He understands that no one is safe until everyone is safe.”
Front-line medics get donated Pfizer as US pledges another $55m for Thailand
She added that the US government is also providing $55 million of additional aid, mainly to help Thailand’s humanitarian response to the crisis in Myanmar.
We are also providing assistance to support the pandemic response that will help alleviate the strain on Thailand’s health systems. Of this $50 million would “provide emergency food assistance, lifesaving protection, shelter, essential healthcare, water, sanitation, and hygiene services to vulnerable people from Myanmar, including more than 700,000 refugees and internally displaced people”.
The other $5 million will provide support to Thailand’s vaccination programme and ability to prevent, detect, and respond to Covid-19, she said.
Delta variant of Covid-19 fast becoming mainstream, survey shows
More than 90 per cent of Covid-19 patients have been infected by the Delta variant of the virus, a survey conducted by the Department of Medical Science revealed.
“The department has been studying new infections every week and of the 1,632 samples surveyed last week, 1,499 or 91.9 per cent had been infected by the Delta variant, formerly known as the Indian strain,” the department’s director-general Dr Supphakit Siriluck said on Tuesday. “Of the samples, 129 or 7.9 per cent had picked up the Alpha variant or UK strain, while four or 0.2 per cent had the Beta or South African strain.”
No other strains of Covid-19 have been detected in Thailand so far.
Of the 1,632 samples, 1,157 were collected in Bangkok, 95.4 per cent of whom had picked up the Delta variant and the rest Alpha variant. The remaining 475 samples had been collected from the provinces, where 83.2 per cent were found to have been infected by Delta and 16 per cent by the Alpha variant.
“The trend of infections in Thailand shows that the Delta variant is fast becoming mainstream and can be found in every province, while the Alpha variant will eventually cease to exist,” Supphakit said. “As for the Beta variant, it will remain in southern provinces and not spread to other regions. Currently, there are 354 patients with the Beta variant in Narathiwat, four in Phuket and one in Phatthalung.
“Unlike Delta, the Beta variant spreads more slowly and is, therefore, easier to contain,” he added.
The Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) has dismissed accusations that it is misusing state assets by deploying aircraft to transport fruit to RATF bases.
RATF spokesperson Air Marshal Thanat Chanampai said on Tuesday that the fruit was transported as part of a government campaign to help farmers. Transportation did not incur extra expenses as the aircraft was already being used for flight training, he added.
Air Force defends fruit-flying missions
His explanation came in response to social media posts earlier this week accusing the RATF of misusing SAAB 340 aircraft to transport mangosteens and longans from Surat Thani, Chiang Mai and Lamphun. Critics complained that deploying air force planes to transport fruit was not cost-effective.
The campaign is a collaboration between the RATF and Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives’ Cooperative Promotion Department to transport 30 tonnes of fruit from three provinces where farmers are facing oversupply, to sell to air force personnel and their families at RATF bases.
Air Force defends fruit-flying missions
“The SAAB 340 aircraft is scheduled to perform regular flight training to improve the skills of pilots and staffers even during Covid-19 situation,” said Thanat. “The RATF did not charter any additional flights apart from the scheduled training flights. Furthermore, the aircraft have plenty of available cargo space.”
He added that the transportation of fruits did not incur any additional expenses for the RTAF.
“Rather, this is a way of making the fullest use of air force assets and personnel to help farmers who are unable to transport their produce to markets due to travel restrictions during Covid-19 situation,” he said.
Stop exporting AstraZeneca jabs, doctor tells govt
A Mahidol University professor launched a campaign from Sunday calling on the government to stop exporting AstraZeneca vaccines until the Thai population has been inoculated.
The campaign was launched on www.change.org by Dr Prasert Auewarakul from Siriraj Hospital’s Faculty of Medicine, and as of 2pm on Tuesday it had won 2,058 signatures.
“The vaccine donations and batches expected to arrive soon may make people believe Thailand’s vaccine situation is good. However, I’ve heard from people related to the vaccine campaign that things will worsen in the next two to three months and Thailand will suffer a severe shortage of doses,” the campaign read.
Prasert said the premier can under the law limit or suspend the export of AstraZeneca vaccines produced locally by Siam BioScience.
“If Thailand can procure another 20 or 30 million doses for the next three months, it will be able to control the pandemic effectively and fatalities will drop as well,” he said.
Six Covid-19 vaccines have been registered with the Thai Food and Drug Administration and about 20 million doses have been administered to the public, so far.
However, 76.1 per cent of the population has not been inoculated, 23.9 per cent have received at least one jab, and of them 6.7 per cent are fully vaccinated, while 0.3 per cent have received a booster shot.
The government has either put in orders or imported vaccines registered with the Thai FDA.
The vaccines are:
AstraZeneca: Produced by Siam Bioscience under the support of AstraZeneca (Thailand)
Sinovac (CoronaVac): Imported from China by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation
Johnson & Johnson (Janssen): Imported by Janssen Cilag Co, Ltd
Moderna: Imported by Zuellig Pharma Ltd
Sinopharm (Covilo): Imported by Biogenetech Co.,Ltd
Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty): Imported by Pfizer (Thailand)
The two vaccines currently being assessed are:
Russia’s Sputnik V: Imported by Kingen Biotech Co, Ltd
Prayut bows to court ruling, lifts restrictions on news reporting
In line with last week’s Civil Court ruling, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Tuesday officially lifted restrictions on media reporting news that may incite public fear or affect national stability.
The restrictions were issued under the Emergency Decree’s Article 9 and put into effect on July 30.
On Friday, the Civil Court ordered the premier to suspend all restrictions in response to a petition filed on August 2 by media organisation Reporter Production.
Some Covid-19 patients under home isolation running Favipiravir racket, says doctor
A doctor from Bangkok’s Ramathibodi Hospital said on Monday that some Covid-19 patients who are isolating at home have started selling their Favipiravir pills on the black market.
In a Facebook post, Dr Surawej Numhom said many Covid-19 patients who are having to isolate at home due to insufficient hospital beds are taking advantage of a weak checking system and demanding more Favipiravir tablets. These extra pills are then sold in the black market at a “beautiful price”.
He said hospitals did not check the delivery of medicines too closely, because they aim to treat patients as quickly as possible. However, Surawej warned that if this black marketeering continues, the checking system will be made more thorough and patients will have to wait a lot longer for their prescription.
“The bureaucratic system is already so slow. Don’t be selfish at a time like this. Medics and patients have to help each other to get over this crisis,” he said.
Thailand hits new record with 235 deaths, 19,843 infections
After a slight dip in numbers over the past two days, Thailand hit a new high on Tuesday with 235 deaths. The number of new cases was slightly below the 20,000 mark at 19,843.
Of the 19,843 new cases, 398 are prisoners.
Meanwhile, 22,806 patients have recovered and been discharged over the past 24 hours.
Since the epidemic started last year, Thailand has had 795,951 Covid-19 cases, 578,140 of whom have recovered, 211,223 are still in hospital and 6,588 have died.
Separately, another 350,389 people were given their first Covid-19 shot in the last 24 hours, 104,484 their second shot, and 46,457 their third shot, bringing the total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in Thailand to 21,171,110.
According to Worldometer, as of 10am on Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases globally had risen to 204.13 million, 183.31 million of whom have recovered, 16.51 million are active cases (99,242 in severe condition) and 4.31 million have died (up by 8,034).
Thailand ranks 36th on the global list of most cases, which is topped by the US with 36.78 million, followed by India with 31.99 million, Brazil with 20.17 million, Russia with 6.46 million and France 6.31 million.
Agency demands fair distribution of Pfizer shots among medics
The Health Personnel Association of Thailand launched a campaign on Monday calling on the government to ensure every frontline medic gets a Pfizer shot and that the vaccine is equitably distributed.
The association’s campaign, titled “Every qualified frontline medical personnel should receive Pfizer”, was launched via Facebook.
“The association invites all frontline medics, who are qualified for a Pfizer shot and have registered, to co-sign the petition. This campaign calls on the government to provide the vaccine we deserve and to demonstrate the power of medical personnel. We have been requesting mRNA vaccines from the start, but now many of us are not eligible. Some hospitals insist on using Pfizer as booster shots only for medics who have received two doses of Sinovac, which does not follow the current criterion.
“The Pfizer vaccine is not being properly distributed as some provinces with low infection rates are getting more doses than the ones with higher infection rates. “This is affecting our morale and having us question the distribution procedure,” the post read.
The association has also issued a list of steps it wants the Public Health Ministry to take to ensure the Pfizer vaccines are distributed fairly:
Deliver Pfizer doses as a booster shot, two doses for the unvaccinated and as the second shot for those needing one. The vaccine must be delivered to every frontline medic who has registered. The government must meet the shortfall if the 700,000 doses allocated to frontline medics is inadequate.
The government has to be transparent about how the doses are being distributed to provinces and hospitals.
Show how many doses each province has sought and how many they are receiving.
Provide details on the distribution of the second lot of Pfizer jabs for medics, including details on how much each province will be allocated.
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The Health Personnel Association of Thailand is urging all qualified medical staff who have not received a Pfizer jab to click on https://tinyurl.com/WhereIsOurPfizer or use the provided QR code to express their interest. Collected information will be used to push for fair policymaking, the post said.
Thailand has received a donation of 1.5 million Pfizer doses from the US and has put in an order for 10 million doses.
Front-line medics get donated Pfizer as US pledges another $55m for Thailand
Front-line medics get donated Pfizer as US pledges another $55m for Thailand
Air Force defends fruit-flying missions
Air Force defends fruit-flying missions
Air Force defends fruit-flying missions
Thailand’s arsenal against Covid-19
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