Confirmation of the change came not even overnight. It actually came the same day, yesterday, when the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket) posted the daily updates of mass vaccination campaign in Phuket for both Sunday (Oct 3) and for Monday (Oct 4).
The daily report for Sunday, posted at 2:13pm yesterday, used 467,587 as the population of the island, as it has done since Phuket provincial officials began their daily update reports earlier this year.
The report noted that 435,632 people on the island had received at least one COVID-19 vaccination injection. By using 467,587 as the population of the island ‒ instead of as the target number of people to be vaccinated ‒ the report claimed that 93% of the population on the island had received one vaccination jab.
Likewise, the report for Sunday noted that 398,189 people had received two injections, and claimed that the number constituted 85% of the island’s population.
The report also marked that 193,754 people had received their third-dose ‘booster’ shot, which was claimed to represent 42% of the population.
However, by 9:45pm last night, the report for Monday (Oct 4) was posted, with a new population figure of 547,584 given ‒ bringing it into line with the population figure consistently used by the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office (PPHO) throughout the campaign.
The mass vaccination update for Monday noted that 432,765 people had received one vaccination injection. This time, however, that number was reported to represent a now much more realistic 79.03% of the island’s population.
Similarly, the report for Monday noted that 409,505 had received two vaccine injections, representing 74.78% of the island’s population. The report also noted that 190,744 people had received their third-dose booster shots, representing 34.83% of the island’s population.
The change in recognising 547,584 as the island’s actual population came with no explanation.
The daily mass vaccination update reports for Phuket using 467,587 as the island’s population has led to much misreporting of the actual progress of the mass vaccination campaign in Phuket for months, with national news agencies and even Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha repeating the figures given, misreporting the actual progress of the campaign.
Of note, the PPHO has consistently used 547,584 as the island’s population to be vaccinated.
In the PPHO’s publicly posted progress report of the mass vaccination rollout, as of today 433,121 people have received one vaccination jab (79.1%), 409,644 people have received two vaccination jabs (74.81%) and 197,084 people have received third-dose booster jabs (35.99%).