A child infected with Covid-19 was thrown out of a patient room at a hospital by his roommate who claimed that the child talked loudly to his mother on the phone.
A Facebook user posted that the child, the only infected-person in his family, was scolded and ejected from the patient room. The child was crying outside of the room in the middle of the night when the Facebook user found him.
The Facebook user, who has been admitted to the same hospital with Covid-19, took the child to stay in his room. He later contacted the child's parents and said they allowed the child to stay with him.
In a related story, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon yesterday presided over a meeting via video conference to follow up on Covid-19 testing for workers at the Labour Ministry.
The deputy PM asked the Labour Ministry and Social Development and Human Security Ministry to collaborate in establishing hospitals for Covid-19 infected children.
Gen Prawit also suggested that ministries provide assistance, such as skills development for the self-employed who might lose their jobs or income during the pandemic.
The self-employed are among the first group of people who have received support from the government's Covid-19 bailout schemes. Company employees under Section 33 of the 1990 Social Security Act have received 4,000-baht handouts. Eligible recipients must not have state welfare cards and their combined outstanding bank balances must be less than 500,000 baht as of the end of 2020.
The deputy PM further advised the two ministries to set up a proactive Covid-19 screening system in line with disease control measures and to provide swift treatment to at-risk groups in the social security system. Gen Prawit instructed the Labour Ministry to work with hospitals in the social security system's network to find beds for insured Covid-19 patients. Asymptomatic patients would be sent to so-called "hospitels", he said.
The deputy PM called on businesses to offer Covid-19 testing to staff. The Labour Ministry received praise from the deputy PM for conducting proactive Covid-19 testing in provinces with high numbers of at-risk people.