File photo. Credit Thai PBS
Thailand on Wednesday (February 16) reported 16,462 new COVID-19 cases, 10,868 recoveries and 27 additional deaths over the past 24 hours.
▶︎ Infections outside prisons: 16,326. Prisons: 136
▶︎ Recoveries: 10,868
Wednesday’s cases bring the total number of COVID-19 infections in Thailand to 2,639,062 with 22,516 deaths.
The news comes as the main concerns surrounding the rapid transmissibility of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which accounted for 97.2% of samplings of infections last week, are not hospitalisation or mortality rates, but the long-term effects on the mental and physical health of the patients, known as long COVID, according to a senior Thai doctor.
These symptoms may disrupt patients’ ways of life, their families, their working efficiency, as well as having long-term economic and social impacts, at both the individual and national levels, according to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thira Woratanarat of the Faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University.