The Thai government is setting itself a November target for heard immunity through vaccination and infection in red areas across the country, a Ministry of Public Health source told Thai Enquirer on Monday. According to the source, the government understands that lockdown measures will only mitigate the pandemic but will not be sufficient to end the spread of the disease or the increasing death rates. Thai Enquirer



Death rates underline importance of vaccination as government aims for November target for red zones

August 23, 2021

The Thai government is setting itself a November target for heard immunity through vaccination and infection in red areas across the country, a Ministry of Public Health source told Thai Enquirer on Monday.

According to the source, the government understands that lockdown measures will only mitigate the pandemic but will not be sufficient to end the spread of the disease or the increasing death rates.

Nearly 64 per cent of people who died from Covid in the past 30 days were unvaccinated, underlying the importance of inoculation, the government said on Friday.

"This is why we have to vaccinate as many people as possible, especially the vulnerable groups," said Dr Apisamai Srirangsan, the assistant spokeswoman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).

The majority of the fatalities were 60 or older, officials said. According to the CCSA, more than 26.8 million Covid vaccines were administered between February 28 – August 21, including 20.3 million first doses, 6 million second doses and 542,188 booster shots.

Thailand is now jabbing nearly half a million people per day throughout the country.

"At this rate, the red zone provinces will reach herd immunity in November. If Covid-19 vaccine supplies keep up, if we can get more vaccines and expand our capacity we may even be able to resume normalcy by October," said the public health official who asked for anonymity.

"The main thing we have to prevent now is stopping the outbreak from reaching other provinces or taking our pedal off vaccine procurement," those are two major stumbling blocks that the government will do its utmost to prevent.

Breakdown of Fatalities 

Of the 4,656 people who died from Covid between July 25 and August 19:

• 2,969 or 63.8 per cent were not vaccinated
• 316 or 7 per cent were vaccinated with one dose of AstraZeneca for more than two weeks before the infection occurs
• 118 or 2.6 per cent were vaccinated with one dose of the vaccine for more than four weeks before infection
• 26 or 0.6 per cent were vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine for more than two weeks before infection.