Amid the current COVID-19 outbreak, the number of daily new reported cases has continued to rise. Several COVID-19 patients are unable to isolate themselves at home due to many limitations. Increasing the number of community isolation facilities to accommodate COVID-19 patients, in order to provide them with care and treatment and a place to live separately from their family members while waiting to be admitted to hospitals, is, therefore, one of the missions that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) continuously expedites the implementation to support as many patients as possible. The BMA has searched for various venues, be it temples, schools, office buildings, and government offices or properties, in order to modify and change environment to be suitable for being community isolation facilities and organize medical team to take care of patients. The goal is set to have at least 1 community isolation center in each of all 50 districts in Bangkok Metropolis and more than 60 community isolation centers have been gradually opened all over Bangkok.

With kindness and generosity of Thai people, the BMA has received kind cooperation and support from all sectors, including government and private sectors, in setting up community isolation facilities to accommodate COVID-19 patients screened and detected by both sentinel surveillance and active case findings conducted by the Bangkok Comprehensive COVID-19 Response Teams (Bangkok CCRTs) who visited communities searching for COVID-19 patients using Antigen Test Kit (ATK). If any infected persons are found unable to do Home Isolation (HI), they will be brought to Community Isolation (CI) facilities located in the area. As for those who have the result of ATK test, they will get swabbed and tested for RT–PCR to confirm the diagnosis done by RT-PCR test team at the facilities.

The BMA expands its capacity to care for COVID-19 patients in order to fully expedite the control of the spread of COVID-19. Both field hospitals and community isolation centers have been added to cover all 50 districts of Bangkok, aiming at rapidly sending patients into treatment system as much as possible. The BMA also accelerates COVID-19 vaccination among the public in a bid to contain the spread of disease and make the situation return normal as soon as possible.