Surin becomes first province to declare Covid-19 endemic from April 1

The Surin Information Office said in a Facebook post on Saturday that the province has met all the criteria for turning Covid-19 into an endemic disease.

The provincial administration also boasted that Surin will be the first province in Thailand to do so. The office also encouraged everybody in the province to get a Covid-19 booster shot as soon as possible.

The office backed its endemic declaration with a list of the criteria the province has met, namely:

• All villages are strictly observing Covid-19 “blue zone” measures

• The death rate from Covid-19 infections is no higher than 0.5 per cent

• No more than 3 per cent of Covid-19 patients need hospitalisation

• At least 70 per cent of Surin residents have received two shots of the Covid-19 vaccine

• Everybody in Surin strictly observes the DMHTT guidelines, namely social-distancing, mask-wearing, hand washing, testing in case of symptoms and using the ThaiChana app.

Between December 24 and March 26, Surin recorded a total of 16,354 cases, with 276 new cases confirmed as of 6pm on Saturday. The total number of deaths during this period came in at 29.