Sleeper trains in Bangkok to become isolation facilities for Covid-19 patients

[Thaiger]

Sleeper trains in Bangkok are being converted into isolation facilities for Covid-19 patients who are waiting for a hospital bed to become available. With the surge of Covid-19 cases, today hitting a record high of 17,669 new cases, hospitals in Bangkok, the epicentre of infections, have run low on beds to treat patients infected with the coronavirus. At Bang Sue Grand Station, 15 sleeping cars will become temporary isolation areas for those waiting for a hospital bed to become available. Each train car has 16 beds, allowing 240 people to isolate themselves at the railway station. The isolation centre will […]

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[NCC1701A]

are these the same trains that everybody used during Songkran to spread the virus far and wide?

Edited July 29, 2021 by NCC1701A

[AndreT]

Great idea! .... providing they don't go anywhere 

[Anto501]

Why is thailand still trying to treat everyone who tests positive the vast majority don't need treatment. Save your hospitals for the small percentage who actually need hospital care.

The mess the UK made of it here provides all the data needed to show percentages likely to need treatment ages demographics etc. 

It's pointless putting fit 20 year olds in hospitals for 2 weeks looking at Facebook when you have sick mom's and elderly people dying in their homes or on the streets because hospitals are full.

If by treatment the government really means isolation. Isn't there thousands of hotel rooms currently empty buy them up and isolate there if you can't trust people to stay home.

That or give them the means to stay home money to have meals delivered rent covered etc.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Anto501

[TobyAndrews]

They might as well use the trains this way, few are traveling . . .

[Stonker]

 

Why is thailand still trying to treat everyone who tests positive the vast majority don't need treatment. Save your hospitals for the small percentage who actually need hospital care.

 

These people aren't being "treated" in hospital.

 

The hospitals are being saved for those who actually need hospital care, although there are still insufficient hospital beds.

 

They're being isolated and quarantined, because they can't quarantine at home.

 

It's pointless putting fit 20 year olds in hospitals for 2 weeks looking at Facebook when you have sick mom's and elderly people dying in their homes or on the streets because hospitals are full.

The hospitals are full because there aren't enough hospital beds to treat those who need hospital treatment - not because "fit 20 year olds" are bring quarantined in hospitals, because they're not.

 

If by treatment the government really means isolation. Isn't there thousands of hotel rooms currently empty buy them up and isolate there if you can't trust people to stay home.

That or give them the means to stay home money to have meals delivered rent covered etc.

The government really means "isolation' which is why the article says "isolation".  Not "treatment".

 

Yes, there are thousands of hotel rooms currently empty but most aren't suitable for isolation / quarantine - some that are have been and are being used as hospitels.

 

It's not a question of "you can't trust people to stay home", although in the UK apparently barely 20% did, but of what "home" is.

 

What's the use of "money to have meals delivered rent covered etc" when "home" is a shared rented room, with several occupants, or a shared metal hut on a building site, or a factory dormitory?

 

There are reportedly some 20,000 waiting for a quarantine bed in Bangkok - not a hospital bed, but just a bed where they can be quarantined rather than have 20,000 more people spreading the virus around Bangkok as they have nowhere else to go.

 

Some would happily go "home" to the provinces, although usually they'd need to be given quarantine there as their own multi-generational family homes aren't suitable, but many of those won't go because it would mean walking out on a job that, even on reduced hours, gives them something rather than nothing and a redundancy payout if they're laid off - if they leave voluntarily, they lose that, minimal though it may be.

The government could legislate to prevent that, but it hasn't done so.

 

Bang Sue gives 240 extra beds, so another 19,760 are needed even at present levels which are rising by thousands every day.