Policy of living with virus disastrous; country must be locked down – Expert

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The overall public health strategy had to be reformed and placed under a new management, Executive Director of the Institute for Health Policy (IHP), Dr Ravi Rannan-Eliya told The Island yesterday.

Dr. Eliya said that the situation in Sri Lanka was very bad. The pandemic had got out of control with the government running out of cash and foreign reserves, he said.

“There is a widespread transmission and vaccination alone cannot curb it effectively. probably over a 1000 dying each week, hospitals overwhelmed, and our test and trace capacity overwhelmed too. This situation has come about as it has not been realised that testing is critical to controlling the virus,” he said.

He warned that there was nothing that could be done to prevent thousands more dying in the next few months. However, Sri Lanka could reduce the death toll and still prevent thousands of deaths. To do this, the government must enforce a strict lockdown for some time and ramp up testing.

“We need to do this urgently. Even a single day’s delay makes the challenge even harder and causes more deaths. The public health strategy needs to be reformed and brought under a new management.

The IHP Executive Director added that the government’s refusal to act fast reflected the misconception that taking action to control the virus would damage the economy. The government still had not realised that its policy of living with the virus that had caused more damage to the economy than trying to beat the virus.

“They also have not realiSed that living with the virus and ignoring the deaths will adversely affect their political future. .