Bangkok Governor Aswin Kwanmuang on Saturday visited Erawan 2 field hospital at Bangkok Arena Sports Centre in Nong Chok district to check the hospital operations and show moral support to public health staff.
Aswin thanked medical professionals and hospital staff for their hard work and sacrifice in taking care of Covid-19 patients while the province is facing a worsening outbreak situation.
Bangkok Governor oversees Erawan 2 field hospital
He also talked to patients via the public address system, urging them to strictly follow doctors’ instructions so that they can be discharged and go home to their loved ones as soon as possible.
The field hospital administrator reported that Erawan 2 has a total capacity of 400 beds, 376 of which are already occupied and only 24 beds are available.
Bangkok Governor oversees Erawan 2 field hospital
Meanwhile, the Medical Service Department of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) reported that as of Saturday 24,527 patients were being treated for Covid-19 in public and private hospitals in Bangkok. The BMA’s public hospitals, field hospitals and certified “hospitels” have a combined capacity of 3,756 beds for Covid patients. Currently 3,468 beds, or 98.36 per cent, are occupied while 288 beds are still free.
NBTC steps in after netizen finds out hotline numbers related to Covid not free
A netizen has expressed shock after finding out that the bed-finder hotline 1668 was not a toll-free number.
On Friday, a Facebook user (whose account was not revealed) had posted that his student had called the hotline, arranged by the Department of Medical Services, until the phone credit ran out.
“I doubted if it could be true, so I asked mobile service providers. Their answer was ‘this line is not toll-free’. It costs THB1.50 per minute. Operator DTAC subtracts the minutes from the package first. The surplus charge will be per minute then. There is no information from other providers yet,” his post read.
The post also added that the hotline of the National Health Security Office was also not toll-free.
In response to this post, Prawit Leesatapornwongsa, the commissioner of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, admitted that the lines were not free of charge.
As of the press time, his organisation was negotiating with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, requesting exemption of calling fee for every number related to Covid-19.
Thailand reports over 14,000 Covid cases for 2nd successive day
Thailand’s daily Covid-19 caseload increased by 14,260 on Saturday, taking the total to 481,967, with 119 deaths.
Meanwhile, 7,637 patients have recovered and been discharged in the last 24 hours.
Of the accumulated 481,967 cases, 327,789 have recovered and been discharged, 150,248 patients are still in hospitals, and 3,930 have died.
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Separately, another 304,244 people were given their first Covid-19 shot in the last 24 hours, while 48,635 were given their second shot, bringing the total Covid-19 vaccines administered in Thailand to 15,741,818. According to Worldometer, as of 11am on Saturday, the number of confirmed cases globally had risen to 194.04 million, 176.13 million of whom have recovered, 13.75 million are active cases 82,515 in severe condition and 4.16 million have died (up by 8,646). Thailand ranks 47th on the global list of most cases, which is topped by the US with 35.28 million, followed by India with 31.33 million, Brazil with 19.63 million, France with 6.07 million and Russia 5.95 million.
Bangkok Airways and Nok resume two flights from Phuket
Bangkok Airways resumed flights between Phuket and Samui Island in Surat Thani province, while Nok Air resumed its flights between Phuket and U-Tapao airport in Chonburi.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand urged airlines to carefully check documents of foreigners visiting Thailand under the Phuket Sandbox scheme before issuing them tickets.
Currently the sandbox programme has been organised in Phuket. Under the programme, tourists who have been inoculated against Covid-19 and test negative can fly into Phuket and move around freely in the province without having to quarantine. After spending 14 days in Phuket, if they still test negative, the tourists can travel to other parts of Thailand.
On Wednesday, the Tourism Authority of Thailand reported that since the launch of the sandbox programme on July 1, the province has welcomed 9,358 foreign tourists. In addition, the scheme has generated an estimated THB400 million income directly and indirectly for Phuket within a month.
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Bangkok Airways and Nok resume two flights from Phuket
A nurse in Bangkok died on Friday after reportedly getting infected with Covid-19 in her workplace.
The nurse, Praepach Thanyawattaweesook, worked at a Covid-19 testing site at Kasemrad Hospital Bang Khae.
On Sunday, her last post on Facebook page was: “Where’s the miracle?” Nurses and netizens thanked Praepach for her sacrifice, and sent their condolences to her family.
Some netizens also criticised the Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council and related institutions for not giving medics better support, saying they should be compensated on par with military and police personnel.
Phuket to increase visitor screening measures from Sunday
The Phuket provincial communicable disease committee will increase screening measures for visitors to the island from July 25 to August 2 to prevent Covid-19 cases from other provinces affecting the Phuket Sandbox programme that started on July 1.
Phuket deputy governor Piyaphong Chuwong on Friday announced the measures after the province reported 20 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, 18 of whom are Phuket locals while two were visitors under the sandbox programme.
“From Sunday onwards, visitors over 18 years old from 76 provinces, including Phuket locals who wish to return to the province, will need to provide a certificate of vaccination issued more than 14 days before arrival,” Piyaphong said.
“The approved vaccines are: two doses of Sinovac or Sinopharm, and one dose of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson.
“All visitors must also provide a negative test result via swab, RT-PCR or antigen rapid test method taken within 72 hours of arrival. Children under 18 will require only the test result,” he added.
Exception will be made for emergency vehicles and vehicles that deliver drugs, medical equipment or other supplies that carry a certificate issued by the communicable disease committee.
The province also reported that as of July 22, 9,358 tourists visited Phuket, about 3,000 have already left while about 6,000 are still staying on the island. Each tourist spends approximately THB4,000 per day and has generated income totalling THB200-300 million to local businesses since the campaign started.
The Armys funeral division has been told to help with the funerals for Covid-19 victims.
Army chief General Narongphan Jitkaewtae on Friday issued the order to the funeral divisions under Quartermaster Department of every Army corps.
“Every Army corps has a funeral division, which is responsible for arranging the funeral for Army personnel who died in action,” said Narongphan.
“They collect the body, identify the deceased with help from the relatives and then dress up the body for cremation.”
The Army chief added that the funeral division can adapt their skill and knowledge in dead body collection in the battlefield to help relatives of Covid-19 victims prepare for the funeral.
“All officials who join the campaign will be volunteers,” he said.
“Officials will show respect to the deceased while wearing PPE suits to protect themselves against the virus. The Army also will provide body bags made for dead soldiers in the battlefield and aluminium coffins to transport the body to the crematorium.
“All equipment will be thoroughly disinfected after use, except the body bags, which is for one-time use, and we will provide three for each body so officials can have added safety,” he said.
Thailand reported 119 deaths from Covid-19 on Friday, with cumulative deaths since April 1 at 3,930 from a total of 481,967 infections.
Patience has worn thin: Frustration mounts over vaccine holdouts
Seven months after the first coronavirus shots were rolled out, vaccinated Americans – including government, business and health leaders – are growing frustrated that tens of millions of people are still refusing to get them, endangering themselves and their communities and fueling the viruss spread.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, on Thursday lashed out amid a surge of cases in her state, telling a reporter it’s “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks.” The NFL this week imposed new rules that put pressure on unvaccinated players, warning their teams could face fines or be forced to forfeit games if those players were linked to outbreaks.
“I think for a lot of leaders, both in government and in business, patience has worn thin,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist. “There is an urgency that might not have been there a month ago.”
Meanwhile, exhausted health providers say they are bracing for case spikes that are largely preventable, driven by the hyper-transmissible delta variant. “We are frustrated, tired and worried for this next surge – and saddened by the state we find ourselves in,” said Jason Yaun, a Memphis-based pediatrician, who said his colleagues are grappling with an “accumulation of fatigue” since the outbreak exploded in March 2020.
Biden administration officials increasingly frame the current outbreak as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” seeking to persuade and perhaps even frighten some holdouts to get the shots.
But after months of careful cajoling, a growing number of Democrats and Republicans are venting about the sheer number of Americans who remain unvaccinated, particularly as hospitals are becoming overwhelmed in states with low vaccination rates.
President Joe Biden railed at social media companies last week for their role in spreading misinformation about the vaccines’ benefits. “They’re killing people,” he said. “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated.”
Biden later backed off his criticism of Facebook, while still calling on the company to do more to combat misinformation.
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“Vaccinated America has had enough,” former Republican speechwriter David Frum declared in The Atlantic on Friday.
Despite the growing anger, including from some GOP officials, a number of prominent Republicans and conservative media voices continue to shower vaccines with skepticism, and social media disinformation continues largely unabated. “The Biden administration wants to knock down your door KGB-style to force people to get vaccinated!” Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., tweeted this month, distorting a new campaign to share information about the shots.
The acrimony is only likely to intensify in coming months as vaccine mandates take effect at hundreds of colleges and universities, following a federal judge’s refusal this week to block Indiana University’s mandate. The Food and Drug Administration also is expected to fully approve the vaccines by fall, which is expected to embolden more employers to require the shots.
Public health experts say they’re grappling with an irony: Americans who are already vaccinated tend to treat the coronavirus threat more seriously than many of the unvaccinated – even though the delta variant is poised to tear through populations that lack protection.
“We do know from our data that the vaccinated tend to be more worried about getting sick from covid than the unvaccinated,” said Mollyann Brodie, a Kaiser Family Foundation executive vice president who oversees the organization’s polling. “The reality, though, is that the new infections, hospitalizations and deaths are almost exclusively among the unvaccinated.”
Only 68 percent of adults have received at least one dose of a vaccine, with the pace of shots declining steadily since mid-April, according to The Washington Post’s tracker. All U.S. adults have been eligible to receive the shots for at least three months, with many states making the vaccine broadly available in March.
The challenge is particularly acute in GOP-led states, where the virus is now surging, but protection against it remains disproportionately low. Alabama, for instance, has seen a 92 percent increase in coronavirus infections and a 72 percent rise in hospitalizations over the past week. But just one-third of Alabamians are fully vaccinated, one of the lowest levels in the nation.
“It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down,” Ivey told a reporter, lamenting that she didn’t know what else to do to encourage vaccinations. “These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki deflected a question about Ivey’s comments Friday, saying, “I don’t think our role is to place blame, but what we can do is provide accurate information to people who are not yet vaccinated about the risk they are incurring, not only on themselves, but also the people around them.”
Meanwhile, the NFL amped up its efforts this week to persuade holdout players to get vaccinated. Under the new rules, a team could be forced to forfeit a game if there is a coronavirus outbreak linked to unvaccinated players. The move has both competitive and financial implications: Players won’t get paychecks for forfeited games, the NFL said.
About 80% of all NFL players had at least one shot before the rules took effect, said league spokesperson Brian McCarthy, who credited seminars about the vaccines’ benefits, on-site vaccinations and other tactics.
“We are pleased but not satisfied,” McCarthy said, defending the NFL’s push to encourage more shots.
Some players, like Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, have complained the new rules penalize them for being unwilling to get the vaccine. Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, the league’s most vocal critic of the vaccine, also publicly questioned a teammate’s support for the rules.
“No one’s forcing you to do anything,” said Torrey Smith, a retired NFL player who’s spoken about the benefits of the vaccines. “You still don’t have to do it. But understand your freedom of choice not to get vaccinated: It’s putting other people at more of a risk and the organization at more of a risk.”
“Because of the NFL’s protocols, it puts you in a situation where you can definitely hurt your team long term, and you’re going to pay for it – literally,” Smith added.
Messaging experts counseled for months that blaming unvaccinated Americans would only backfire. Still, some said they understand the newly sharp tone of the conversation.
“I assumed it would be easier to convince people to get vaccinated as more and more people did,” said Frank Luntz, the longtime GOP pollster who has worked with the Biden administration and congressional Republicans to encourage people to get vaccinated. “It’s actually becoming more difficult. People are dug in.”
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Luntz said he understands the growing frustrations about vaccine holdouts, particularly after a recent focus group with the de Beaumont Foundation. Participants were recruited after they claimed they were considering getting the shots – but then deflected all the pro-vaccine arguments, Luntz said.
“I got very agitated during my last focus group, and I don’t get agitated,” Luntz said. “I’m a living example of this frustration.”
While the White House has been careful not to blame unvaccinated Americans, the administration last week debuted its new, targeted messaging strategy: “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Coined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, the phrase has become part of the White House’s push for more Americans to get inoculated. Biden also used the phrase in his CNN town hall on Wednesday, as he pleaded with Americans to get vaccinated.
Many prominent Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have been vocal proponents of the vaccine for months, and in recent days other Republicans and conservative commenters have followed suit.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has increasingly exhorted Florida residents to get the vaccine as the virus surges in his state, with more than 10,000 new infections reported each day. But the potential 2024 presidential candidate is also warning government officials against being too aggressive.
“I think these are folks that have skepticism of authorities,” DeSantis said this week. “I think they have different reasons why they may not do it. I don’t think most of them think covid is a hoax or anything. I think they understand.”
But even the exhortations of prominent Republicans have their limits. A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 80 percent of Americans who remain unvaccinated said they probably or definitely will not get the vaccine. The survey also found 64 percent of unvaccinated Americans have little-to-no confidence in the vaccines working against variants, despite evidence showing otherwise.
Public health experts have defended the growing push for vaccination-related requirements, saying that the personal choice to get vaccinated should not be prioritized over community health.
“We do have personal freedom in the United States,” said Brian Castrucci, head of the de Beaumont Foundation. “But those freedoms and the choices people make are not without consequences for them or others they may impact.”
The growing hostility toward the vaccine is driving wedges between Americans across government, schools and sports as people look to move beyond the pandemic.
“Our inherent belligerence about everything is creeping into this discussion,” said Barry Bennett, who managed Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign and then advised Donald Trump. “There have been all kinds of irrational behavior through this pandemic, and it’s getting worse not better.”
Some health-care officials said that the recent surge in cases is even more reason to stick with messages that patiently walk through the benefits of being vaccinated, rather than shift to a more aggressive tone.
“Our goal is to meet them where they are so they understand why the vaccination is so important right now,” said Ajay Kumar, chief clinical officer of Hartford Healthcare in Connecticut. “The vaccine, at least in our experience, has modified the course of the disease and made it much milder and much easier to manage.”
Kumar said his brother died in India about two months ago of the coronavirus while waiting to be vaccinated, before doses became widely available in that country. “So it is very personal,” he said.
Published : July 24, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Dan Diamond, Tyler Pager
GPO inks deal for 5 million doses of Moderna vaccine
The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) on Friday signed a contract with Zuellig Pharma Thailand Ltd to purchase 5 million doses of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.
GPO director-general Dr Witoon Danwiboon and the company’s representatives signed the contract, witnessed by Dr Chalerm Hanpanich, president of Private Hospitals Association.
Zuellig Pharma will import the first lot of vaccines in the fourth quarter of 2021 and all 5 million doses are expected to arrive before the end of the first quarter of 2022.
Witoon added that the Thai Red Cross Society and all hospitals who wish to use Moderna vaccine have paid the full amount for the doses that they will be allotted. “We have paid in full to make sure that the vaccine will definitely arrive on time,” he added.
“We hope that the Moderna vaccine will be an alternative for Thai people who wish to protect themselves against Covid-19 and prevent the virus from spreading, contributing to the goal of overcoming this crisis together.”
Moderna is among the top alternative Covid-19 vaccine choices in Thailand. Private hospitals opened reservation for the jab since earlier this month. Phyathai 2 Hospital in Bangkok, for example, is selling the vaccine at THB1,650 per dose. The hospital said that they were sold out in less than a minute after reservation opened on July 8 at noon.
Flash flood risk as heavy rains forecast for upper Thailand, East
The Thailand Meteorological Department said on Saturday that the southwest monsoon prevails over the Andaman Sea, Thailand and the Gulf of Thailand, while an active low-pressure covers the coast of upper Vietnam and Gulf of Tonkin.
Isolated heavy rains will be likely in the upper North and the East, while heavy to very heavy rains are possible in the Northeast.
People in upper Thailand should beware of the severe conditions and possible flash floods, the department said.
Waves in the upper Andaman Sea are expected to rise 2-3 metres high and more than three metres during thundershowers.
All ships should proceed with caution and small boats must keep ashore, the department said.
The weather forecast for the next 24 hours:
North: Thundershowers in 70 per cent of the areas with isolated heavy rains; temperature lows of 23-24 degrees Celsius, highs of 28-32°C.
Northeast: Thundershowers in 80 per cent of the areas with isolated heavy to very heavy rains; temperature lows of 23-25°C, highs of 26-32°C.
Central: Thundershowers in 60 per cent of the areas; temperature lows of 23-25°C, highs of 29-31°C.
East: Thundershowers in 60 per cent of the areas with isolated heavy rains; temperature lows of 23-26°C, highs of 27-31°C; waves 1-2 metres high and two metres during thundershowers.
South (east coast): Thundershowers in 30 per cent of the areas; temperature lows of 24-26°C, highs of 30-35°C; waves 1-2 metres high and two metres during thundershowers.
South (west coast): Thundershowers in 30 per cent of the areas; temperature lows of 22-26°C, highs of 30-34°C; waves 2-3 metres high and over three metres during thundershowers.
Bangkok and surrounding areas: Thundershowers in 60 per cent of the areas; temperature lows of 25-27°C, highs of 30-32°C.
Bangkok Governor oversees Erawan 2 field hospital
Bangkok Governor oversees Erawan 2 field hospital
Bangkok Airways and Nok resume two flights from Phuket
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