BANGKOK, March 7 (TNA) – Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said he would tomorrow propose the cabinet approve the definition of yellow and red-coded COVID-19 patients as emergency patients while slightly ill green-coded patients will be treated as outpatients or do home quarantine.
Mr Anutin, also a deputy prime minister, said that he would propose that heavily ill patients of yellow and red codes would receive free treatment services under the Universal Coverage for Emergency Patients program and slightly ill patients could seek treatment as outpatients or do home isolation and receive the medications that suited their symptoms.
Besides, Mr Anutin admitted that there were 60,000-70,000 calls to the 1330 hotline of the National Health Security Office. He said the government would increase communication channels for the hotline to meet the demand.
The Department of Disease Control reported that 21,162 people were confirmed with COVID-19 through RT-PCR tests over the past 24 hours and 24,236 others were suspected of also having the disease through antigen tests in the same period. Meanwhile, the country logged 65 new fatalities related to the disease.
The department also said that 230,459 people were receiving COVID-19 treatment.
Bangkok recorded the most new COVID-19 cases at 2,815, followed by 1,043 cases in Nakhon Si Thammarat, 903 in Samut Prakan, 803 in Chon Buri and 724 in Nonthaburi. (TNA)
