Pattaya will receive another 50,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines next week, only a fraction of what the city needs to reopen to foreign tourism by October.
Mayor Sonthaya Kunplome visited the Covid-19 vaccination center at Pattaya Hospital July 22, giving encouragement to some of the 900 people who received their first or second inoculations Thursday.
The 50,000 doses of vaccine – the mayor did not say if they would be the Chinese Sinovac or British-Swedish AstraZeneca drug – are enough to vaccinate 25,000 people. It’s estimated Pattaya needs to inoculate 700,000 people in order to reopen, let alone suppress the surging wave of infections.
Pattaya and Banglamung District saw a record 229 coronavirus cases on Friday, with Chonburi reporting 669 cases. Thailand again shattered its previous daily-case record with 14,575 cases (1,072 in prisons) with 114 deaths.
Thursday’s vaccinations were for Koh Larn residents, market vendors, pregnant women, the elderly and those with at least one of seven chronic diseases.
First doses of Sinovac were administered while second doses, regardless of the type of first dose, were AstraZeneca. Some people, however, refused to “mix and match” vaccines, citing the lack of any established research into the possible side effects of mixing vaccines, and insisted on receiving a second dose of the Chinese drug.
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