Avoiding a Covid third wave
Defenders of the Government are claiming that other issues like the sugar scam, the coconut oil scam, or the high price of coconuts and rice, and the humble vegetables, the rape of the forests etc., are being highlighted simply because the Government has successfully brought the COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging the entire world, under control.
In comparison to the new surge of the virus in India, Europe and the United States, the numbers in Sri Lanka may look relatively small, but it is too early to claim victory. After the first wave last year, there were similar boasts that Sri Lanka was an example to the world -- the same way it defeated terrorism, only to see a more virulent second wave that drastically increased the number of cases detected and the fatalities from 13 at the beginning of October 2020 to more than 600 now.
The Government's decidedly more organised anti-pandemic campaign of the early part of 2020 has been all but abandoned. The lockdowns have been replaced by calls to the public to act "more responsibly". The easing of those stringent controls of last year to open up a strangulated economy has led to a form of escapism by the populace best seen in the multitudes who took advantage of the long Avurudu holidays to travel around the country, many discarding the health guidelines. The one saving grace was that most wore masks. They threw a lifeline to the beleaguered hoteliers who waved them into their hallowed portals in the absence of foreign tourists.
Being an island-nation without porous land borders has been an advantage in the control of importing the virus from other countries. It is one major headache less. However, the opening up of the country to foreign tourists, especially from countries where the virus is raging with new waves and variants is a matter of serious concern.
India last week announced that its citizens can travel in 'air bubbles' to countries like Sri Lanka, but this measure was not reciprocal. Given the dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases in India these weeks, not many Sri Lankans would want to risk travel to that country anyway, but the question is why these decisions are not reciprocal.
The vaccination programme in Sri Lanka, meanwhile, has gone haywire with the abject politicisation of the state regulator, the NMRA (National Medicine Regulatory Authority). The Chinese vaccine Sinopharm has been bulldozed through the NMRA gatekeepers, the watchdog of the nation's health (pharmaceutical) system.
The Government is courting disaster by adopting a political approach to what is essentially a technical issue, especially at a time when at least some segments of the fight against COVID-19 are giving the red alert of a third wave to come. The lessons of the outbreak of the devastating second wave in October last year must at least be learnt. To state the obvious, we cannot afford a third wave.