"Vaccine"

The Covid-19 crisis is tending to ease especially in Bangkok and its vicinity, but health officials are keeping an eye on the situation in the four southern provinces as infections there continue to rise, Department of Disease Control director-general Dr Opas Karnkawinpong said.

All Bangkokians have received their first Covid-19 vaccine jab, while 70 per cent have received their second shot, with this figure expected to reach 80 per cent by the end of October, Bangkoks deputy governor said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - Millions more people in the United States will soon be able to receive an extra dose of any coronavirus vaccine, regardless of their initial vaccination - a flexibility that comes along with the authorization Wednesday of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson booster shots by federal regulators.

The U.K. plans to expand access to Covid-19 vaccines for children, the head of the National Health Service said, following a surge in infections in schools.

The recent cluster of infections in the South is mostly based in the lower part of Songkhla province, at the point where it intersects with Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, said Dr Papon Deechaisit, deputy director of the provincial public health authority.

The Department of Disease Control (DDC) said on Monday that Thailand will stop administering Sinovac once stocks finish next week.

The Public Health Ministry has announced that people will be able to use the “Digital Health Pass”, which is built into the “MorPhrom” app, as a vaccine passport once the country reopens.

In an online post on Monday, Dr Chalermchai Boonyaleephan said more than 200 countries have been affected by Covid-19 since it emerged in December 2019.

President Joe Bidens chief medical adviser said he expects U.S. regulators to consider whether people who got the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine should get an mRNA shot against covid-19 as a booster.

The Education Ministry announced on Saturday that as of Thursday, more than 864,000 students in the 12-18 age range had received one jab of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.

The fourth lot of 385,210 AstraZeneca vaccine doses donated by Japan landed in Thailand on Friday night.

A U.S. FDA advisory committee voted unanimously to recommend authorization of a second dose of Johnson & Johnsons COVID-19 vaccine as early as two months after the primary shot for anyone aged 18 and older.