The Department of Disease Control forecasts that Covid-19 infections will significantly decline later this year, to only 200 cases per day in August.
The department chief, Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, told a media briefing on Friday the Covid situation should improve significantly in the middle of this year if there is no variant factor interference, especially a newly mutated SARS-CoV-2 virus strain.
Right now the rate of infection was rising in Thailand, but it would later decline under the principles of epidemiology.
The model projected the number of daily cases would be around 4,000 per day in June, 1,000 per day in July and below 200 per day by August, he said.
As reported on Friday morning, there were 9,909 cases in the previous 24 hours with 22 deaths. This led to the department asking the public for cooperation in tightening up preventive measures.
Dr Opas said many factors were pushing the numbers up, especially the relaxation of controls on dining out and the expanding number of small clusters countrywide.
So preventive measures against the disease were still needed to control its spread.
“Please do not be overly mindful of the figure. It is not important as long as our public health system can effectively manage the outbreak. The most important point is that we have large-scale vaccination, especially the booster dose at 21.4%,” he said.
Current measures were enough to control the situation. Many countries with more daily infections had not put in place any extra measures to control the disease.
In addition to giving its Covid-19 forecast, the department warned people to exercise caution against other diseases that might show a resurgence this year.
The number of patients with avian influenza could hit 22,817 cases this year, up from 10,698 cases last year. Dengue fever could reach 85,000 cases, up from 9,956 last year - the peak period expected in July with 13,769 cases predicted.
