Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul has asked the National Health Security Office (NHSO) to increase the capacity of its 1330 Covid hotline to accommodate the increasing number of callers.
The NHSO said more than 70,000 calls were made to the 1330 hotline on 1 March. According to the current guideline, people who test positive for COVID-19 are asked to call this number to register for home isolation.
Minister Anutin said he had asked for a capacity increase and for more hospitals to provide outpatient treatments to infected people with mild to no symptoms. He said the current situation is different from that of last year. This year, Thailand has not seen a shortage of beds or vaccines, and that the country’s capacity to handle the virus is much greater.
Meanwhile, he said his ministry would be pressing ahead with the removal of mild COVID-19 cases from the Universal Coverage for Emergency Patients (UCEP) program. A proposal to do so will be presented to the Cabinet next week.
According to him, additional funding will need to be approved by the Cabinet to cover the treatments of yellow- and red-coded patients who require hospitalization, which will include treatments at private hospitals. (NNT)
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