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Further easing of COVID controls expected

BANGKOK: The government will consider further relaxation of COVID-19 controls tomorrow (May 20) to allow more businesses and activities to resume, and possibly lower its COVID alert level late this month, according to the government spokesman.

CoronavirusCOVID-19healthVaccine
By Advertorial

Thursday 19 May 2022 12:28 PM


Representatives of workers in the entertainment and nightlife sector rally in front of Government House in December, calling for the reopening of their shutdown businesses. They remain largely closed. Photo: Nutthawat Wicheanbut

Representatives of workers in the entertainment and nightlife sector rally in front of Government House in December, calling for the reopening of their shutdown businesses. They remain largely closed. Photo: Nutthawat Wicheanbut

Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said today the domestic COVID-19 situation had improved, with declining numbers of new cases and related fatalities.

The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) would therefore tomorrow review disease control zoning and consider allowing more activities to resume, reports the Bangkok Post.

The spokesman also said the Public Health Ministry might lower its COVID-19 alert from level 3 to level 2 by month’s end.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had instructed officials to maintain effective COVID-19 controls and encourage vulnerable groups of people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Mr Thanakorn said. The prime minister is the head of the CCSA.

The country registered 42 more COVID-19 fatalities and 6,305 new cases during the previous 24 hours, the Public Health Ministry announced this morning.

This compared with the 45 coronavirus-related fatalities and 5,633 new cases reported yesterday morning.

There were 6,303 local cases and two imported ones.

Yesterday, 7,567 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovering from the coronavirus while 59,579 others were receiving treatment (down from 60,833 on the previous day).

Since the pandemic started in early 2020, there have been 4,394,915 COVID-19 cases, including 2,171,480 this year, with 4,305,699 complete recoveries to date.

The accumulated death toll stood at 29,637 since the beginning of the pandemic, including 7,939 so far this year.