Greater support needed for frontline workers

There's little point any more in blaming the Government for allowing the COVID-19 pandemic to slip into virtual free fall. Reports coming in from all parts of the country are distressing. The time for blame-games is over, it’s time for action.

That the country as much as the world was taken by surprise last year when the virus broke out of China to infect the whole world through open borders and individual Governments that ' played it by ear' permitting a certain degree of laxity and carelessness among their citizens, failed to curb the curve, is easy to see in retrospect. It was a case of the 'blind leading the blind' in how to cope with the new virus. An independent report has now suggested an over-arching global monitoring system in the future so that no country can suppress such bad news for too long.

Ironically, Sri Lanka performed relatively well at the start of the pandemic in controlling the spread while Europe and the United States went reeling, especially as they were too late in closing their borders. Being an island, Sri Lanka had the advantage of not having too many entry points and no porous land borders. And yet, under pressure from interested parties in the hospitality industry and those fly-by-night newcomers to the business with relative merits, the Government imported the virus with its eyes open. The Government listened to the wrong advisors and got the balance between health and economy skewed. Now, the consequences.

The centralised command structure seems to have collapsed. The need now is for rapid decentralisation. The system is overwhelmed and reliance on the vaccination programme as the sole life-saver is not enough. The vaccination rollout itself is riddled with favouritism locally and up against a global shortage on the other side partly due to Intellectual Property issues by manufacturers demanding returns on their Research and Development expenses and countries like the UK and the US hoarding stocks due to traditional self-interest measures.

While the Government is now down to firefighting this blaze, everything must be done to support the hard-pressed and over-burdened health workers -- at ground level. From the doctors, nurses, laboratory assistants to the health inspectors and ambulance drivers working round the clock, dressed in cumbersome PPE gear, all resources including welfare measures and extra allowances must be made available to them from whatever budget. It is they who are now in the frontlines of this 'war', face to face with the unseen enemy, and in the protection of victims.

With India now the epicentre of the pandemic and the World Health Organisation warning this year is worse and more dangerous than last year, the situation is not just grim but dire.