Elderly must get vaccine priority, say rural doctors

The Rural Doctors Society yesterday urged the government to speed up inoculating the elderly against Covid19 to help prevent deaths amid a sharp surge in infections.

On its Facebook page, the group said while the spread of the virus was unlikely to end soon the government could mitigate mortality by vaccinating people over 60.

Its call came as the country yesterday logged 50 more Covid-19 fatalities and 6,166 new transmissions, bringing the accumulated toll to 2,276 deaths and the number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 289,233.

“We may see 100 deaths per day soon. The question is who should get the vaccines to make it the most effective when supplies are limited,’’ the group said.

The society slammed the government for allocating vaccine supplies without a strategy, resulting in chaos and younger people getting their jabs before priority groups.

According to the society, shortages of ICU beds and the home isolation programme suggest that the issue has come to a head.

The death toll from Covid-19 could rise to a three-digit number and the best strategy to reduce deaths was to inoculate the elderly whose number was estimated at 12 million, they said.

According to the society, several countries, including the UK, adopted an age-based vaccine strategy and they were able to reduce Covid-19 deaths. In the UK while the number of infections stood at around 27,000 on a daily basis, the mortality was just 20 because more than 80% of the elderly were vaccinated.

With about 10 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine due to be delivered this month in Thailand, the government should make the best use of the vaccine supplies.

According to the society, five million does are locally produced AstraZeneca, one million are AstraZeneca donated by Japan, one million are Pfizer donated by the US and three million are Sinovac.

“If the government sets the target of inoculating at least 50% of the elderly in every province, it will use about 6 million doses. And in the outbreak areas like greater Bangkok and the deep South, it can increase the target to 70%,” wrote the society.

The government should open channels for the elderly to register for vaccination this month, they urged.