Covid 19 has breached the walls of Sarnelli House once again, with six teenagers and one staff member currently in hospital and three more groups quarantining in various rooms and buildings, as per Thai health regulations. In fact, the whole of Sarnelli House is in lockdown at present with kids having to stay in their houses, behind closed gates. Kru Noi, Kung, Kate and Dar have been testing children, issuing masks, arranging meals, planning trips to hospitals, securing isolation rooms and trying to keep everyone calm. Their work has been herculean. Thankfully, none of the infected children or staff are displaying symptoms and should be discharged next week.
All of our children and staff are now being ATK tested at least once a week, sometimes twice if they have been in contact with anyone who may have tested positive. New masks have to be worn every day and the staff are going through gloves and PPE gear very quickly. These costs add up. One good quality antigen test costs 85 Thai baht. We have over 150 kids and workers on site so it adds up to anywhere between 13,000 & 22,000 THB per week to test all our people once and some twice. A box of 50 masks is on average 100 THB and we like to give each kid and staff member a new one each day, sometimes more. This comes to another 2,500 THB per week. The Thai health authorities have requested that our staff wear two pairs of latex gloves each time they test a child and then change them between tests so one box of 100 costing 230 THB lasts only 50 tests.
We estimate that we have spent almost 40,000 Thai baht (about $1,250) in the last week alone on testing and safety equipment. And we don’t yet know if we have reached the peak of localized infection. If anyone would like to make a donation towards these unexpected expenses, they can do so using the DONATE button at the top of this page.
Thank you to those in the USA and the Netherlands for already giving towards this endeavour but the donations received are running out quickly.
