Immediate curfew will prevent at least 1,200 additional deaths – Prof. Agampodi

By Rathindra Kuruvita

An immediate curfew will prevent at least 1,200 additional deaths within the next 20 days, Prof. Suneth Agampodi, Founder Professor and Chair – Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, says.

Prof. Agampodi said that they had developed a prediction model together with two Sri Lankan colleagues at Harvard and MIT and it showed that a five-day delay in imposing a curfew would lead to an “involuntary manslaughter” of at least 700 people.

Last week, the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) urged the government to impose a curfew as it was the only successful means of curtailing people’s movement in the country.

“The capacity to accommodate Covid-19 patients has virtually reached its tipping point. Also, the number of patients, and more disturbingly there is a daily exponential rise in the number of oxygen dependent patients. With the demand for an increasing number of beds, oxygen and trained personnel, it will be a matter of few days to reach catastrophic dimensions. This will claim lives of COVID-19 as well as patients with other diseases and conditions who require urgent treatment who would otherwise have survived,” AMS President Dr. Lakkumar Fernando said.