Lockdown planning 

Despite the Government finally rousing itself from its months-long stupor to tighten health and travel restrictions around the country, calls are still growing for a complete lockdown of the country for at least the next two to three weeks.

While in the past these calls have come from civil society and members of the medical fraternity, they are now notably also coming from within the Government’s own base, with 10 affiliated parties having signed off on a letter asking for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to implement a total countrywide lockdown.

The sense of urgency in these pleas is understandable when taking into consideration the health crisis unfolding in the country. This past week, the country’s total COVID death toll passed the 6,000-mark, while new cases are now averaging over 3,500 a day – this with testing still woefully inadequate at around 18,000 a day. 

This is in stark contrast to news that New Zealand – one of the few healthcare success stories during this pandemic – had ordered a strict lockdown after the country had detected its first coronavirus case in six months. New Zealand and its Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s policy has been “go hard, go early”.

Hindsight is, as they say, 20/20, but it bears pondering what state Sri Lanka would be in had President Rajapaksa implemented a similar policy, one that he was incidentally lauded for during the initial outbreak of the pandemic early last year.

Minister Bandula Gunawardana’s recent remarks to the effect that “the Government can implement a lockdown this very minute, if the people are ready to starve,” gives an idea as to the Government’s thought process and, indeed, its hesitancy in implementing an total lockdown.

But in the present scenario, the Government is seemingly running out of options. The true COVID-related death toll might possibly be far higher, as patients with other health conditions are being deprived of treatment, including urgent, life-saving treatment, because the health system is overwhelmed by the COVID-19 response.

A temporary lockdown, even for a few weeks, would ease the burden on hospitals and allow them to get back on firm footing. In turn, this will help them to take better care of COVID patients, as well as those with non-COVID illnesses.

The Government for its part seems to have pinned all of its hopes on its, admittedly rigorous, vaccination drive, in the belief that getting the entire population vaccinated would eventually help for a gradual reopening of the country. However, going by news coming out of Israel – a country that is among the highest in the world for COVID-19 vaccination, with nearly 80% of its population above the age of 12 fully vaccinated - the Sri Lankan Government may need to think again.

The Delta variant has seen cases spike in Israel, with the country logging one of the world’s highest infection rates at present – some 650 per million people daily, half of which are in fully vaccinated people. This has, unsurprisingly, brought to the fore once more the conversation about booster shots. This, ultimately, looks to be the most likely scenario in a post-COVID landscape; a world where the virus is managed and mitigated, rather completely eradicated, due to its constantly evolving nature.

But at this point, making any sort of prediction seems futile, rather the Sri Lankan Government needs to root itself in adaptability, as opposed to hesitancy and passivity. A lockdown, whilst prioritising making arrangements for what that might mean to the most vulnerable in society, would be a start. Proactive decision-making is a must.