Phuket Covid-19: hospital beds and occupants jumped this week
One new death from Covid-19 was reported in Phuket last night, along with a new Sandbox infection and another arrival from abroad that was not part of the Sandbox and 195 daily infections. September has seen 55 deaths, bringing the total to 75. Among Phuket Sandbox travellers, 116 infections have now been uncovered as well as 26 infections from abroad that were not part of the Sandbox.
Since last week, data released showed that available hospital beds in Phuket nearly tripled in one day, while the number of occupied beds doubled at the same time. On September 27, data from the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office showed 2,021 occupied beds out of 2,471 total beds. Then the next day, total hospital beds jumped 4,019 to a total of 6,490 beds while at the same time, occupied beds jumped 1,999 to a total of 4,020 hospitalised patients.
No explanation was readily available for the huge jump. The day before the huge increase, Covid-19 Care Centres saw a sharp 25% increase with 472 people being admitted to centres in one day, jumping from 1,507 to 1,979 patients.
The death toll stood at 20 as this month began, and has now reached 75, meaning that there have been nearly triple as many deaths this month as the combined total from April to the end of August. The past 7 days have had an average of 2 deaths per day, down from last week, indicating deaths are slowing a bit.
Remember !!
The Phuket Sandbox is in many ways an experiment designed to rejuvenate the Thai tourism industry amidst the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the organizers have prepared five worst-case scenarios that would lead to the cancellation of the scheme.
- More than 90 positive cases are logged within one week.
- Infections are detected in at least three districts or more than six sub-districts of Phuket.
- More than three clusters are found without indication of origin.
- The number of infected individuals doesn’t exceed 80 percent of available beds in Phuket hospitals.
- The outbreak is uncontrollable.
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