Lesson Learned from the Measurement of the Community Isolation based on the Community Management in Thailand

Nattapat Sarobol[1]

Thanyaporn Chantaravech[2]

The objective of this study was to study the lessons learned from the Community Isolation[3] (CI) based on the community management, using Bueng Yitho Community Isolation (BYTCI) in the urban area of the central part of Thailand as a case study. The participants for an interview were representatives from the BYTCI team working at Bueng Yitho Municipality. The documents and previous research were also applied in this current study. The result showed that the average 20,000 new cases of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were found a day and approximately 150-300 new deaths were announced by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health during August 2021. The turning point of the COVID-19 situation in Thailand was caused by the number of new cases after Thai New Year 2021 from 800 per day into double. The crisis had intensified with rising cases burdening hospitals and pushing the collapse of the medical system in Thailand. Therefore, the containment and mitigation strategies were promoted to cope with diffusion of COVID-19, but it was still not effective. Meanwhile, the country had encountered different factors such as people’s behavior, the environment, the community density, social activities and its own custom. Among the crisis, Thai’s community was raised to be the main support organization for the patients in the community to provide the care system at home and community isolation for many cases not being able to be admitted to hospital. The study revealed that the community isolation (CI) program could not succeed without the strengths of the multidisciplinary team, health support system and voluntary and network system in the community. However, CI team reflected many obstacles in the policy and service level as follows: 1) the policy (the criteria for register and the medicine support) from the Ministry had always changed during the process running 2) some patients did not follow the rules of the CI 3) there were not many staff who were in charge with the CI program and 4) it was difficult to control the sanitarian in the CI. In conclude, most crises offer an opportunity to identify the gaps in the organization’s crisis management planning. The lesson showed that the emphasis on preparedness will not only be a priority for central governments but we need community organization is still remaining the connection between home isolation and community isolation and concerns the self-management based on the concept of co-working organization.