Thailand is now preparing to live with Covid-19, with plans being drawn up to ease some restrictions and reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors.
The plan comes even as new cases hover around 20,000 a day and with strict social distancing measures in place in most parts of the country, reports Bloomberg.
The National Communicable Disease Committee (NCDC) had on Monday approved a shift in the country's strategy to "learning to live with Covid-19", recognising the endemic nature of the virus.
According to Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, the focus going forward will be on containing infections to a level that doesn't exceed capacity of the public health system.
Some of the key measures include total vaccination coverage for vulnerable groups and faster case-tracing on the assumption that everyone can become infected and transmit the virus, he said.
Among the preliminary proposals are easing some quasi-lockdown rules next month and to replicate the Phuket sandbox tourism scheme to other parts of the country.
Thailand was considered a success story at the outset of the pandemic, with relatively few infections reported even though it was the first nation after China to detect a case.
The Bloomberg report said early confidence was one reason the government was slow to secure vaccine deals and ramp up inoculations.
A series of stumbles in its inoculation programme has resulted in a shortfall just as the Delta variant arrived, leading to a near-relentless surge of infections since April.
However, the latest data related to infections, test results, patients in critical care and spread patterns suggested that the current outbreak has peaked, health officials said Monday.
That should enable some restrictions to be eased, according to Dr Opas.
The country on Tuesday ties and 17,165 new cases, the lowest daily tally since July 30, compared to more than 20,000 infections daily much of this month.
There were 226 new Covid-19 fatalities reported on Tuesday morning.
The drop has not been easy and is also costly as cities and provinces that are home to more than 40 per cent of the population and generate more than three-quarters of economy output are under strict curbs.
It includes closure of all "non-essential" businesses, restrictions on inter-provincial travel and a curfew between 9pm and 4am.
Thira Woratanarat, an associate professor at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Medicine, told Bloomberg that the number of new infections being reported doesn't reflect the real situation given the variants, the omission of cases found using self-test kits and fewer tests carried out.
While conveyed as a strategy shift, NCDC announcement was similar to a speech in June by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, in which he said much of the country would be reopened in October "to start reducing the enormous suffering of people who have lost their ability to earn an income."
He had called it a "calculated risk" and asked that people "be ready to live with some risk."
Currently about eight per cent of the Thai population have been fully inoculated.
Vaccination rates are higher in regions that have reopened under special tourism programmes, including Phuket Island, and those with the worst outbreaks, including Bangkok.
Dr Opas said that Phuket's reopening on July 1 to fully vaccinated tourists showed that if the situation can be controlled, economic activities can be stepped up and people can resume their everyday lives.
Last week, the government said it plans to issue "Thai Covid Pass" to inoculated residents, which would allow access to certain places including restaurants.