The Public Health Ministry on Thursday reported a record daily increase of 23,557 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, as the kingdom deals with an outbreak driven by the Omicron variant.
The number of daily Covid-related deaths, however, was 38 -- well below the 184 fatalities reported on Aug 13 last year, when Thailand recorded its previous daily record of 23,418 infections.
A World Health Organization official said last month there is evidence the Omicron variant causes milder symptoms than previous variants and while case numbers have surged to records in many places, hospitalisation and death rates have often been lower than in earlier phases of the pandemic.
Up to now, about 69% of people in Thailand have been fully vaccinated, compared with about 12% at the end of August.
There are currently just below 181,000 people receiving treatment in hospital or isolating in the community, versus more than 212,000 on Aug 13 last year, data from the health ministry showed.
During the previous 24 hours, 16,131 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovering from the coronavirus.
The new caseload was 2,335 more than the 23,557 announced the day before, while deaths dropped by one from 39.
Of the 23,557 new cases, just 228 were detected in new arrivals from other countries. The rest were all local transmissions.
Since the pandemic started in early 2020, there have been 2,794,350 Covid-19 cases, including 570,915 cases this year, with 2,590,589 complete recoveries to date.
The accumulated death toll stood at 22,768, including 1,070 so far this year.
