Asymptomatic or Mild-symptom COVID-19 patients to isolate at home or community facilities
 
          From July 12, COVID-19 patients with Asymptomatic or mild symptoms in Bangkok metropolitan region will be put into home isolation or community isolation. Those include 2,500 patients who dialed the 1330 hotline of the National Health Security Office (NHSO) and not yet get hospital beds.
 
          NHSO secretary-general Dr Jadej Thammathach-aree said that home and community isolation was a recent public health measure to handle the shortage of hospitals beds and influx of patients at health facilities because of the rise of daily new cases.
 
          In recent months, the NHSO hotline has been a contact point for coronavirus patients to book hospital beds. But many patients dialing the hotline have Asymptomatic or mild symptoms (classified as “green,”) which can be treated at home under the guidance of medical staff. 
 
          Putting all of them in hospitals will exhaust public health resources and medical staff while seizing the chances for moderate- and severe-symptom patients (classified as yellow and red, respectively) to access care and hospital facilities.
 
          From now on, patients in the green category will be placed into home or community isolation. The latter is run in the facilities---including temple buildings and community halls---set up and managed by local communities. 
 
          Patients will be cared for by medical staff from 204 community or private clinics partnering with the NHSO. Each clinic can look after 200 patients. 
 
          Clinic staff will contact the patients within 48 hours after they dial the NHSO hotline, then deliver thermometers, oxygen saturation monitors, and green chiretta capsules for treating fever.
 
          They will also closely monitor the patients by arranging video call and deliver three meals a day to patients’ houses or community isolation facilities. 
 
          If patients' health conditions are worsening, clinic staff will assist in transferring patients to hospitals. They will receive Favipiravir while waiting for the transfer.
 



          “Home and community isolation will help COVID-19 patients access care and medicine faster. It’s better than leave him in uncertainty while waiting for hospital beds,” said Dr Jadej
 
          In addition, the NHSO, Urban Institute for Disease Prevention and Control, and Mahidol University’s Faculty of Medical Technology are working together to launch a rapid antigen test service in several locations across Bangkok from July 14.
 
          The service has a capacity of testing 10,000 people a day. Anyone who test positive and has mild symptoms will be sent into home or community isolation.