'No policy to let Covid-19 patients undergo treatment at home'

If hospital beds are full, they have a forwarding system with a field hospital and a hotel semi-hospital system (hospitel) to treat patients with mild symptoms.

Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, confirmed that unlike many other countries Thailand had no policy of people infected with Covid-19 being confined to their homes.

Infected persons must be hospitalised.

Dr Opas added that the majority of infected people in this new wave have relatively few symptoms, so a hotel system is adapted to be a hospitel, with a medical and public healthcare system. There is a referral system if the symptoms are more severe. There are now thousands of rooms available and if there are many infected people, field hospitals will be set up in Bangkok, he said.

He added that Thais or foreigners with suspected symptoms can detect the infection free of charge as the government subsidises the examination fee for everyone by providing a budget to the National Health Security Office of Bt3 billion, which is sufficient as of now.