The intensive care unit (ICU) and in-patient department (IPD) beds at the Siriraj Piyamaharajkarun Hospital in Bangkok are completely occupied with COVID-19 patients, the hospital said on its Facebook page yesterday (Friday).
The hospital apologized to the public for the inconvenience and added that there are still a number of COVID-19 patients in its emergency ward waiting to be moved to other hospitals.
The hospital’s announcement comes as 20,000–40,000 people a day, or 20 times more than in April, are becoming infected with COVID-19, according to Dr. Nitipat Jiarakul, head of the Faculty of Medicine’s Division of Respiratory Diseases and Tuberculosis.
According to Dr. Nitipat, admissions to hospitals have surged from 20 in April to approximately 400 every day. Of these, 5% are suffering from lung infections, and half of them have passed away.
The number of fatalities has increased 20 times as well, from just 4 in April to around 66 every week currently.
The COVID-19 infection was directly responsible for half of the deaths, and the other half was attributable to the return of comorbid conditions such kidney disease, emphysema, and cardiac illnesses.
However, the rate is steadily declining as the Omicron XBB.1.16 sub-variant is steadily rising, accounting for 15.1% of all infections, followed by 11.8% by the XBB.1.9.1 sub-variant and 6.1% by the XBB.1.9.2, according to Dr. Thira Woratanarat of the Faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University.
He said that because the majority of the 1,800 or so medical professionals who attended the conference hosted by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in April did not wear face masks, at least 180 of them were determined to be infected with COVID-19.
The CDC has issued a warning for attendees of its event in June, advising them to bring COVID-19 quick antigen test kits as well as their “own high-quality masks.”
