Crisis Management during the First Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic Situation

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a massive pandemic crisis occurring across Thailand and the world. It has entirely affected the health system responsiveness of Thailand. The purpose of this study was to examine the governance mechanism and management processes in response to the first wave of COVID-19 in Thailand in 2020. A retrospective document review was conducted by studying the government’s management during the COVID-19 situation between January and December 2020 via online resources and websites, and summarized our research team’s lessons learnt from direct participation in academic and strategic supports for the Operation Center of the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (OC-CCSA) as well as key informant interview in the stakeholders from government, private and civil society sectors. The results revealed that crisis management differed at each step. From the preparatory phase to the full outbreak response phase, the policies and measures were unidirectionally implemented as “one-size-fits-all”. During the continuous phase, regional and provincial decentralization has been used in order to align with local context to balance between health and economic outcomes.