By Aluta News
June 8, 2021
Thailand accelerated vaccine rollout as it started a mass vaccination programme last Monday amid efforts to contain its worst Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak so far and ensure the country’s wider reopening to vaccinated foreign visitors.
Monday was the first day of the programme, the country administered 416,847 doses of vaccines, compared with a daily average of fewer than 50,000 doses during the past three months.
The figure reported was according to data from the Centre for the COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), released on Tuesday.
The country has administered more than 4.63 million doses of vaccines in total and aimed to vaccinate about 70 per cent of its nearly 70 million populations by the end of this year.
The tourism-reliant country planned to reopen the popular resort island Phuket to fully vaccinated foreign visitors from July 1, and considered the reopening of several other regions and provinces later in the year.
On Tuesday, Thailand reported 2,662 new cases, bringing the total caseload to 182,548, jumping more than six fold from the beginning of April when the third wave of outbreak started to spread from the capital Bangkok.
The country also reported 28 fatalities, taking the death toll to 1,297.
Xinhua/NAN