Govt to vaccinate 5.2 million kids against Covid-19

Thanakorn said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was briefed on the progress of the ministry’s vaccination campaign for students who are between 12 and 18 years old and the plan to cover younger students aged 5 to 11.

The prime minister was informed that there are about 5.2 million students between 5 and 11 years old in schools under the Education Ministry and other ministries.
Thanakorn quoted Prayut as instructing the Education Ministry to try its best to explain the need for vaccinations to parents of the 5.2 million kids to win approval from as many parents as possible.
The Education Ministry is expected to open registration for vaccinations for 5-to-11-year-olds in the last week of this month and the kids will be administered with the same dose of vaccine as those in the 12-18-years group, the spokesman said, adding that Prayut was pleased with the progress of the vaccination of these students.

So far, 4,317,337 out of 5,148,710 students in this age group agreed to be vaccinated. Precisely 4,102,827 or 95.03 per cent have received the first jab while 3,040,726 or 70.43 per cent have received the second jab.
The spokesman said the government would speed up the process so that students are fully vaccinated amid the spreading Omicron variant, allowing them to return to school as soon as possible.
The prime minister also instructed government agencies concerned to monitor and prevent a shortage of test kits and medicine for fighting the outbreak.
Prayut was informed that the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation would sell 3 million ATK kits for Bt35 each on Friday at eight outlets of the state enterprise. Sales would go online from January 17, the spokesman added.
In its latest update on the situation, the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration announced on Wednesday that there were 7,681 new Covid cases and 22 additional fatalities in the previous 24 hours.