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 Thailand has in the last few months been struggling with its worst
outbreak since the start of the pandemic, driven by the highly
contagious Delta variant, first detected in India.
The country's COVID-19 task force reported on Thursday 17,669
coronavirus cases and 165 deaths, both record highs, while it said
21 of the fatalities died at home.
"We don't know where to put the sick people anymore, the ER
(emergency room) units in many hospitals have to be temporarily
closed because they no longer have bed spaces," Somsak Akksilp, head
of the Department of Medical Services, told a news conference.
In Bangkok and nearby provinces, more than 1,200 people were waiting
for hospital beds and over 6,000 called a hot line over the past
week requesting treatment, health authorities said.
There are more than 37,000 hospital beds in Bangkok, according to
the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Earlier in the pandemic, all COVID-19 patients were admitted to
hospitals, but Somsak said authorities last month brought in home
isolation for more than 30,000 people in Bangkok and surrounding
provinces.
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 The government has also been
converting public places in Bangkok into
temporary field hospital for COVID-19 patients
as the spike in cases strains the city's health
system.
The jump in infections has increased pressure on
the government to boost the sluggish pace of
vaccinations, with only 5.6% of Thailand's more
than 66 million people fully vaccinated.
Thailand won plaudits for containing the
coronavirus for most of last year, but
authorities have struggled to halt the wave of
cases starting in April that has taken total
infections to 561,030, with 4,562 fatalities.
(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat
Thepgumpanat; Editing by Ed Davies)
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