COVID- 19: Cabraal throws Worldometer at Opposition

… says Opposition’s Goebbelsian tactics won’t go down with discerning public

by Saman Indrajith

The Opposition was blind to reality, State Minister of Money Capital Markets and State Enterprise Reforms Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Parliament yesterday.

Participating in a debate at the time of adjournment of the House on COVID-19 second wave, the Minister said that the Opposition MPs were using the same refrain–– ‘the government failed and the government cannot’––without even comparing the situation in this country with those in the other parts of the world. “Such comparison is needed because this is a global pandemic. When they say that the government has failed there should be a basis for their claim. If they think that they could keep on saying the same and people would believe them, then they are mistaken. People in this country are more intelligent than the Opposition thinks them to be.

“I visited the COVID tracker known as Worldometer, which tracks COVID -19 cases worldwide and makes a comparison of figures of our country with other nations. As per the tracker, the number of infections some countries are as follows: India 8.7 million COVID 19 patients, China 8.6 million, the US 1.08 million, Germany 700,000, France 1.8 million, Italy one million and the UK 1.2 million.

“I also checked the number of deaths in those countries. There have been 128,000 deaths in India, 4,600 in China, 248,000 in the US, 12,276 in Germany, 42,000 in France, 3,000 in Italy, 50,000 in Great Britain. In Sri Lanka the number of patients is 15,000 and the number of deaths is about 50.

“The statistics prove that the Opposition allegations are baseless and they just clamour just for the need to shout. They shout that the government failed but haven’t even checked the numbers which show us that Sri Lanka’s stand in the face of crisis is commendable and we are better off than many developed nations.”