Businesses offer help to curb outbreak

More businesses have offered to help with the battle to contain the spread of the coronavirus, as the military pools resources to support the government’s fight against the outbreak.

The Quarter Residence, a small hotel with four rooms and 15 beds located just 150 metres from the BTS Skytrain’s Phaya Thai station, is the latest business to offer help.

It will temporarily suspend business to provide free accommodation and service for medical experts and healthcare workers dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak at nearby hospitals, which include Rajavithi, Phyathai, Mission, Phramongkutklao and Police General hospitals.

These workers are welcome to stay or even stop by just to wash and change at the hotel, so they don’t have to travel all the way home, the hotel said yesterday.

Meanwhile, Defence Ministry spokesman Lt Gen Kongcheep Tantravanich said the armed forces are preparing to convert their facilities into temporary accommodation with about 2,000 beds for Covid-19 patients with mild and moderate symptoms.

All 13 military hospitals across the country have also been instructed to support the Public Health Ministry’s efforts to treat Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms, he said.

To control the spread of the virus, the armed forces are helping medical personnel to screen incoming passengers at airports, he said.

“Soldiers have also been dispatched to the country’s 13 immigration checkpoints along the border to help screen travellers, especially migrant workers,” he said.

“Meanwhile, other soldiers are helping with the distribution of surgical masks from factories to hospitals across the country.”

The Defence Ministry is also working with the Public Health Ministry on a joint plan to cope with a large-scale spread of Covid-19 in Bangkok, he said.