Thailand Ends State of Emergency Over Covid-19

On October 1, the government of Thailand will end its state of emergency for the coronavirus pandemic and shut down the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration.

After the meeting on Friday, CCSA spokesman Dr. Taweesilp Visanuyothin said that the centre had decided to end the state of emergency that had been in place since March 24, 2020.

The CCSA will also dissolve itself because the situation with Covid-19 was getting better locally and globally with fewer new cases and deaths.

“People and businesses are back to normal, and the Public Health Ministry is changing Covid-19 from a dangerous communicable disease to a communicable disease that is being watched,” Dr. Taweesilp said.

The Public Health Ministry will stop calling Covid-19 a dangerous communicable disease on October 1. Instead, it will be called a communicable disease.

People will still get free Covid vaccinations from the government, but Dr. Taweesilp said that the response to Covid-19 will be up to the public health minister.

State of Emergency Unnecessary

The spokesman also said that the number of visitors to the kingdom rose from 427,869 last year to 5.2 million as of Wednesday and that they had spent 211.97 billion baht in the country.

This year, during the same time period, Thais took 98.7 million trips within the country and spent 432.89 billion baht.

An advisor to the CCSA, Dr. Udom Kachinthorn, said that every day there were between 800 and 1,000 new Covid-19 inpatients and between 13,000 and 14,000 people who tested positive for the disease.

“People who are infected but don’t have their cases written down would be twice as many. So, every day there are 30,000–40,000 new cases of Covid-19.

Covid-19 cases are dropping dramatically

Most people only have mild symptoms, which is why Covid-19 has been changed from a dangerous communicable disease to a communicable disease that is being watched, “he said.

But Dr. Udom told people to keep wearing face masks unless they were outside because the number of people who died from Covid-19 cases hadn’t gone below 0.1%.

“Covid will still be a problem for at least another year before it becomes a disease found everywhere. So, people need to protect themselves by wearing masks and staying away, “he said.

He also said that people still needed to get vaccinated to avoid getting very sick or dying and that booster shots could protect people from the long-term effects of Covid.

The Public Health Ministry said Friday morning that in the last 24 hours, there were only nine deaths from Covid-19, and 752 new cases were brought to hospitals.