Most of Thailand will have Covid by 2023, virologist believes

One of Thailand’s top virologists expects that by year’s end, nearly everyone will have Covid-19. Most people will have Covid within three years, like influenza. Yong Poovorawan, chief of Chulalongkorn University’s Clinical Virology Centre, predicted this using current and past data. Before the third Covid wave last year, he projected another wave or two and two years until herd immunity stopped the virus. Since most new infections are minor, scientists think most go undiscovered, and 2,000 to 3,000 daily hospitalizations suggest tens of thousands everyday. The daily death toll is 20 to 30. The first human-to-human transmission in Thailand occurred in a taxi driver in late January 2020. Coronavirus avoidance may be futile. Yesterday, the Ministry of Health reported 2,316 new Covid infections and 35 deaths. Dr. Yong believes medical care and immunizations kept death tolls down while the Coronavirus became less deadly, but the epidemic persisted longer. Epidemics like cholera or Spanish flu formerly killed 1% of the population in a year. Medical advances have lengthened this timeline.