Dear Editor, The COVID-19 pandemic has massively disrupted the social and economy of many countries. Thailand has been successful in controlling the spread of the disease and treating COVID-19 patients. We discuss Thailand’s strategy in containing the disease, management of severe COVID-19 patients, as well as future perspectives of COVID-19.
As of 2 February 2021, there were 103,409,402 cases of COVID-19 in over 200 countries and 2,237,973 deaths with a 2.1% case fatality rate.1 As of 2 February 2021, Thailand had 20,454 cases of COVID-19, and 79 deaths with a 0.03% case fatality rate. The median age of those infected was 37 years (1 month–97 years).2 Majority of the infected cases were of working age (20–49 years) population, with 55% males.2 There were 109 cases of COVID-19 among children as of September 2020.
The Emergency Central Operation Center in Thailand was activated on 3 January 2020 after news of a coronavirus outbreak in China was reported.3 Thailand is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. As most of its tourists were from China, Thailand started to screen all passengers arriving from China from 3 January 2020. It detected the first case of COVID-19 on 13 January 2020—a Chinese tourist from Wuhan—making it the first country outside of China to record a confirmed case of COVID-19.4
