Putting the cart before the horse

Monday 14th December, 2020

Most countries are making preparations for mass vaccination campaigns to rid themselves of coronavirus, and busy sorting out financial and logistical issues. The UK has already begun inoculating its citizens against COVID-19. The US and India are among the nations planning to do so soon. But, in this land like no other, government politicians are busy promoting untested cures.

Large crowds were recently seen converging on a village in Kegalle, where a herbal syrup described as a cure for COVID-19 was distributed, free of charge. They blatantly violated the health guidelines, which, among other things, prohibit mass gatherings which are fraught with the danger of turning out to be superspreading events. The Health authorities do not seem to care.

The problem is not native physicians or shamans claiming to have found cures for COVID-19, as such, but the politicians sans a scintilla of knowledge of pharmacology promoting such ‘remedies’ even before they are scientifically tested. When they do so, it is only natural that the people get excited. Sri Lankans have earned notoriety for uncritical acceptance of anything hyped, and mass hysteria. Most of them fall for false claims, especially the one that boozing helps fight COVID-19 because alcohol destroys coronavirus.

Prominent among the politicians promoting the aforesaid potion are those who recently dropped clay pots containing some liquid into rivers, hoping to rid the country of coronavirus. They have sought to mix their brand of patriotism with the syrup. They argue that coronavirus has upended all known medical systems, especially allopathy and homeopathy, and, therefore, the syrup they are promoting should not be ridiculed. They may have a point, but the potion at issue should not be promoted as a cure for COVID-19 until it is scientifically proven to be so. The process of testing a drug is a complex and time-consuming one, which is best left to experts, and this country has enough of them; it is their opinion we should accept and not that of politicians.

As someone has rightly said, now that Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi and a bunch of other MPs have swigged the ‘magic potion’ during the last few days, they should be able to visit the COVID-19 treatment centres without wearing face masks if they are confident that the decoction has made them immune to the virus. After all, the Health Minister hugged the first COVID-19 patient found here—a Chinese woman—when the latter left hospital after recovery; she wanted to prove that there was no threat of transmission. Will she hug a Sri Lankan COVID-19 patient?

The real danger of wide publicity given to untested drugs being flaunted as cures for COVID-19 is that the public tends to think they do not have to fear the virus anymore and lower their guard.

Let politicians and bureaucrats be urged to render unto experts what is theirs and wait until new drugs are properly tested and clinically proven to promote them. What they have done is to put the cart before the horse.

Whether the aforesaid syrup is efficacious as a cure for COVID-19, we do not know. One should keep an open mind. Our position is that it should be tested properly by experts and its efficacy established, if any, before being recommended as a surefire means of tackling the pandemic. Politicians ought to exercise control over their restless tongues and refrain from using the decoction to gain political mileage. That is the least they can do to help prevent the situation in the country from becoming more chaotic.