Medical professionals urge President to impose two-week lockdown

Give best vaccines to elders with co-morbidities

by Sanath Nanayakkare

The Sri Lanka Medical Association and the Intercollegiate Committee have urged President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to impose lockdown for a minimum of two weeks in order to prevent a vast escalation of COVID-19 infections and fatalities.

In a letter to the President, they said the lockdown should be imposed while maintaining essential services and with the programme for vaccination uninterrupted.

“All hospitals that provide services for the care of COVID 19 patients have exceeded their full capacity and are left with no vacant beds available for any new COVID 19 patients,” they said.

“As hospitals continue to expand space for COVID 19 patients endlessly, the services available for other diseases are also being severely compromised. The spread of the infection among healthcare workers has led to their falling ill leading to a severe shortage of staff,” they said.

Meanwhile, Medical professionals stressed the need to allocate vaccines that provide some immunity even with a single dose to all elders and to people with co-morbidities (simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient).

“Certain vaccines such as Moderna, Pfizer-biotech and AstraZeneca evoke significant protection following a single dose of the vaccine, while a single dose of Sinopharm provides no protection until two weeks after a second dose is given,” they pointed out.

“As there is a need for rapidly inducing immunity in high risk individuals such as those with co-morbidities and in older people over 60 years, we suggest vaccinating older people and people with co-morbidities with the above mentioned vaccines would save more lives,” they said.