By Rathindra Kuruwita

The runaway spread of COVID-19 increased the danger of a new variant of the virus evolving in Sri Lanka, Prof. Suneth Agampodi, founder Professor and Chair – Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, said yesterday. If vaccines happened to be ineffective against such a variant, the whole vaccination process might become an exercise in futility, they warned.

“Some people think we can just reduce the number of deaths by increasing hospital capacity. They think that since most people don’t show severe symptoms, we could live with the COVID. What they don’t understand is that new variants are created when the virus spreads among a large number of people. That’s how the Alpha variant evolved in the UK and how the Delta variant came into being in India. Right now we are allowing the Delta variant to spread rapidly among the people and by this we are increasing the probability of a new dangerous variant evolving,” he said.

Prof. Agampodi also said that the chance of a COVID patient, over 70 dying, compared to a patient between 30 and 60, was 30 times higher. A person over 60 had a 2000% chance of dying compared to a patient between 30 and 60.

Prof. Agampodi said that during the pandemic, epidemiologists acted as the intelligence services of the state, and the government should listen to their warnings. If the government did nothing, despite the warnings of epidemiologists, it would be indirectly responsible for the deaths.

“We can’t expect people to do the right thing. If people do the right thing, we don’t need leaders or a government. There is no time to develop skills and change attitudes of the people. We are in the middle of a pandemic where there are over 150 daily reported deaths. We have seen how China and other countries have dealt with the pandemic when it was reaching critical stages; we know what to do. We must formulate policies and implement them strictly. If we impose a curfew now people will stop dying in large numbers between two to four weeks,” he said.

The Chair – Department of Community Medicine said it was ridiculous to expect people to follow the health regulations as regards gatherings. Given that there was no hope of self-discipline, people’s behaviour should be governed by law.

“When the government enforced a curfew in March 2020, I was in Yale. I was critical of the move then because I thought it was overkill. But after coming back I realised that curfew was the only way to put a stop to this. We can have a curfew but still maintain economic activity in vital sectors, through proper planning,” he said.

Dr. Chandima Jeewandara of the Allergy, Immunology and Cell Biology Unit, Department of Immunology Molecular and Molecular Medicine of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, said that the number of new COVID-19 cases were at least 10 times the number of reported cases.

Dr. Jeewandara said that people should receive vaccines against COVID-19 as soon as possible. Sri Lanka already used the best vaccines in the world such as AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Moderna, Pfizer and Sputnik-V, but he regretted that fewer than 20% of the people had been double jabbed.

“Getting one dose of a vaccine is not enough, at all. To get enough protection, you need to take both doses and wait two weeks. Jabs will prevent you from dying of Covid-19. But can still get infected and spread the disease to others. So don’t let your guard down,” he said.

Dr. Jeewandara added that there were 11,000 people over the age of 60 who had not received a single dose of the vaccine. It was a high risk group and anecdotal evidence suggested that most of them had not been inoculated because they feared that the vaccine would exacerbate existing conditions. Some people were afraid of vaccination.

“My advice is that if you are over 60 and have existing conditions, you must get vaccinated. You are in a highly vulnerable group. If you contract Covid-19, your lives will be in danger. Some people think that there is no need to vaccinate their elderly parents because they are always home. The elderly might be at home but the others go out every day. Most people show no symptoms, and they can easily bring the disease home.”

Dr. Jeewandara said that a number of people had contacted him about getting a booster shot and almost all of them were those in positions of influence. Given that 80% of Sri Lankans had not received their second dose, the main goal of the government was to give both doses to everyone, especially to those in the vulnerable groups.

“New variants are created in countries that have a lot of cases. The best examples are the UK and India. In Sri Lanka we can already see there are mutations of the Delta variant. When we do gene sequencing, we upload our data to a global database. Our international colleagues have told us that there are mutations in Delta samples we have submitted and there is a risk of these developing into dominant variants. Given that there are a large number of cases in the country, Sri Lanka needs to stop the spread of the virus as soon as possible,” he said.

Dr. Jeewandara added that Sri Lanka had not changed rules and regulations to meet changing circumstances. Although the current need was to test as many people as possible, the government had still not changed a circular issued in June banning the private sector from carrying out antigen tests.