Commentary: Vietnam's attitude towards Chinese vaccines is very telling - CNA

SINGAPORE: Two similar events and yet a world apart when it comes to popular sentiment.

On Jul 7, Vietnam marked the delivery of 97,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to the country. The delivery ceremony was graced by the country’s Vice Minister of Health and the US Chargé d’affaires. The modest amount is the first batch of 31 million doses that the Vietnamese government has ordered from Pfizer-BioNTech, an American-German tie-up.

Just two weeks earlier, a similar ceremony was held to mark the arrival of 500,000 Sinopharm doses donated by China. Vietnam’s Health Minister and Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam were present.

On balance, there is a semblance of parity in the appropriate levels of protocol and political significance accorded by the Vietnamese government to both events.

Yet, public reactions on both mainstream and social media suggest overwhelmingly negative attitudes towards Chinese vaccines in contrast to their enthusiastic embrace of Western vaccines.

READ: Vietnam receives 2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses as it tackles worst outbreak

This is reflective of the zeitgeist in Vietnam. In general, the populace, in particular younger Vietnamese, is favourably disposed to the United States at a time when bilateral relations are on the uptrend. By contrast, popular attitudes towards Vietnam’s northern neighbour are less salubrious, in part due to the brewing South China Sea disputes.

An examination of reader comments in the country’s most popular newspapers – the mainstream tuoitre.vn and the digital vnexpress.net – bears this out.

In two vn.express and tuoitre.vn articles similarly titled “Vietnam approves Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine” on Jun 4, very few comments expressed favour for the Sinopharm vaccine. An overwhelming majority said that they would rather wait and pay extra to get their top choices – the Pfizer and US-made Moderna vaccines.

There is also a considerable acceptance of Astra Zeneca, Russian Sputnik and future made-in-Vietnam vaccines. Quality measured in terms of efficacy and safety is cited as the main reason for expressed preferences.

READ: Commentary: Inaccurate public understanding of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy has implications for vaccination rates

DSITRUST AND ANTI-CHINA ATTITUDES

Many readers rejected the Sinopharm vaccine outright, due to visceral anti-China attitudes or an entrenched distrust of made-in-China products.

A health official sprays disinfectant on the first batch of AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine shipment after its arrival at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam on Feb 24, 2021. (Photo: AFP/Phu Nguyen)

Only a minority gave considered and informed reasons, such as reports of Chinese vaccines’ lack of clinical trial data, their lower effectiveness compared to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and COVID-19 resurgence in countries that have inoculated with Chinese vaccines such as Bahrain, the Seychelles, Uruguay and Chile.

While expressing their hesitancy towards Chinese vaccines, many Vietnamese support their government’s announcement to give the Sinopharm jabs to only China-related elements, namely Vietnamese people living in border areas with China or engaging in trade and service with China, and Chinese nationals in Vietnam.

According to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, this plan was a bilateral consensus to enable the Sinopharm donation to Vietnam.

Yet, in an odd twist of events, the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on Jun 24 expressed concern that the Vietnamese government had “broken its promise to give priority to Chinese nationals” by planning to distribute the Sinopharm vaccines to its nine northern provinces severely affected by the recent surge.

READ: Commentary: How COVID-19 vaccines are being weaponised as countries jostle for influence

The embassy added that the Chinese nationals should be vaccinated ahead of the other groups, in line with China’s “Spring Sprout” programme which seeks to get its citizens abroad to be inoculated. It is estimated that there are over 500,000 Chinese nationals in Vietnam.

On Jun 25, the Chinese Embassy announced that Vietnam agreed to withdraw its earlier distribution plan after the Chinese complaint. These developments were not publicised on Vietnam’s domestic media and were only reported in the Viet-language programmes of foreign outlets such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Voice of America (VOA) as well as the Global Times.

The public expression of discontent by the Chinese Embassy when it could have been done through quiet diplomacy has only worsened the Vietnamese public’s already low perceptions of China and its vaccine outreach.

They do not see the Sinopharm donation as an act of Chinese generosity but a self-interested move that serves Beijing’s political agenda towards its own nationals overseas while taking advantage of Vietnam’s vaccination logistics.

It also demonstrates the clumsy projection of Chinese soft power overseas despite its leader Xi Jinping’s recent directive to present a “credible, loveable and respectable China” image.

READ: Commentary: Some soul-searching needed in China’s fresh push to make friends and influence people

WARM RECEPTION TOWARDS WESTERN VACCINES

In contrast, the US Embassy’s Facebook post about the Pfizer delivery on Jul 7 garnered more than 1,500 positive reactions within 12 hours (and counting). Most online visitors expressed their thanks in the comments, eliding the fact that the delivery is part of a commercial contract.

A man and his children, all wearing protective masks, ride a bicycle on a street during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Hanoi, Vietnam on Jul 27, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Kham) 

Positive reactions to vnexpress.net and tuoitre.vn news articles are also observed. No negative comment was registered, except for some concerns expressed over the storage of the Pfizer vaccines.

There was also a great deal of interest in securing access to the jabs and giving them to high-priority groups and localities. In a related development, a donation of 2 million doses of Moderna vaccines will be arriving in Vietnam shortly, as the Biden Administration scales up its vaccine outreach worldwide.

Prevalent negative public perceptions about Chinese vaccines versus their warm receptivity towards Western ones, together with a genuine concern about the effectiveness of vaccines, partly explain the Vietnamese government’s reluctance to buy Chinese vaccines, except for limited numbers to be used in emergency situations amid the supply crunch.

READ: Commentary: Has China’s vaccine diplomacy worked in unexpected areas?

This is despite the fact that the country is urgently ramping up its vaccination drive amid the latest and most serious wave of COVID-19 infections. Only 3.8 per cent of the 96 million people in Vietnam have been inoculated.

This is the second lowest rate in ASEAN, putting Vietnam just ahead of Myanmar, which continues to grapple with the political crisis resulting from the February coup d’etat.

Ultimately, Vietnam’s determination to keep Chinese vaccines at arm’s length is geopolitical. As noted by some observers, Vietnam will try its best to avoid being beholden to China’s vaccine supplies so as to keep its spine and act in its own interest on the South China Sea disputes – the biggest problem in Vietnam-China bilateral ties.

However, the Chinese brand – be it COVID-19 vaccines, trust between putative Communist comrades or consumer confidence – has a mountain to climb in its immediate southern neighbour.

Hoang Thi Ha is Fellow and Lead Researcher (Political-Security) at the ASEAN Studies Centre of ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. This commentary was first published in ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute's Fulcrum.

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2021-07-13 22:07:00Z
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More than 11000 new COVID-19 cases in Malaysia, third record in less than a week - CNA

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported a record 11,079 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday (Jul 13), a sharp increase from already high infection levels in the past week.  

This is also the first time that daily COVID-19 cases have hit five figures.

Only 27 of the new infections were imported, with the rest classified as local cases. 

More than half of the new cases were once again from the Klang Valley area, with 5,263 in Selangor and 1,521 in Kuala Lumpur. 

There were 1,033 new infections in neighbouring state Negeri Sembilan while Sarawak and Johor registered 472 and 406 respectively. 

The health ministry also announced 125 more fatalities, aged 27 to 86, taking the national death toll to 6,385. 

Sixteen of the victims were classified as "brought in dead" as they did not die in hospital. 

READ: More than 200 workers at a vaccination centre in Malaysia test positive for COVID-19

READ: Malaysia government contract doctors frustrated over lack of job security, benefits as COVID-19 drags on

A soldier wearing personal protective equipment disinfects an area under enhanced lockdown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Jun 29, 2021. (Photo: Reuters/Lim Huey Teng)

A total of 972 patients are in the intensive care unit, yet another record. Of these, 456 require respiratory support. 

The number of critically ill patients has been at record levels for more than a week, with the health ministry repeatedly stating that hospitals, frontline personnel and morgues were overwhelmed. 

Twenty-three more clusters were also identified, taking the total number of active clusters in the country to 870. Thirteen of the new clusters stem from workplaces while 10 are in the community. 

The health ministry said the increase in cases was partly attributed to the spread of the Delta variant.

Members of the public are encouraged to adopt double-masking especially in high risk areas as "airborne" transmission can occur, it added.  

Malaysia entered its third nationwide lockdown on Jun 1, shortly after it breached the 9,000 mark for new cases for the first time on May 29.

Numbers reached record levels again on Jul 9 and Jul 10, with more than 9,100 cases on each day.

Health ministry data showed that more than 3.6 million people have so far completed the full COVID-19 vaccination regimen. 

COMMENTARY: Malaysia’s white flag movement a symbol of hope and helping each other

READ: ‘If not us, then who?’ - Malaysian doctors overcome fear of infection in country’s battle against COVID-19

A nurse administers a COVID-19 vaccination to a durian fruit vendor at his house in rural Sabab Bernam, central Selangor, Malaysia on Jul 13, 2021. (Photo: AP/Vincent Thian)

This is still short of the country's target to inoculate 80 per cent of its population, or 26.7 million out of the total 33 million people in the country.

Health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah on Tuesday said vaccination was the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A fully administered vaccination has been proven to decrease the likelihood of death or hospitalisation, he added. 

Dr Noor Hisham said 2,779 health ministry employees tested positive for COVID-19 after they were fully vaccinated. However, a majority of them were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. 

None of the affected individuals was critically ill and those who had mild symptoms could be quarantined at home, thus reducing the number of patients in hospital, he said. 

As of Tuesday, Malaysia has reported a total of 855,949 COVID-19 cases, of which 96,236 are currently active or infectious. 

BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its developments

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2021-07-13 13:52:30Z
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Malaysia shuts Covid jab centre after 200 workers infected - Yahoo Singapore News

A Malaysian coronavirus vaccination centre was temporarily closed Tuesday after more than 200 workers tested positive for Covid-19, authorities said, as the country's cases set a new daily record.

The Southeast Asian nation is battling a serious outbreak driven by highly infectious variants, and has been under a strict lockdown since the start of June.

It has ramped up its jab drive by opening mass vaccination sites, and about 11 percent of the population are so far fully vaccinated while almost 25 percent have received a first dose.

But one centre in hard-hit Selangor state was forced to close after 204 staff and volunteers out of 453 there tested positive, said Khairy Jamaluddin, minister in charge of the inoculation drive.

Those infected had low "viral loads" and none had serious symptoms, possibly because most workers at the site in Shah Alam city had been vaccinated, he said.

He added that 400 of the workers there had been inoculated, but he did not say which vaccine they had been given.

Malaysia is using the Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Sinovac shots.

"This is the first time we've had to shut down a (vaccination centre) because of positive cases, but we acted fast," Khairy said, adding it would not hamper the overall programme.

The centre's closure led to thousands of appointments being rescheduled, but it will re-open Wednesday after sanitisation, with new staff.

Despite being under strict curbs for weeks, with only essential businesses allowed to operate, Malaysia's infection rates have remained high.

Daily cases hit a new record of 11,079 Tuesday, along with 125 deaths.

Health Minister Adham Baba later told reporters nearly 700 new beds for virus patients had been added at hospitals in the capital, as well as in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan state, taking the total to over 5,000.

He also announced an extra 1,200 medical staff would be hired and about 5,000 new volunteers brought in to help in the three hard-hit areas.

The country of almost 33 million people has so far reported more than 855,000 virus cases, and nearly 6,400 deaths.

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2021-07-13 08:25:04Z
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Japan to provide millions more COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan, Asian neighbours - CNA

TOKYO: Japan will make additional donations of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan and other Asian neighbours this week, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday (Jul 13).

Japan will ship out 1 million doses each to Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam on Thursday as part of bilateral deals with those governments, Motegi told reporters.

An additional 11 million doses donated through the COVAX sharing scheme will be sent this month to Bangladesh, Cambodia, Iran, Laos, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, as well as various Pacific Island states, he said.

This is the third batch of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines Japan has donated to Taiwan, taking the country's total donations to Taiwan so far to almost 3.4 million doses.

The first batch was sent in June, followed by a second donation earlier this month.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry expressed its thanks, especially at a time when Japan is facing its own serious coronavirus situation.

"The friendship between Taiwan and Japan is unwavering. The Foreign Ministry once again thanks our partners in freedom and democracy for their warm assistance and strong support," it added.

In a statement, Vietnam said it would receive a million doses from Japan on Friday in the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, where it is fighting its largest outbreak yet after months of successful containment.

"It is encouraging that a number of richer countries have made generous pledges and donations of vaccines to countries in Asia in recent weeks," said Alexander Matheou of aid group the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

"We need to speed up the delivery of these lifesaving doses so that we can get them into people's arms, giving us a genuine shot at containing this pandemic once and for all."

READ: Foxconn and TSMC ink COVID-19 vaccine deal with BioNTech, to donate doses to Taiwan

Taiwan has complained that Chinese interference blocked a deal earlier this year for it to get vaccines from Germany's BioNTech, charges Beijing has denied. Since then, vaccine donations have rolled in to Taiwan.

Last month the United States donated 2.5 million Moderna doses, while the Baltic state of Lithuania has pledged 20,000 shots of AstraZeneca's vaccine.

Taiwan is rapidly expanding its vaccination programme, though so far only around one-tenth of its 23.5 million people have received at least one of the two shot regimen.

Taiwan's own relatively small domestic COVID-19 outbreak has now generally been brought under control, though there remain sporadic community infections.

Japan has pledged US$1 billion and 30 million doses to COVAX. Motegi said on Tuesday the AstraZeneca doses made in Japan were approved by the World Health Organization on Jul 9 for use in COVAX.

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2021-07-13 05:31:18Z
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In symbolic end to war, US general departs Afghanistan - CNA

KABUL: The US general leading the war in Afghanistan, Austin Miller, relinquished command on Monday (Jul 12) at a ceremony in Kabul, in what was a symbolic end to America's longest conflict even as Taliban insurgents gain momentum across the country.

Miller, America's last four-star commander to serve on the ground in Afghanistan, stepped down ahead of a formal end to the US military mission there on Aug 31, a date set by President Joe Biden as he looks to extricate the country from the two-decade-old war.

Addressing a small gathering outside his military headquarters in Kabul, Miller vowed to remember the lives lost in the fighting and called on the Taliban to halt a wave of violent attacks that have given them control of more territory than at any time since the conflict began.

"What I tell the Taliban is they're responsible too. The violence that's going on is against the will of the Afghan people, and it needs to stop," Miller said.

While the ceremony may offer some sense of closure for US veterans who served in Afghanistan, it's unclear whether it will succeed in reassuring the Western-backed Afghan government as the Taliban press ground offensives.

US Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, whose Florida-based Central Command oversees US forces in hot-spots including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, flew into Kabul to underscore America's future assistance to Afghan security forces.

"You can count on our support in the dangerous and difficult days ahead. We will be with you," McKenzie said in his address.

READ: Kabul urges Europe to halt forced deportations of Afghans

Speaking separately to a small group of reporters, McKenzie cautioned that the Taliban, in his view, were seeking "a military solution" to a war that the United States has unsuccessfully tried to end with a peace agreement between the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government.

He said provincial capitals were at risk but noted that the US-backed Afghan security forces "are determined to fight very hard for those provincial capitals."

US General Austin Miller, (L) and US General Kenneth McKenzie, (R), at a ceremony in Kabul, as Miller relinquishes command during the final phase of America's withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan on Jul 12, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Phil Stewart)

McKenzie will be able to authorise US air strikes against the Taliban through Aug 31 in support of Ghani's Western-backed government.

But after that, the Marine general said when it came to US strikes in Afghanistan, his focus will shift squarely to counter-terrorism operations against al Qaeda and Islamic State.

INTELLIGENCE NETWORK

Gathering enough intelligence on the ground to prevent another Sep 11-style attack could become increasingly challenging, as America's intelligence network weakens with the US withdrawal and as Afghan troops lose territory.

US Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat and former senior Pentagon official, said many lawmakers were still looking for answers from the Biden administration about how the US will be able to detect a future al Qaeda plot against the United States.

"I don't need them to tell the entire world what our day-after plan is. But I think it's important that they let us know some of the details on a private basis," Slotkin said.

READ: Air defences installed at Afghanistan's Kabul airport as Taliban gain ground

US officials do not believe the Taliban could be relied upon to prevent al Qaeda from again plotting attacks against the United States from Afghan soil.

The United Nations said in a report in January there were as many as 500 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and that the Taliban maintained a close relationship with the extremist group.

LONGEST-SERVING GENERAL

As he steps down, Miller, 60, has spent longer on the ground than any of the previous generals to command the war.

He had a close call in 2018 when a rogue Afghan bodyguard in Kandahar province opened fire and killed a powerful Afghan police chief standing near Miller. A US brigadier general was wounded, as were other Americans, but Miller emerged unscathed.

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani (R) meets General Austin "Scott" Miller, commander of US forces and NATO's Resolute Support Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jul 2, 2021. (Photo: Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS)

After Miller leaves the post, the Pentagon has engineered a transition that will allow a series of generals to carry on with supporting Afghan security forces, mostly from overseas.

Beyond McKenzie's overwatch from Florida, a Qatar-based brigadier general, Curtis Buzzard, will focus on administering funding support for the Afghan security forces - including aircraft maintenance support.

In Kabul, Navy Rear Admiral Peter Vasely will lead a newly created US Forces Afghanistan-Forward, focusing on protecting the US embassy and the airport.

Vasely, as a two-star admiral, is higher ranked than usual for a US embassy-based post. But a US defence official added that Afghanistan was a "very unique situation".

"There's no comparable diplomatic security situation in the world with what we're going to establish," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Still, what happens next in Afghanistan appears to be increasingly out of America's control.

Biden acknowledged on Thursday that Afghanistan's future was far from certain but said the Afghan people must decide their own fate.

"I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome," he said.

About 2,400 US service members have been killed in America's longest war - and many thousands wounded.

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2021-07-12 19:44:33Z
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'Be cautious': UK PM Boris Johnson goes ahead with lifting England's COVID-19 curbs - CNA

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people on Monday (Jul 12) to show caution when nearly all remaining COVID-19 restrictions are lifted in England next week, saying an increase in cases underlined that the pandemic was by no means over.

England will from Jul 19 be the first nation in Britain to lift the legal requirement to wear masks and for people to socially distance. The government says Britain's vaccination drive - one of the world's fastest - has largely broken the link between infections and serious illness or death.

But what was once billed as "freedom day" is now being treated with wariness by ministers after a new surge in cases and fears that there could be as many as 100,000 new infections a day over the summer.

Johnson set a sombre tone, defending his decision to lift most of the remaining restrictions by saying the four conditions the government set itself had been met, but also warning the country that more people would die from the coronavirus.

"We think now is the right moment to proceed ... But it is absolutely vital that we proceed now with caution and I cannot say this powerfully or emphatically enough - this pandemic is not over," he told a press conference.

"To take these steps we must be cautious and must be vaccinated," he said, adding that England would see "more hospitalisations and more deaths from COVID-19".

Johnson added: "I generally urge everyone to keep thinking of others and to consider the risks."

Earlier, health minister Sajid Javid told parliament that people should still wear masks in crowded areas like on public transport and should only gradually move back to the workplace, and that the government would encourage businesses holding mass events to use health certification as a way to open up.

READ: Face masks to become a personal choice in England, minister says

Business welcomed the move, but also called on the government to offer clearer guidance. Claire Walker, co-executive director of the British Chambers of Commerce, said companies still did not have the full picture they needed.

"Business leaders aren't public health experts and cannot be expected to know how best to operate when confusing and sometimes contradictory advice is coming from official sources," she said.

GLOBAL STRUGGLE

After 18 months of pandemic, governments around the world have been wrestling with how and when to reopen their economies.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte conceded on Monday that coronavirus restrictions had been lifted in the Netherlands too soon and he apologised as infections surged to their highest levels of the year.

Britain has implemented one of the world's swiftest vaccination programmes, with more than 87 per cent of adults having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 66 per cent having received two.

The Conservative government argues that the fact that deaths and hospital admissions remain far lower than before, even though cases have risen sharply, is proof that the vaccines are saving lives and it is now safer to open up.

But the surge in infections to rates unseen since the winter has raised concern, with some epidemiologists saying the Euro football championships might have helped fuel the rise.

Britain, which ranks 20th in the world for per-capita reported deaths from COVID-19, on Monday reported a further 34,471 COVID-19 cases, up 26 per cent in a week, and six additional deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

London's Wembley Stadium hosted the Euro 2020 final on Sunday between England and Italy. Large crowds gathered in London, including around the stadium, and there were reports that some had gained entry to the match without tickets to join the more than 60,000 who had them - much to the dismay of the World Health Organization.

"Am I supposed to be enjoying watching transmission happening in front of my eyes?" WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove tweeted in the late stages of the match.

"The #COVID19 pandemic is not taking a break tonight ... #SARSCoV2 #DeltaVariant will take advantage of unvaccinated people, in crowded settings, unmasked, screaming/shouting/singing. Devastating."

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2021-07-12 17:53:08Z
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People jabbed with Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine to get AstraZeneca as second dose: Thailand health ministry - CNA

BANGKOK: Thailand is planning to combine the Sinovac and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in its national inoculation programme to boost public immunity against the coronavirus variants, the Public Health Ministry announced on Monday (Jul 12). 

“The National Communicable Disease Committee approved the alternation of vaccines, with Sinovac being the first dose and AstraZeneca the second. They’ll be administered about three to four weeks apart,” said Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.

Thai health authorities believe the combination of COVID-19 vaccines in such order will increase public immunity against the coronavirus, particularly the highly-contagious Delta variant, which was first identified in India.

“This is believed to provide better protection against the Delta variant as the immunity will quickly increase to a level that is close to what two doses of AstraZeneca can produce. Moreover, it’d take less time to boost the immunity this way,” said Dr Opas Kankawinpong, director-general of the Disease Control Department.

After getting the first shot of AstraZeneca, he added, it usually takes approximately 12 weeks before the second one can be administered. However, with the vaccine alternation, Dr Opas said the interval can be shortened.

As for those who have already received their first shot of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, they will get their second jab from AstraZeneca three to four weeks later.

“If the first dose is from AstraZeneca, the same is still recommended for the second dose, not the alternation,” Dr Opas said.

READ: Thailand starts tighter coronavirus lockdown around Bangkok

Data from the health ministry showed 12.57 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Thailand since February.

The country is battling its worst wave of infections, with the daily case numbers remaining in the thousands for several weeks. According to the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), most infections were reported in Bangkok and nearby provinces.

On Monday, Thailand reported 8,656 new cases and 4,420 of them were in Bangkok and its vicinity. The high concentration of infections in these provinces has led the government to impose lockdown measures starting from Monday, including a curfew between 9pm and 4am and temporary closure of department stores.

Besides the adjustment in the national vaccination programme, the National Communicable Disease Committee also agreed to give medical personnel and health workers in the frontline a third shot of COVID-19 vaccine to boost their immunity at least three and four weeks after their second jab. The third shot would either come from AstraZeneca or Pfizer.

“Vaccination against COVID-19 will help minimise severe illness and deaths, slow down the transmission and enable hospitals and health service centres to accommodate patients,” said Mr Anutin.

The health minister also expressed concern over the COVID-19 situation in Bangkok and its nearby provinces, citing a gradual increase in the transmission of the disease caused by the Delta variant and its tendency to spread to other parts of Thailand.

“We estimated that we could have close to 10,000 infected patients per day or about 100,000 cases in two weeks,” he added.

According to Mr Anutin, members of the public will have access to antigen test kits in the near future, which will enable them to conduct COVID-19 self-tests at home and reduce the risk of infection.

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2021-07-12 10:41:15Z
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