Make lockdown work

Friday 11th June, 2021

The Covid-19 fatality rate shows no signs of plateauing any time soon, much less decreasing although the current lockdown has been in force for about three weeks. It was reported yesterday that 67 deaths had occurred due to the pandemic on Wednesday—the highest ever in a single day in this country. Curiously, there have been no such exponential increases in infections if the Health Ministry statistics are anything to go by. There are two possibilities, according to health experts. Either the severity of the disease has increased, killing more people, while the rate of virus transmission actually remains at the same level, or the number of PCR tests conducted daily has been decreased. Doctors have warned the government that any reduction in PCR testing will stand in the way of assessing the pandemic situation properly and, therefore be counterproductive.

The Covid-19 deaths are officially announced in such a way that one suspects a government attempt at obfuscation. The only way the Health Ministry can allay doubts as regards the mortality rate is to announce the number of new fatalities for each day of the week separately. Gobbledygook won’t do. Every statistical lie has a short shelf life. There is no alternative to aggressive testing in the fight against Covid-19, and the government had better heed expert advice. The country is in the current mess with so many lives being lost daily, because the government ignored doctors’ call for a lockdown in April.

Lockdowns helped prevent the formation of infection clusters very effectively last year because they were coupled with a quarantine curfew. The government was blamed for overreacting then. But this time around, the lockdown has not been so effective probably because many workplaces have been allowed to function without adequate pandemic prevention measures being adopted to ensure the safety of workers.

About 92 out of 300 workers who underwent PCR testing at a private factory in the Dompe MHO area have tested positive for Covid-19, according to media reports. These infected workers must have travelled to and from work, exposing their family members, friends and others to the disease. The existence of such infection clusters may explain why the death toll from the pandemic continues to rise in spite of the current lockdown. A similar situation is said to prevail in many other workplaces, especially factories, which must be inspected regularly.

As for the spread of Covid-19, people working in cramped conditions, run the same risk as partygoers, however essential it may be to keep factories and other such workplaces open to mitigate the adverse economic impact of the lockdown. Unless urgent action is taken to prevent the transmission of the deadly virus through these places, the current lockdown is bound to fail. The health authorities will have to inspect all workplaces that remain open to see if they have become pandemic hotspots, and ensure that aggressive PRC testing is done and workers are inoculated against Covid-19 on a priority basis. The Dompe factory cluster would not have emerged if the health officials responsible for inspecting the place had done their job properly. There is no way so many workers could work while being sick, unbeknownst to their employers. Were they forced to work to meet production targets despite their sickness? An investigation is called for.

Going by the sheer number of vehicles on roads, one may wonder whether the country is under lockdown at all, or if all Sri Lankan workers are engaged in the provision of essential services. It is humanly impossible for the police to check every vehicle, and almost all drivers and riders produce letters from their employers, claiming that they have to report for work. Confusion over who should actually go to work to maintain essential services and keep the economy ticking has to be cleared to prevent many institutions from making their employees report for work unnecessarily amidst the worsening pandemic situation.

The government keeps extending lockdowns. Necessary as such action is, given the increasing death rate, it may not help curb the spread of the pandemic unless the current movement restrictions are strictly enforced. It is high time the situation was reassessed and stringent remedial action taken to make the lockdown work so that the pandemic could be brought under control for the country to be reopened soon.