When Thailand reached the grim milestone of more than one million accumulated Covid-19 infection cases on Friday, some thought the government might have learnt some lessons and gained experience from the Covid crisis.
But the antigen test kit saga indicates the government has yet to learn any lessons. After 20 months, the government is still moving at a glacial pace, nonchalant to the emergency of the Covid pandemic.
The delay in the procurement of alternative vaccines has caused the country to mainly rely on Sinovac; a vaccine that has proved to have relatively less efficacy than others when the coronavirus mutated into a more transmissive variant.
The delay in lockdown measures that allowed large crowds to travel across provinces during the Songkran long holidays caused the virus to spread.
The government's slow-motion work style in introducing home and community isolation led to the collapse of the public healthcare system in which the country was once proud.
We have seen climbing death rates, with several people found dead at home or even on the streets.
Its inert bureaucratic rules led to more transmissions that could have been prevented. Under this red tape, Covid patients were required to take two Covid tests -- an initial Covid antigen test and then an RT-PCR test to receive hospital treatment.
Fortunately, the ministry revised this time-consuming and costly requirement last month, allowing patients to get only one Covid antigen test.
Yet the litany of errors is not over. The delay in state procurement of 8.5 million home-use ATKs showed once again how the government is slow to learn.
In the latest saga, The National Health Security Office (NHSO), the procurement sponsor, has orchestrated with the Rural Doctors Society to oppose the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) move to procure Chinese Lepu ATKs, claiming the product could be substandard as it is banned by the US FDA.
The GPO, however, insists on the quality of the product, which won the Aug 10 auction at a unit price of 70 baht, much lower than the reference price of 120 baht.
As the number of accumulated Covid cases increases, society should not have to witness doctors quarreling over procurement of needed life support devices.
The NHSO wants to use the "specific purchase" method to procure the ATKs, with a fixed prerequisite that the product must be endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The GPO, however, chose the normal open-bidding approach, explaining it allows more suppliers to participate in the bid.
However, the GPO's bidding conditions have been criticised too.
It required the bid winner to deliver 8.5 million ATKs before Aug 10, the same day as the auction, and requires an instruction document in Thai for the product packaging. Critics say suppliers might not be able to deliver, nor prepare Thai language documents in time.
Finally, Ostland Capital, the supplier of Lepu ATKs, won the bid as it offered the lowest price. The GPO and Ostland Capital insisted the product has passed several examinations in terms of quality standards.
The saga went a lamentable step further after Gen Prayut said ATK products to be procured by the government must be endorsed by WHO.
In the meantime, the message from a weary and anxious public must be this: All parties must stop playing silly games while people's lives hang in the balance.
