NONTHABURI, Aug 10 (TNA) — The Disease Control Department is studying the second spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 in Vietnam to plan its local measures and warns that the number of infected people can be 10 times as much as reported cases worldwide.
Dr Tanarak Plipat, deputy director-general of the department, said the second spread of COVID-19 would happen in Thailand because there were patients in the country and people who arrived from other countries could be infected.
He said that it was impossible to predict when the second spread would occur but when it happens, officials will try to contain it.
Dr Tanarak said it was possible for infected people to develop immunity naturally but that would take a long time. He warned that the real number of infected people worldwide could be 10 times as much as the number of confirmed cases because some infected people were asymptomatic.
Thailand was closely monitoring the second spread in Vietnam as its cause remained unknown, he said.
Migrant workers would be arriving but neither companies nor organizations had applied to set up an organizational quarantine facility to quarantine migrant workers who wanted jobs in Thailand, Dr Tanarak said.
He urged officials at hospitals to conduct COVID-19 tests on people with pneumonia, medical personnel and people who contracted respiratory diseases in groups. That was to quickly identify COVID-19 patients and control the disease, he said. (TNA)
