By Linda Khoo Hui Li<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BANGKOK, Dec 30 (NNN-Bernama) — Thailand\u2019 s Public Health authorities warned there could be a spike in COVID-19 cases after classifying the country\u2019s first Omicron cluster in the northeast province of Kalasin as \u201csuper-spreader\u201d event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cluster was linked to a Thai couple, both aged 47 years old, who returned from Belgium and entered the kingdom via the quarantine-free \u201cTest & Go\u201d programme. The couple visited bars, concerts and markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To date, Thailand has reported 740 cases of the highly transmissible Omicron variant in 33 provinces in the kingdom including more than 200 cases from Kalasin cluster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Director-General of the Medical Science Department Dr Supakit Sirilak said the Omicron cases comprised of 489 imported cases and 251 local transmissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo date, we conducted 8,000 COVID-19 tests and found 740 Omicron cases,\u201d he said at a press conference here Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, public health ministry permanent secretary Dr Kiatiphum Wongrajit said in the worst case scenario, with little preventive measures such as testing and vaccinations, daily COVID-19 cases in the kingdom could peak to 30,000 with more than 170 deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, he said COVID-19 cases could hit 10,000 with fewer daily deaths if people comply with the measures in preventing the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) spokesman Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin said government employees will work from home after New Year in bid to contain the outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also urged the private sector to follow suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the last 24 hours, Thailand recorded 2,575 new COVID-19 cases and 17 deaths, bringing the total infections in the kingdom to 2,217,287 and 21,647 fatalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Linda Khoo Hui Li BANGKOK, Dec 30 (NNN-Bernama) — Thailand\u2019 s Public Health authorities warned there could be a spike in COVID-19 cases after classifying the country\u2019s first Omicron cluster in the northeast province of Kalasin as \u201csuper-spreader\u201d event. The cluster was linked to a Thai couple, both aged 47 years old, who returned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":114810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,288,286,198],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157612"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}