The Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) ordered serious disease control measures as patients from an Islamic center in Yala were spreading throughout the South except Chumphon and Ranong provinces.
The number of COVID-19 cases is rising in Songkhla province and they are linked to a cluster at an Islamic center of Yala province.
Bangkok and adjacent provinces of Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan remain as dark red zones of maximum and strict Covid-19 control in the zoning adjustment, announced by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on Friday.
Officials in the southern border province installed 300 more beds at their field hospitals as COVID-19 cases were increasing at two factories.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told the parliament that the government had to borrow 500 billion baht to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak and stimulate the economy. He also promised to spend the borrowings carefully and acquire enough COVID-19 vaccines.
The Public Health Ministry said that the new variant of COVID-19 known as C.36.3 that was detected in Britain was not a Thai variant of the virus.
Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, denied there was a Thai variant of COVID-19.
Thailand on Thursday reported 47 new Covid-19 deaths over the past 24 hours, a new daily record and 3,323 new infections.
COVID-19 vaccination began at the Bang Sue Grand Station for registrants in the transport sector who showed up in the morning for inoculation.
The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Chulalongkorn University will have volunteers use sniffer dogs to detect COVID-19 cases among bed-ridden people in communities.
The biggest cluster of inmates with COVID-19 is at the Chang Mai Central Prison in the northern province where as many as 3,929 inmates had the disease.
Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha opened a large field hospital named Busarakham to treat COVID-19 patients.
