Thailand expects to redefine COVID-19 pandemic as an endemic disease as soon as situations meet set criteria
The National Communicable Disease Committee agrees to redefine COVID-19 as an endemic disease when situations meet criteria.
The committee’s meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul today considered criteria for the COVID-19 status as an endemic disease. They include:
– the new caseloads that do not exceed 10,000 a day,
– the fatality rate of less than 0.1%,
– less than 10% of COVID-19 cases being admitted to hospitals,
– enough immunity among people and more than *80% of vulnerable people receiving at least two COVID-19 vaccine doses.
When the criteria are met, the Public Health Ministry will announce the revised status of COVID-19.
Dr Kiattiphum Wongrajit, permanent secretary for public health, said that more than 90% of present COVID-19 cases resulted from infection with the Omicron variant.
He also said that the Public Health Ministry planned to report only the number of severely ill COVID-19 patients instead of daily new caseloads. (TNA)
Source: https://tna.mcot.net/english-news-871070
*From Thai News Reports Twitter – As of 27.01.2022: 1st vaccine = 75% of Thailand’s population, 2nd vaccine = 69.5%, 3rd vaccine = 18.8%
