Time for Government guidance

Friday, 13 August 2021 02:48 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The State Minister of Primary Health, Pandemics and COVID Prevention Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle this week seemed to break rank from the Government and asked the public to stay home if and when possible, regardless of whether an official lockdown is imposed.

While such advice may seem obvious, a quick saunter up to the main roads during traditional morning and afternoon peak traffic hours would provide a different story altogether.

Despite COVID death tolls now consistently averaging around 100 per day, and new COVID cases hitting around 3,000 daily, the general public don’t seem to be too concerned by the present state of affairs.

It’s this general public apathy to the pandemic that has led to calls, from many quarters, for another island wide lockdown, similar to the one imposed last year at the onset of the pandemic.

The Government’s hesitancy to this however is understandable to an extent. For one, the last lockdown took a devastating toll on the economy, a risk the Government is extremely reluctant to undertake a second time around.

Secondly, and most crucially, large swathes of the population are stuck between the proverbial ‘rock and a hard place’; while a lockdown is the only way to ease the burden on the strained healthcare system and limit the spread of the now seemingly dominant Delta variant of the coronavirus, the flip side is that many simply cannot afford to lose more income as a result of a lockdown – they simply must go to work if they are to survive.

As such, it’s not an enviable situation the Government finds itself in; damned if they do, damned if they don’t. However, this does not absolve them of responsibility, nor does it mean they can simply continue keeping the economy open and hope for the best.

The least they could do is follow Dr. Fernandopulle’s lead and take the initiative on advising the public and especially those in the private sector on how to remain safe.

This doesn’t have to be an official lockdown, but the Government can firmly insist on the implementation of work from home measures where possible, while doing its part to digitalise the public sector as well.

In this context, the restriction on the number of guests allowed at weddings was a laudable move, however, more can be done in terms of closing down restaurants, while allowing for takeaway and delivery, and movie theatres etc., so as to allow for the businesses to stay afloat but limit interaction between members of the public at the same time.

The Government also needs to ramp up testing in the country, so as to provide the general public with an accurate picture of precisely how dire the situation is. The grim reality is that the some 3,000 cases reported daily come from scarcely 18,000 tests – when those numbers are scaled, the outlook becomes genuinely frightening.

The recent revelation that COVID case numbers from Gampaha have been grossly underreported also doesn’t augur much confidence in the Government’s handling of this crisis, which is why the least they can do is advise the general public on the measures they can take to protect themselves – such as remote working wherever possible and limiting of mass gatherings in all public spaces, for a start.