The Public Health Ministry has dismissed a report circulating on Thai social media that the Ministry of Public Health has made extensive preparations to cope with the spread of a sub variant of COVID-19, called Omicron XBB.1.16, or Arcturus.
Dr Yongyos Thammawut, deputy permanent secretary of public health, said today that the Department of Medical Sciences and its network of laboratories have been monitoring COVID variants between October 1st and December 2nd and have conducted gene sequencing of 253 COVID cases.
It was discovered that 24.5% of the cases are XBB.1.9.2, followed by 23.3% of EG.5, 17.8& of XBB.1.16 and 11.90% of XBB.2.3.
He said that XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 cases have tended to decrease over the past two months, compared to XBB.1.92 and EG.5.
He disclosed that, from September until November, 83 XBB.1.16 cases have been found, representing 16.4% of all sub variants,…
