The downtrend of COVID-19 in Thailand is enabling the country to lower the pandemic level as scheduled, according to Thai medical experts.

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

Dr Yong Poovorawan, chief of the Chulalongkorn University’s Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology, wrote on Facebook that the overall COVID-19 situation is improving and the number of cases will continue dropping till the year-end.

But infections will again spike during cool weather from January to March next year, though the spread will not be severe, he predicted.

Dr Yong said that vulnerable groups are strongly recommended to get four shots of vaccine against COVID-19 while healthy adults under 60 should get at least three shots.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Medical Genomics at Ramathibodi Hospital has confirmed the second case of BA.2.75.2, a sub-variant of Omicron, in Thailand, after the first case was reported last week. BA.2.75.2 evolved from BA.2.75, which started to spread in India in May and showed the most mutations compared with other COVID-19 strains in the country.

The centre said there's no need to panic over the new variant as long as people maintain COVID-19 precautions to prevent the new strain from taking over BA.4.6 and BA.5 which are the dominant strains in Thailand.

Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana, Palang Pracharath Party list-MP, on September 19 expressed confidence that the downgrade of COVID-19 from a dangerous communicable disease to "communicable under surveillance" would not be disrupted.

Earlier, Thailand announced a plan to dissolve the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration in early October, while considering COVID-19 as an endemic disease which is like flu or dengue fever.

Source: VNA