COVID-19 aligns with seasonal flu as outbreak pattern shifts - virologist

Thailand's pattern and speed of COVID-19 spread this year differs significantly from previous years, with case numbers peaking later than usual, but expected to decline in October, according to prominent virologist Dr. Yong Poovorawan.

Writing in a post on his Facebook page today, Dr. Yong, head of the Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Medicine, noted that COVID-19 activity remained extremely low during the early months of the year, before resurging over the past two months.

Infections are currently at their peak and are projected to subside in October as school holidays begin.

Over the past six years, the virus typically spread rapidly following the Songkran festival, continued through the early rainy season and began tapering off in August.

The 2026 pattern has diverged sharply from that seen over the previous two years.

Dr. Yong highlighted that COVID-19 is increasingly behaving like seasonal influenza. Influenza infections surged early in the year, during the cool season, and experienced a slight delay before peaking alongside COVID-19 over the past two months.

Although flu cases were three times higher, reaching roughly 350,000 compared to about COVID’s 100,000, mortality rates for both respiratory illnesses are similar.

Official data reports 16 deaths among COVID-19 patients and approximately 50 among those with influenza, from which one might infer that the current dominant sub-strain of COVID-19 is no longer significantly more severe than seasonal flu.