Deputy Public Health Minister Sathit Pitutecha said the Public Health Ministry seriously prepared itself to cope with the newly found Omicron variant of COVID-19 and visitors would continue to be tested for the disease with the RT-PCR technique.
Mr. Sathit said that the emergency operation center of the Public Health Ministry this morning discussed responses to the Omicron variant. Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul attended the meeting online from abroad and ordered serious responses including intensified screening procedures on visitors. The authorities are considering suspending the decision to replace RT-PCR tests with antigen tests for air travellers following the emergence of the Covid 19 variant Omicron.
Mr. Sathit said that people should not panic about the newly discovered variant of COVID-19 because there had not enough data yet to conclude how fast Omicron can spread and if it would cause severer symptoms in any age range of patients.
He added that Omicron had not been detected in Thailand, based on information from more than 300 laboratories in the network of the Public Health Ministry. (TNA)
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