Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered health agencies to speed up antigen tests and home isolation measures to treat Covid-19 patients amid rising Covid-19 infections in Bangkok and surrounding provinces.
Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said the premier, as the director of the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), was concerned over the spread of Covid-19.
More home isolation and community isolation measures would help reduce the number of patients in hospitals, where beds are in short supply. More antigen self-testing kits would also be provided for home use.
Patients would be treated at home or in the community where possible in high-infection areas such as Bangkok and the surrounding provinces, while patients in other provinces could be treated as normal in hospitals and field hospitals, he said.
The Public Health Ministry will send a Comprehensive Covid-19 Response Team comprising doctors, nurses, public health officers, volunteers and officers from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to take care of patients in isolation.
Meanwhile, the Department of Medical Services (DMS) and National Health Security Office (NHSO) have unveiled criteria for Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms being cared for in home or community isolation.
For home isolation, patients must not be critical and vulnerable; their homes must be spacious to arrange distancing; patients are supposed to stay indoors to prevent transmission, and hospitals must assign doctors to examine their symptoms via video call. They will also deliver thermometers, favipiravir and green chiretta to help ease symptoms, and three meals a day. If they get worse, they will be hospitalised.
For community isolation, local leaders have been told to monitor the situation. Patients must not be critical and be able to breathe themselves.
The BMA has cooperated with the DMS, medical schools, the public sector and civil society sector to provide zones as community isolation areas to accommodate at least 200 mild Covid-19 patients as they wait for beds. They will be cared for at temples, school meeting halls, worker camps or villages.
DMS director-general Dr Somsak Akksilp said the patients must not older than 60 years to meet its criteria. Doctors will follow up patients' condition and provide guidelines for blood oxygen level testing via a telemedicine system.