BANGKOK, July 30 (CNA) - Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Thursday (Jul 29) downplayed the COVID-19 situation Thailand, while claiming that other nations are dealing with higher caseloads.

In a special interview held at the Government House, he said: “If we contemplate the transmission in our country, it may seem shocking, given the daily fatalities. I want you to try paying attention to these numbers in our neighbouring countries and others for a change.”

“At present, every country in the world has more or less felt the impact. There are many top-ranking countries, as you can see, whose numbers are many times higher than ours.”

Despite the rising COVID-19 caseload in Thailand - which has remained above 10,000 cases for two weeks – the prime minister maintained his government’s handling of the pandemic is not problematic. He argued that other countries have not been able to curb the pandemic either.

“There are a lot of people. We have employed hundreds of thousands of medical personnel, officials, police and military officers to take care of nearly 70 million people. I don’t think our system is problematic. The issue is about the sufficiency of officials, who have to provide more care. We have to rely on volunteers,” he said.

Thailand reported 17,345 new COVID-19 cases and 117 deaths on Friday. Since the pandemic hit the country last year, it has recorded 578,375 infections and 4,679 fatalities. Data from the health ministry showed 192,526 patients were in hospitals on Friday and 1,012 of them were put on ventilators.

Thailand appeared to have managed the pandemic well last year, with months of zero transmission locally.

However, the situation took a sharp turn a few months ago. A cluster at Bangkok’s high-end nightclubs in April triggered waves of outbreaks that have since plunged the country into a crisis.

The spreading of the highly-contagious Delta variant and surging infections and deaths have raised public concern and provoked criticisms against the administration.

Reports of infected persons dying at home while waiting for hospital beds, insufficient COVID-19 vaccines and increasingly limited access to public healthcare have piled pressure on the government.

During the interview, Gen Prayut warned the public not to believe in everything they read or heard, urging them to check the information against what the government reported and analysed.