Emergency decree scrapped next week as Thailand shifts to endemic Covid
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on Friday approved scrapping the pandemic emergency decree from October 1 (Saturday).
The CCSA will also cease its role of containing the spread of Covid-19.
The approval came after the National Communicable Disease Committee announced Covid-19 will be downgraded from a dangerous communicable disease to a “communicable disease under surveillance” from October 1.
Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said his ministry has prepared plans to contain the spread of more than 50 communicable diseases under surveillance once the emergency decree is revoked.
However, the law would not reflect the transition from pandemic to endemic Covid-19.
"The phrase ‘endemic disease’ is used by doctors but does not exist in the Communicable Disease Act," he explained.
Responsibility for implementing new guidelines to control Covid-19 will shift to the National Communicable Diseases Committee and provincial committees.
The Covid-related emergency decree was imposed in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
