When the first two Delta variant cases were detected in Thailand from a Thai woman and her four-year old child returning from Pakistan in May, no one would have thought the fast-spreading Covid-19 strain would conquer Thailand in just three months.
Yet last Friday, Thailand surpassed the one million mark, logging 1,009,710 infection cases, most of them the Delta variant.
It is pointless to repeat the past mistakes and utter failure of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the men in the white gowns at the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) in their management of the pandemic.
Not just because of their lack of foresight, gross miscalculation or misjudgement of the situation. The worst thing is that some appear to not be learning their lessons from their past mistakes and making amends.
The latest controversy concerns the procurement of 8.5 million home-use rapid antigen test kits (ATKs) by the National Health Security Office (NHSO) through the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation for distribution to people via hospitals.
ATKs, like RT-PCR tests, are an important tool to separate those infected with Covid-19 from everyone else although they are less accurate and may yield false negative results, depending on the quality of each brand.
But because the RT-PCR tests take too much time and we don't have the luxury of time under the present circumstances, ATKs are ideal to fill the void.
All doctors and the prime minister know that. Yet they (the NHSO and the GPO) cannot agree on what brand of ATKs to be imported. Instead, we get back-stabbing between the GPO and the Rural Doctors Society, perceived as siding with the NHSO.
And looming behind this unsavoury tussle are the shadows of the prime minister on the one side and Public Health Minister Anutin Charvirakul on the other.
It should be understood that the NHSO, although a state agency, is legally barred from procuring the ATKs or other medical supplies and the procurement process has to go through the GPO.
However, the NHSO has set the TOR (terms of reference) for the ATKs it wants. Some highlights of the TOR are that the price per kit is not more than 120 baht; the product must be approved by the WHO; and the kits must have 95% of sensitivity and 98% specificity.
More importantly, the successful bidder also must be able to deliver the first batch of 3 million ATKS one day after signing the procurement deal, and another batch of 3 million kits three days after that.
Ostland Capital was chosen by the GPO for offering the lowest bid at 70 baht apiece which will cost the NHSO only 600 million baht compared to one billion baht for the next bidder. The GPO claimed the product, produced by China's Beijing Lepu Medical Technology, has passed tests by Ramathibodi hospital. But the Rural Doctors Society objected, claiming the Lepu test kits were rejected by the US Food and Drugs Administration and not approved by the WHO.
It also challenged the GPO to go ahead with the contract signing and threatened to send its men to monitor the actual use of the test kits, reportedly to prove their inferior quality.
Out of the blue, the prime minister intervened, issuing an instruction that the ATKs must meet standards set by the WHO, without specifying the deal to be inked between GPO and Ostland Capital.
The RDS chimed in, pouring praise on the prime minister.
Well, you can't judge a person from his face as the maxim goes. What the RDS did not mention, intentionally or accidentally, is the fact the WHO has not approved the home use of any brands of ATKs, but only professional use of several ATKs, including Lepu kits as well as the South Korean-made SD Biosensor kits offered by another firm which lost the bidding contest.
Rumours have been going around to the effect that, before the bidding, the NHSO was accused of favouring the Korean product offered by another bidder. So, how will the GPO proceed with this deal: call a new bid, or defy the prime minister by inking the deal with the bid winner?
One thing for sure is that the deal is delayed. That means a delay in the delivery of the badly-needed ATKs to curb the spread of the contagion.
Although ATKs are now available in drugstores at an average of 300 baht per kit, how many people can afford to buy them at a time when many are out of jobs and have run out of money even for the basics.
We may wonder why these doctors can't talk to each other in a mature manner to settle this simple issue quickly if they are genuinely concerned about the people and want to curb the spread of the contagion.
Another day of delay means more infections, more suffering or death. In the meantime we are left with another mess to sort out, and still more stupid back-stabbing. Why?
Veera Prateepchaikul is former editor, Bangkok Post.