BANGKOK (AP) – Thai health authorities approved new guidelines Friday outlining the parameters for declaring the coronavirus pandemic an endemic disease.
Official figures show that the country already meets the three criteria, but Ministry of Public Health spokesman Rungrueng Kitphati said it would still be between six months and a year before the government would be able to make the decision to start treating COVID-19 as an illness that is here to stay, like the flu or measles.
Among other things, he said data from all of Thailand’s provinces need to be checked, and authorities need to be sure that the figures remain at the current levels or improve before it can be declared endemic.
The guidelines drawn up by the ministry’s National Communicable Disease Committee are made up of three criteria: that there are fewer than 10,000 new cases per day; that the fatality rate is no higher than 0.1% of those who are admitted to the hospital with an infection; and that more than 80% of at-risk people have had at least two vaccinations.
Currently, Thailand’s daily new cases range between 7,000-9,000, and the fatality rate, which was more than 3% in the beginning of the pandemic, has declined to 0.1%, and more than 80% of at-risk people have been fully vaccinated, Rungrueng said.