Hotels get eight guidelines for quarantine

Department of Health Director-General Panpimol Wipulakorn on Wednesday (April 22) issued hotels with guidelines on managing environmental health for the safety of guests under quarantine. The move came after Panpimol visited Bangkok’s Patra Hotel, which has been turned into a state quarantine facility for those arriving back from abroad. The eight guidelines are as follows:
1. Guests must have separate bedrooms, bathrooms, toilets, and dining rooms. Frequently touched areas must be cleaned often and garbage managed properly.
2. The hotel must have a clean and hygienic place to prepare and cook food, or external agencies who meet standards to do the same.
3. It must provide bottled water or drinking water in tightly closed containers.
4. There should be a laundromat that can clean clothes and destroy germs efficiently. If an external agency accepts the duties, it must be an organisation that can operate under the specified rules.
5. Each toilet must have a sanitary and safe sewage collection system.
6. A wastewater treatment and disinfection system working 24 hours a day according to specified criteria.
7. Hygienic collection of waste, both general garbage and waste contaminated by contact with people under quarantine.
8. The hotel must also execute a strategy for promoting awareness, understanding, and environmental health protection measures in its local community to prevent conflicts arising.
Hotel workers, visitors and guests must have their body temperature checked before entering the building, and wear a face mask and gloves while avoiding touching their face, nose and mouth. People should stay 1-2 metres apart and wash hands frequently with soap and water or 70 percent alcohol hand sanitizer. Medical attention should be sought immediately if they develop fever, cough, sneezing, sore throat or wheezing.
Workers who deal with garbage must wear long-sleeved waterproof coats or long-sleeved shirts, long trousers, aprons, thick rubber gloves and boots, along with face masks, eye protection glasses or face shield. After completing work each day, they must wash hands, shower, and change clothes immediately.