WHO is considering airborne precautions” for medical staff after a new study showed the coronavirus can survive in the air in some settings.
The coronavirus can go airborne, staying suspended in the air depending on factors such as heat and humidity, WHO officials said.
The World Health Organization is considering airborne precautions” for medical staff after a new study showed the coronavirus can survive in the air in some settings.
The virus is transmitted through droplets, or little bits of liquid, mostly through sneezing or coughing, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, told reporters during a virtual news conference on Monday. When you do an aerosol-generating procedure like in a medical care facility, you have the possibility to what we call aerosolize these particles, which means they can stay in the air a little bit longer.”
She added: It’s very important that health-care workers take additional precautions when they’re working on patients and doing those procedures.”
World health officials say the respiratory disease spreads through human-to-human contact, droplets carried through sneezing and coughing as well as germs left on inanimate objects. The coronavirus can go airborne, staying suspended in the air depending on factors such as heat and humidity, they said.
Kerkhove said health officials are aware of several studies in a number of countries looking at the different environmental conditions that COVID-19 can persist. Scientists are specifically looking at how humidity, temperature and ultraviolet lighting affects the disease as well as how long it lives on different surfaces, including steel, she said.
Health officials use the information to make sure WHO’s guidance is appropriate, and so far … we are confident that the guidance that we have is appropriate,” she added. Health officials recommend medical staff wear so-called N95 masks because they filter out about 95% of all liquid or airborne particles.
In health-care facilities, we make sure health-care workers use standard droplet precautions with the exception … that they’re doing an aerosol-generating procedure,” she said.
As
if we did not have one global virus to contend with – there is another biased virus.
A bandwagon calling themselves human rights activists deem the pardon of ‘butcher’
Sunil Ratnayake to be an unpardonable offence by President Gotabaya Rajapakse. Where
were these angels when LTTE were killing pregnant Sinhalese mothers in Kent
& Dollar Farms in 1985? Of course, it’s important to understand that the
attack against Sunil Ratnayake is in reality an indirect attack against the
President who was gaining popularity amongst the people for his professionalism
in handling the covid-19. That professionalism was spraying charcoal over those
that they brought to power in January 2015. Let these goody-two-shoes bathe in
their glory-minutes as the pardon has afforded a life-line to those that had
been biting their nails searching for some news to make them relevant. Bless
you, Sunil Ratnayake, they must be saying!
The
manner of the one-sided justice and human rights mechanism is today exposing
itself globally and it won’t take too long for people to call their bluff or perhaps
corona-karma might visit them before that, but whoever is parroting about the
injustice in releasing Sunil Ratnayake must also explain why they have failed
to object when hardcore LTTE combatants were equally released even by the
Mahinda Rajapakse government?
Why
didn’t the same media and human rights group object when 594 Tamil child
soldiers were also given presidential pardon after May 2009? Why didn’t they
demand justice for attacks by LTTE on innocent villagers killing sleeping women
& children, on mosques killing people in prayer, on Buddhist temples
killing those in meditation, on Buddhist student priests killed one after
another inside a bus? On innocent passengers in buses and trains blown to bits
for doing no harm to LTTE?
President
Sirisena pardoned convicted LTTEr Sivaraja
Jenivan at a ceremony too in 2016.
Why
didn’t this same media & human rights organizations call LTTE as ‘butchers’
– why is the reference to murderers applicable only to the Sri Lankan
Army?
While
LTTE terrorists carried out over 300 such attacks against innocent civilians, the
case of Sunil Ratnayake is dependent on one flimsy ‘witness’ account of a man
who managed to escape from 14 Sri Lankan soldiers! If these soldiers could kill
8 why did they spare this ‘witness’ whose testimony is as a result of him
having his eyed bound by his sarong and then thrown to a fence and then his
blindfold getting removed allowing him to see Sunil Ratnayake and escape 14
soldiers!
Sensationalism
at its best.
Those
parroting reports on Sunil Ratnayake – pause for a few minutes and ask yourselves
these questions about this supposed ‘massacre’
Tamil civilians were barred from coming
to the area where the Army was located?
Why?
LTTE
dressed like civilians and came pretending to gather firewood and other items
to carry out terror attacks or collect information.
Could SL Army identify LTTE from a
Civilian? No
Why?
The
LTTE had a separate Tamil Civilian Armed
Force (MAKKAL PADAI
BRIGADE) who were trained to kill. This civilian armed force
comprised children as young as 7years. So whether they were 7 or 10, 19, 35 or
age old grannies, LTTE had trained them in combat to kill Sri Lankan soldiers.
At any given time 10,000 TAMIL
CIVILIANS were trained in combat operations by LTTE. These LTTE CIVILIANS do
not qualify to be called CIVILIANS.
But how is anyone to IDENTIFY THEM as
CIVILIAN as per international definition? How is the Sri Lanka to IDENTIFY THEM
as CIVILIAN?
Can any human rights pundit provide an
answer?
More importantly, can this
witness Ponnadurai Maheshwaran prove he or his family were not members of this
LTTE Civilian Armed Force?
If he was a member of the LTTE Civilian
Armed Force, what is his credibility in accusing a Sri Lankan soldier of
murder?
LTTE had enough & more times killed
their own people and attempted to pass blame on to the Sri Lankan soldiers?
LTTE
certainly blurred distinction for the Sri Lanka Army. The Sri Lanka Army CANNOT
be faulted for presuming a civilian to be LTTE for LTTE functioned as
civilians. In fact, LTTE killed Tamil civilians who wanted to have nothing to
do with LTTE and were providing insider information to the Sri Lanka Army.
We
must also not forget that 12,000 of the LTTE that surrendered to the Sri Lankan
Army in May 2009 were ALL DRESSED IN CIVILIAN CLOTHING and all of them lived to
surrender and was alive after surrendering.
The
case of Sunil Ratnayake is interesting because it carries a political twist and
lots of political bias.
The
incident occurred during the tenure of President Chandrika Kumaratunga but a
change of government took place in 2001 installing the pro-West government of
Ranil Wickremasinghe, immediately followed by a Norway-backed cease fire
agreement that had no problems in giving state territory to a terrorist
organization, confining the Sri Lankan Army to barracks but allowing LTTE to
roam any part of the country carrying guns and setting up offices claiming them
to be ‘political offices’. It was this same government that agreed to try the
arrested army officers without a jury in 2002.
Names
associated with the case against Sunil Ratnayake are heavily associated with
the supposed ‘civil society’ that was part of regime change.
They
are selective in their topics – raise hell and then disappear awaiting another
slogan. The same voices up in arms over President Sirisena giving a
presidential pardon to one accused of murdering a young girl too have faded
away!
With
regime change in 2015 the same government that acquitted 13 soldiers for
lack of evidence in the same supposed murder but declared death sentence
against Sunil Ratnayake on 15th June 2015 – why? Lack of evidence
for 13 soldiers but 1 gets death row! Incidentally this sentence was under a legally
questionable government that came to power after a Presidential election.
How
incriminating was this ‘witness’ evidence after 15 years to declare death
sentence?
What
about the injustice to the accused? Of the 14 soldiers allegedly 13 were
released for lack of evidence except Sunil Ratnayake.
How
politically motivated was the decision given that a plethora of army personnel
had been dumped in prison on trivial allegations by the same government without
filing any charges against them. Anyone questioning the justice system must be
asking why soldiers have been arrested and put in prison without filing charges
against them! Every time a foreign delegate was to land in Sri Lanka, it meant
a soldiers was arbitrarily arrested and dumped in jail! Who came forward to
question this?
What
kind of justice system was this to satisfy the geopolitical gallery salivating
against Sri Lanka’s military and waiting for any opportunity to avenge for militarily
eliminating their tiger cubs?
Many
commenting about the pardon are pretending this to be the only ‘murder’ that
took place in Sri Lanka and that too something that took place 20 years ago.
They completely neglect the horrendous murders committed by the LTTE.
Where
have all of these proponents of human rights and media reporters have written a
word for the victims of LTTE? LTTE in one bombing have killed over hundreds of
innocent people and maimed them for life in incidents that took place from 1980s
to 2009.
If
we are going to be commenting on anything let there be a level playing field.
Simply whitewashing LTTE and witch hunting the Sri Lankan Army is totally wrong
& unacceptable. Moreover, who are the mouthpieces commenting on the pardon –
they are either LTTE propagandists, LTTE fronts, LTTE paid lackeys or
geopolitical organs who want to grab at any incident to downgrade a legitimate government.
Where
were these voices when US President Trump said he
would kill the families of terrorists in December 2015? Trump repeated
the call in 2018 when he We’re fighting
a very politically correct war…When you get these terrorists, you have to take
out their families! …….. But you have to take out their families.”
Then
in March 2020, the US even threatened families of ICC judges – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened the family
members of International Criminal Court staff, vowing that Washington will take
punitive action against them if the court tries American soldiers for war
crimes.
How
is it that no one even the UNHRC or its head is going after the US for its open
threats? Or is it because US walked out of the UNHRC calling it a cesspool of
political bias! We will certainly agree with US on this statement!
Any public commentators or anyone in public office who cannot condemn impartially have no moral right to be going after Sunil Ratnayake. The decision to pardon him was the right of the head of state of a sovereign nation. We do not need pay much heed to empty biased and partial vessels that make the most noise selectively!
The government should be commended for
imposing a 24 hour, island-wide curfew. It was a brave decision.
Sri Lanka is possibly the first country in
the world to impose a 24 hour, island-wide curfew.
We are also one of the first countries in
the world to shut down schools.
Many countries have followed our successful
examples.
Avoidance of close contact between peoples
is the best way to stop the
spreading of the deadly virus. In 3rd world countries, where people
are less educated/disciplined, a blanket nation-wide (24 hour) curfew is the best
way to achieve this.
Sri Lanka did
another thing right, which is closing down its national airports and sea entries.
This means even Sri Lankan nationals living overseas are prevented from entering
the country. This is another bold step that the government undertook, as other
countries have allowed their citizens to enter through the borders subject to
strict conditions.
But, Sri Lanka did this (closing the airports) only
after learning a bitter lesson. Previously it allowed all its citizens to
return to Sri Lanka with the condition that they undergo a mandatory 14 day
quarantine period. Unscrupulous Sri Lankans who are suspected of having Corona,
returned to the country (especially from Italy and Chennai) and botched the mandatory
quarantine regime. Some fled and hid in various parts of the country.
This was a major drawback in our fight against
Corona.
Some of them were later diagnosed with having
Corona.
Thus, thanks to them, we
inherited Corona.
Our numbers are now growing steadily. As of 9 pm on 28 March
2020, we have 113 Corona cases in the country, with 1 dead. We have reached this number within 15 days. It is remarkable that we have done
better than Spain and USA who recorded only 84 and 75 cases respectively
during their first 15 days.
In Sri
Lanka we have no/very few Corona testings being done. Advanced economies like US, UK and Australia
test many thousands of people daily.
Thus,
our actual number of Corona patients could be much higher than the statistics
at hand.
There is no
doubt that in the coming weeks Sri Lanka’s Corona numbers, including fatalities, will significantly
increase. Though the writer hopes he is wrong, it is impossible to think
otherwise.
We
should request friendly governments to supply us with relevant equipment, so
that we could better face with the impending calamity. The country is desperately
in need of face masks, surgical glows/gowns/equipment, various medicines,
respirators, ventilators etc to fight the war against this ‘invisible enemy’.
We must have many new intensive care beds.
It is
important that the government formally establishes a national ‘Corona Care Fund’,
so that those who can afford both locally and internationally could contribute.
Only people well accepted in the community as honest, with high integrity, must
be appointed as Trustees of the Fund to manage it.
The
government is stressing the people to stay at home and maintain a minimum of a
meter distance between them. The curfew
is strictly enforced. These are all very positive things. In print/electronic
media, there is ongoing education programs on how to face the Corona epidemic.
Again, the
government must be commended for these.
However, the
government must realise that while satisfactorily fighting the deadly disease,
it must do everything possible to look after the essential needs of the people.
The government’s record in looking after/caring for them thus far, especially
the most disadvantaged members of our community, is far from satisfactory.
The majority
of the people in the country are poor and many have no money to buy food. Many
are subsistent workers and they have lost their jobs. So, even if the shops are
open, they may not have money to buy food/provisions. There are reports that
people in some areas are starving due to lack of food. The writer is unaware of
the authenticity of these stories but believes that the situation is serious.
The government must not be complacent on this most important subject.
If people are
starving/do not have money to buy food/provisions, these could easily lead to
other problems like civil unrest. This is also a reason why the government must
take urgent action now (prevention is better than cure).
The irony is
that there are people with vested interests who would love to see people
disobeying curfews and embarking on social unrest activities. Some people want
nothing else but disruption/chaos.
Again, it is
extremely important that the government pays top priority to ensure that people
will not go hungry and that they are all fed/looked after. The government along
with humanitarian orgnisations (temples, churches, various charities) should
embark on the quick action of feeding the curfew affected people, importantly the
country’s poor. Free food distribution to affected families (poverty stricken) is
a must and this should not be further delayed. Those who like to conduct Wesak
type food stalls (dansals) should be encouraged to do so.
Those who
have money, should be allowed to go out and do their shopping. For this
supermarkets, other essential shops especially pharmacies (including private) should
be allowed to be kept open daily. To
avoid people misusing this ‘freedom’, a strictly enforced ‘permit system’
should be introduced, like in Wuhan.
This means the
government gradually moving away from the current strict curfew regime to a highly
control lockdown regime.
Corona has
come to stay with us for some time. Whether we like it or not, it does not seem
to disappear soon. Australia has set out a plan to ‘live with Corona’ for the
next 6 months.
The biggest
obstacle is that we will not have a vaccine during the course of this year
(2020).
It is time
that we develop both short and long term plans/strategies to deal with Corona.
People should be able to work; otherwise it will be the collapse of the economy,
financial systems etc. The effects of such calamities will be too hard to
fathom. This is why US, UK and Australia always talk about saving their
economies.
Once people
resume work, the police/military must monitor these activities very carefully.
Those who disobey the very strict lockdown rules must be subjected to very
heavy fines/imprisonment.
Again, we
must learn to live with Corona.
We must think
wisely and become prepared to face any future situation.
During future
lockdowns, we must target that at least 70% – 80% of the people would remain
indoors.
Social
isolation and social distancing (minimum of 2 meters) are so important, BASICALLY
THEY DETERMINE OUR FUTURE EXISTENCE (whether we would live or die). This
message must be conveyed to the masses more comprehensively, unfortunately many
in our country do not still understand.
We can defeat
Corona, as long as if we have clever governments and clever people.
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.
COVID-19, caused by the new pandemic coronavirus, is strangely—and tragically—selective. Only some infected people get sick, and although most of the critically ill are elderly or have complicating problems such as heart disease, some killed by the disease are previously healthy and even relatively young. Researchers are now gearing up to scour the patients’ genomes for DNA variations that explain this mystery. The findings could be used to identify those most at risk of serious illness and those who might be protected, and they might also guide the search for new treatments.
The projects range from ongoing studies with DNA for many thousands of participants, some now getting infected with the coronavirus, to new efforts that are collecting DNA from COVID-19 patients in hard-hit places such as Italy. The goal is to compare the DNA of people who have serious cases of COVID-19 (which stands for coronavirus disease 2019)—but no underlying disease like diabetes, heart or lung disease—with those with mild or no disease. We see huge differences in clinical outcomes and across countries. How much of that is explained by genetic susceptibility is a very open question,” says geneticist Andrea Ganna of the University of Helsinki’s Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM).
It’s hard to predict what will pop out from these gene hunts, some researchers say. But there are obvious suspects, such as the gene coding for the cell surface protein angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which the coronavirus uses to enter airway cells. Variations in the ACE2 gene that alter the receptor could make it easier or harder for the virus to get into cells, says immunologist Philip Murphy of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose lab identified a relatively common mutation in another human cell surface protein, CCR5, that makes some people highly resistant to HIV.
Ganna heads up a major effort to pool COVID-19 patients’ genetic data from around the world. The idea came quite spontaneously” about 2 weeks ago when everyone was sitting at their computers watching this crisis,” says Ganna, who is also affiliated with the Broad Institute, a U.S. genomic powerhouse.
He and FIMM Director Mark Daly quickly created a website for their project, the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative, and reached out to colleagues who run large biobank studies that follow thousands of volunteers for years to look for links between their DNA and health. At least a dozen biobanks, mostly in Europe and the United States, have expressed interest in contributing COVID-19 data from participants who agreed to this. Among them are FinnGen, which has DNA samples and health data for 5% of the 5 million–person Finnish population, and the 50,000-participant biobank at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The UK Biobank, one of world’s largest with DNA data for 500,000 participants, also plans to add COVID-19 health data from participants to its data set, the project tweeted this month. And the Icelandic company deCODE Genetics, which is helping test much of the nation’s population to see who is infected with the new coronavirus, has received government permission to add these data and any subsequent COVID-19 symptoms to its database, which contains genome and health data on half of Iceland’s 364,000 inhabitants, says its CEO Kári Stefánsson. We will do our best to contribute to figuring this out,” Stefánsson says.
Another effort to identify protective or susceptibility DNA variants is the Personal Genome Project led by Harvard University’s George Church, which recruits people willing to share their full genome, tissue samples, and health data for research. Earlier this month, it sent questionnaires to its thousands of participants, asking about their COVID-19 status. More than 600 in the United States responded within 48 hours. It seems that most people want to do their part,” says Church, whose group isn’t yet part of Ganna’s collaboration.
Other researchers working with Ganna’s initiative are recruiting COVID-19 patients directly within hospitals for such genomics studies. Italian geneticist Alessandra Renieri of the University of Siena expects at least 11 hospitals in the nation to give ethics approval for her team to collect DNA samples from willing patients. It is my opinion that [host] genetic differences are a key factor … for susceptibility to severe acute pneumonia,” Renieri says.
Pediatrics researcher Jean-Laurent Casanova at the Rockefeller University, who specializes in identifying rare genes that can make healthy young people susceptible to certain serious diseases, is drawing on a network of pediatricians around the world to look for the relatively few young people who develop COVID-19 serious enough to get admitted to intensive care. We study exclusively patients who were previously healthy” and under 50, as their serious COVID-19 illness is more likely to have a genetic basis, he explains.
In addition to genetic variants of the ACE2 receptor, scientists want to see whether differences in the human leukocyte antigen genes, which influence the immune system’s response to viruses and bacteria, affect disease severity. And some investigators want to follow up a finding, which a Chinese team reported in a preprint: that people with type O blood may be protected from the virus. We’re trying to figure out if those findings are robust,” says Stanford University human geneticist Manuel Rivas, who is contributing to Ganna’s initiative.
The catastrophic spread of the coronavirus should soon increase the number of COVID-19 patients available to these gene hunts. And that could speed findings. Ganna expects the first susceptibility genes could be identified within a couple of months.
Scientists took conspiracy theories about SARS-CoV-2’s origins seriously, and debunked them
The coronavirus pandemic circling the globe is caused by a natural virus, not one made in a lab, a new study says.
The virus’s genetic makeup reveals that SARS-CoV-2 isn’t a mishmash of known viruses, as might be expected if it were human-made. And it has unusual features that have only recently been identified in scaly anteaters called pangolins, evidence that the virus came from nature, Kristian Andersen and his colleagues report March 17 in Nature Medicine.
When Andersen, an infectious disease researcher at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., first heard about the coronavirus causing an outbreak in China, he wondered where the virus came from. Initially, researchers thought the virus was being spread by repeated infections jumping from animals in a seafood market in Wuhan, China, into humans and then being passed person to person. Analysis from other researchers has since suggested that the virus probably jumped only once from an animal into a person and has been spread human to human since about mid-November (SN: 3/4/20).
But shortly after the virus’s genetic makeup was revealed in early January, rumors began bubbling up that maybe the virus was engineered in a lab and either intentionally or accidentally released.
An unfortunate coincidence fueled conspiracy theorists, says Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University in New Orleans. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is in very close proximity to” the seafood market, and has conducted research on viruses, including coronaviruses, found in bats that have potential to cause disease in people. That led people to think that, oh, it escaped and went down the sewers, or somebody walked out of their lab and went over to the market or something,” Garry says.
Accidental releases of viruses, including SARS, have happened from other labs in the past. So this is not something you can just dismiss out of hand,” Andersen says. That would be foolish.”
Looking for clues
Andersen assembled a team of evolutionary biologists and virologists, including Garry, from several countries to analyze the virus for clues that it could have been human-made, or grown in and accidentally released from a lab.
We said, ‘Let’s take this theory — of which there are multiple different versions — that the virus has a non-natural origin … as a serious potential hypothesis,’ ” Andersen says.
Meeting via Slack and other virtual portals, the researchers analyzed the virus’s genetic makeup, or RNA sequence, for clues about its origin.
It was clear almost overnight” that the virus wasn’t human-made, Andersen says. Anyone hoping to create a virus would need to work with already known viruses and engineer them to have desired properties.
But the SARS-CoV-2 virus has components that differ from those of previously known viruses, so they had to come from an unknown virus or viruses in nature. Genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone,” Andersen and colleagues write in the study.
This is not a virus somebody would have conceived of and cobbled together. It has too many distinct features, some of which are counterintuitive,” Garry says. You wouldn’t do this if you were trying to make a more deadly virus.”
Other scientists agree. We see absolutely no evidence that the virus has been engineered or purposely released,” says Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. She was not part of Andersen’s group, but is a member of a team of scientists with Nextstrain.org that is tracking small genetic changes in the coronavirus to learn more about how it is spreading around the world.
That finding debunks a widely disputed analysis, posted at bioRxiv.org before peer review, that claimed to find bits of HIV in the coronavirus, Hodcroft says. Other scientists quickly pointed out flaws in the study and the authors retracted the report, but not before it fueled the notion that the virus was engineered.
Some stretches of the virus’s genetic material are similar to HIV, but that’s something that stems from those viruses sharing a common ancestor during evolution, Hodcroft says. Essentially their claim was the same as me taking a copy of the Odyssey and saying, ‘Oh, this has the word the in it,’ and then opening another book, seeing the word the in it and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s the same word, there must be parts of the Odyssey in this other book,” she says. It was a really misleading claim and really bad science.”
Finding peculiar features
Andersen’s group next set out to determine whether the virus could have been accidentally released from a lab. That’s a real possibility because researchers in many places are working with coronaviruses that have potential to infect humans, he says. Stuff comes out of the lab sometimes, almost always accidentally,” he says.
A couple of unexpected features of the virus caught the researchers’ eyes, Andersen says. In particular, the gene encoding the coronavirus’s spike protein has 12 extra RNA building blocks, or nucleotides, stuck in it.
This spike protein protrudes from the virus’ surface and allows the virus to latch onto and enter human cells. That insertion of RNA building blocks adds four amino acids to the spike protein, and creates a site in the protein for an enzyme called furin to cut. Furin is made in human cells, and cleaves proteins only at spots where a particular combination of amino acids is found, like the one created by the insertion. SARS and other SARS-like viruses don’t have those cutting sites.
Finding the furin cutting site was a surprise: That was an aha moment and an uh-oh moment,” Garry says. When bird influenza viruses acquire the ability to be cut by furin, the viruses often become more easily transmissible. The insertion also created places where sugar molecules could be fastened to the spike protein, creating a shield to protect the virus from the immune system.
The COVID-19 virus’ spike protein also binds more tightly to a protein on human cells called ACE2 than SARS does (SN: 3/10/20). Tighter binding may allow SARS-CoV-2 to more easily infect cells. Together, those features may account for why COVID-19 is so contagious (SN: 3/13/20).
It’s very peculiar, these two features,” Andersen says. How do we explain how this came about? I’ve got to be honest. I was skeptical [that it was natural]. This could have happened in tissue culture” in a lab, where viruses may acquire mutations as they replicate many times in lab dishes. In nature, viruses carrying some of those mutations might be weeded out by natural selection but might persist in lab dishes where even feeble viruses don’t have to fight hard for survival.
Clinching the case for nature
But then the researchers compared SARS-CoV-2 with other coronaviruses recently found in nature, including in bats and pangolins. It looks like SARS-CoV-2 could be a mix of bat and pangolin viruses,” Garry says.
Viruses, especially RNA viruses such as coronaviruses, often swap genes in nature. Finding genes related to the pangolin viruses was especially reassuring because those viruses’ genetic makeup wasn’t known until after SARS-CoV-2’s discovery, making it unlikely anyone was working with them in a lab, he says.
Coronaviruses that infect pangolins gave researchers important clues that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is natural.2630BEN/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS
In particular, pangolins also have the amino acids that cause the tight binding of the spike protein to ACE2, the team found. So clearly, this is something that can happen in nature,” Andersen says. I thought that was very important little clue. It shows there’s no mystery about its tighter binding to the human [protein] because pangolins do it, too.”
The sugar-attachment sites were another clue that the virus is natural, Andersen says. The sugars create a mucin shield” that protects the virus from an immune system attack. But lab tissue culture dishes don’t have immune systems, making it unlikely that such an adaptation would arise from growing the virus in a lab. That sort of explained away the tissue-culture hypothesis,” he says.
Similarity of SARS-CoV-2 to bat and pangolin viruses is some of the best evidence that the virus is natural, Hodcroft says. This was just another animal spillover into humans,” she says. It’s really the most simple explanation for what we see.” Researchers still aren’t sure exactly which animal was the source.
Andersen says the analysis probably won’t lay conspiracy theories to rest. Still, he thinks the analysis was worth doing. I was myself skeptical at the beginning and I kept flipping back and forth,” Andersen says, but he’s now convinced. All the data show it’s natural.”
Buddhism was accepted with enthusiasm in the north Indian republics of the Ganges region. People took robes in considerable numbers. In the lifetime of the Buddha, there were 29 monasteries. There were 18 at Rajagaha, 4 at Vesali, 3 at Kosala and 4 at Kosambi. Over time, it became clear that a set of rules governing the conduct of the Bhikkhus were needed. These rules became the Vinaya Pitaka.
The Vinaya rules were not commandments ordered from above. They were rules made by the Buddha for practical reasons. Most were to enforce discipline in the order, but they also took into account the ease and comfort of the bhikkhu. The Vinaya rules developed gradually, over time, but they did not develop haphazardly. By the time Baddali sutta was preached, there was a fairly large set of rules, observed Ven. Bellanwila Wimalaratana in his book A critical study of the Sri Lankan development of the rules of Vinaya (Sarasavi, 2018)
Vinaya rules did not remain static. They were
amended when necessary. Buddha made five amendments to the Vinaya for
Avanti. He said higher ordination could be conferred with four bhikkhus, not
eight, the bhikkhus could wear sandals
with thick soles as the soil was black, they could bathe regularly, sheepskin and
goatskin could be used as coverlets, and robes could be accepted on behalf of a
monk who had left the district and the robe need not reach the monk concerned
within the prescribed ten days. Ven.
Wimalaratana observed that while the Buddha relaxed rules when he found it
helpful for the monks, he also tightened rules when he found that there were laxities.
In a Vinaya inquiry, the monk concerned was given a hearing. No judgment could be passed without his presence. He had the right to cross-examine, and defend himself, raising legal issues. Bhikkhus had sometimes offered prize excuses. When charged with having engaged in sexual intercourse, one monk said he had taken off his robe, and another said he had done it naked.
Each school of Buddhist thought had its own Vinaya,
observed Ven. Wimalaratana. There
were at least 18 other schools of Buddhism, if not more by 3rd
Buddhist Council and these would have had their own vinayas. Most of these Vinayas
are lost, but some fragments were found in Eastern Turkistan and Nepal. The Gilgit manuscript, containing the
Pratimoksa of the Mahasangika School has been published. Further vinayas are preserved in Chinese and
Tibetan versions. The Mahayana does not possess a separate Vinaya. Mahayana Vinaya
is contained in the Suttas itself.
With the passing away of Buddha, the Vinaya gradually began to assume a rigid form. The First Buddhist Council, held at Rajgir soon after the Buddha’s death, decided not to repeal any rules. The Theravada tradition faithfully holds that the whole Vinaya Pitaka was compiled and recited at the First Buddhist Council, observed Ven. Wimalaratana. But the present Vinaya Pitaka was not in existence at the time of First Council. Vinaya Pitaka was in an initial stage of evolution, during the First Council he said. The Second Council, held a hundred years later at Vaisali, was no better. There were sharp differences in the Vinaya rules. The matter was hotly debated and a committee appointed to look into the items under dispute.
Arahat Mahinda brought into Sri Lanka the Theravada doctrine approved by the Third Buddhist Council held at Pataliputra in the reign of king Dharmasoka. This early Buddhism is glimpsed today in the Sutra Pitaka said Ven. Wimalaratana.The Vinaya, including amendments and the Vinaya commentarial tradition was brought in. The commentaries came in written form, said Malalasekera.
The Sinhala Sangha produced a vast commentarial literature on the Vinaya, with useful interpretations of the Vinaya rules. Buddhagosha used these Vinaya commentaries, in his Samantapasadika and Kanakavitarani. Sinhala texts on Vinaya such as Sikavalanda and Sikha Valanda Vinisa show that Vinaya underwent considerable development in Sri Lanka, said Ven. Wimalaratana.
The Vinaya Pitaka consists of Patikmokkha, Suttavibhanga, Khanadhaka, and Parivara. Pattimokha is the code of rules, Suttavibhanga explains the rules and the Khandhaka section dealt with new situations and changing conditions. The Parivara, consisting of 19 chapters, is a digest of the earlier parts of the Vinaya Pitaka. It does not contain anything new.
The Vinaya Pitaka introduced to Sri Lanka did not contain the Parivara, said Ven. Wimalaratana. The Parivara section is a later addition. It is believed to have been compiled by a Sri Lanka bhikkhu in the early Anuradhapura period. Oliver Abeynayake said that the Parivara section of the Vinaya is not identical to that brought in by Mahinda. Sri Lanka has added to it.
The Theravada school thought that the Vinaya
should be maintained and protected at all costs. Sri Lanka Buddhists also
thought this. For them, the strict observance of the Vinaya was one of the main
qualities of a good bhikkhu. This is one of the reasons why the forest monks
were highly esteemed over those who were village dwelling, observed Ven.
Wimalaratana.
The Sangha frequently needed purification, since there was no central authority and no hierarchy of control. Katikavatas to cleanse the Sangha started in Sri Lanka in the late Anuradhapura period. First, there was vihara katikavata, such as the inscription of Mahinda V, Kaludiya Pokuna inscription of Sena IV and Puliyankulam inscription of Udamahaya. Udamahaya was the first viceroy under Dappula IV. He ascended the throne as Udaya III.
Then came Sasana katikavat which applied to the whole Sangha. These started in the Polonnaruwa period and continued into the Udarata period. The first Katikavat was the Katikavata of Parakrama bahu I knew also as Galvihara inscription. This was followed by Hatadage inscription of Nissanka Malla, Dambedeni Katikavata of Parakarama bahu II, katikavata of Parakrama bahu VI, katikavata of Kirti Sri Rajasinha and Katikavata of Rajadhi rajasinha. Vijayabahu III also had issued a Katikavata. This has not been discovered.
Katikavat was initiated by the king. The rules were formulated by senior monks, the king gave his assent and the Katikavata became binding on the Sangha. The katikavata was like a royal decree. It was compulsory for all monks.
The initiative for the katikavata of Parakrama bahu I came from the king himself. The rules were by Udumbara Giri Maha Kassapa Thera. The Katikavata started with a preamble giving the reasons for the katikavata. Then came 27 rules, mainly on the day to day behavior of monks including their daily routine. All monks had to meditate every day. This was compulsory.
Dambadeni Katikavata was also preamble and text. The Preamble had a wealth of information on the declining state of Sangha. This katikavata created two separate headships, (Mahathera), for Gramavasi and Aranya Vasi bhikkhus, with a Mahimi above both. Below them came the heads of the 8 ayatanas, and deputies, followed by the principals of Pirivenas. None of these offices are in the Vinaya.
The age limit to enter the order now became 12
years for grama vasi and 13 years for forest dwelling monks. Higher ordination could not take place where
the bhikkhus wanted it, only with approval and consent of king. The quorum
needed for ecclesiastical matters were amended. What was earlier carried out by
4 bhikkhus was now to be carried out by 8 bhikkhus. What had been done by 20
was now to be carried out by 30. This was to ensure that there was a minimum of
monks of unblemished character in it, said Ven. Wimalaratana.
The katikavata also ruled on the behavior of
Bhikkhus. Monks must walk in slow, unhurried manner and must abstain from
laughing aloud. Monks cannot use harsh speech to laymen, or refer to their
pedigree and caste. Even a servant in
the temple cannot be subject to such treatment. If so monk must apologize. Bhikkhus had been composing flattering poems
for lay people to get them to donate to the temple. This was prohibited. Bhikkhus
cannot sell excess gifts. They cannot teach children of householders, they
cannot teach poetry and drama and they
should not perform the exorcism duties of Kapuvas.
Ven Wimalaratana observed that, Vinaya rules
were not sufficient to deal with the practical issues faced by the viharas. The
monasteries had become extensive landowners, thanks to huge endowments of cash,
land, tanks, paddy fields, villages. Sangha had to manage these lands and
fields and villages. Large scale
economic management and managing peasants are not included in the Vinaya pitaka. Vinaya pitaka rules were
insufficient for this. Vinaya had blanket rules for opulence, but that was insufficient.
Special rules were needed now.
Slab inscriptions erected in vihara premises
tried to remedy this. Anuradhapura slab inscription of Kassapa V, Virankurarama
slab inscription of Dappula V, Abhayagiri inscription of Mahinda IV and the
second Vessagiri inscription, contain
various rules and regulations for conducting the affairs of that vihara, their
properties and workers. Also for
admission to the order, settlements of disputes in monasteries and the role of
government officer in settling disputes.
The inscription of Kassapa V says, when
admitting a new monk into the order, there must be unanimous agreement. Gifts should not be accepted when admitting
someone into the order. Quarrelsome bhikkhus and those who violate the Vinaya
should be expelled and exiled to India. Abhayagiri
inscription said if the money provided for repairs to the monastery is
insufficient, monks must use the money allocated for their personal needs.
Buddhism became popular in north India, very
quickly and young men started to take to robes. This did not please everyone.
Parents complained, accusing Buddha of breaking up families, making families
devoid of sons and making young wives widows by encouraging young men to join
the Maha Sangha.
Therefore an alternative had to be found. The ‘lay
disciple’ was created. Historians trace the creation of lay followers to the
family of the bhikkhu Yasa. The young man, Yasa, son of a rich gild master in
Benares, found his way to Gautama Buddha and eventually became a disciple. Yasa’s
father went in search of his son, and ended up as the first lay disciple.
Buddha
was invited by Yasa’s father for alms at his house the next day and with this
started the growth of lay followers. At the start they were not considered a
component of Buddhist society. They were like admirers, providing the basic
needs of the ordained members. They were enthusiastic but did not have any
particular practices to follow or any formal duty to perform.
As time passed the lay followers wanted to be
formerly recognized as followers of the Buddha with a practice approved by the
Buddha himself. They also desired a particular goal to aspire for. Vyaggapajja
sutta of Anguttara nikaya described how some members of the Koliyna clan headed
by Digajanu made this request.
Buddha did so. He gave a series of actions to
follow while remaining in lay life, and the possibility of a good future life. This
consisted of 8 items, of which 4 were
for this life and 4 were for the next. The lay followers had thus opted for the
lesser goal of continuing samsara life, hoping for a better destiny in the
future.
This makes an important juncture in the
practice of Buddhism, observed Ven. Wimalaratana. The original aim was to put
an end to dukkha, end of Samsaric existence. But lay followers opted for a
lesser goal. Buddha agreed and approved the practice.
This was the best option to keep the lay community
on the right track with the possibility of changing lanes in the future and
attain final liberation. This approach provides a graduated practice, of the
path of Buddhism, to suit the different personalities of the practitioners. In
the relaxed practice approved for the laity, realization of NIbbana is not
completely discarded. It is postponed for a future date.
The lay follower of the Buddha were
enthusiastic, they were more in number than the ordained followers. They came from all levels of society, royalty
to the lowest. The prospect of gaining
good and happiness in this life as well as the next, they found very
attractive.
A common aspiration was the accumulation of
merit. Supporting those ordained was one way of accumulating merit. It was also
an easy way. So they lavished their generosity on them. Now supporting the
Sangha turned into a duty of the laity and in turn the Sangha became the guides
of the laity, directing them on the proper path. The Sangha ranked above the
laity.
This led to extremes in some cases. Spending
excessively on dana to the Sangha, specially by wealthy persons, otherwise
known to be utterly stingy, was ridiculed in Sri Lanka as ‘giving in this birth
to get it back in the next’. I have
personally heard this said in the 1950s at a dane in Panadura.
The Sangha also did not like to eat too much rich food. In 2012, Buddhist
monks had told the Health Ministry in
Sri Lanka to advise the Buddhists to prepared proper alms for monks, as they
were getting diabetes and heart problems due to the rich food they were given. The
Danas contained great quantities of oil, starch, salt and sugar. They wanted a
nutritious meal which did not have these.
Ven Beligalle Dhammajoti observed that during British
rule, Buddhism was presented as an ‘other worldly’ religion, which was not
rooted in everyday living. It was so
sublime that ordinary people could not practice it. That is incorrect. Buddhism
is not an ‘other worldly’ religion. And
it is not asocial. Buddhism is not an
other worldly religion. And it is not a-social. Sigalovada sutta explicitly explained the
family and social relations, and gives a set of instructions and ethical
guideline that pertain to social living.
During British rule, non-Buddhists also said
that Buddhist philosophy is interest only in higher morality and ignore the
social and economic welfare. This is incorrect. Kutadanta sutta explains the
way of developing a country with proper planning and the nature of
socio-economic process. These ideas, it should be noted were propounded in the
6 century BC. In Agganna sutta there is
a theory of the origin of classes. Chakkavattisihanada sutta explains poverty,
revolution, crime and the reasons for those social ills.
Gunadasa Amarasekera thought that Buddha’s
interest was in social change, he notes that a large part of Buddha’s major
preaching is meant for the layman and not for those who have renounced lay
life. Most of the steps in the Ariya astangika margaya are meant to be followed
by the layman.
Rajitha P
Kumara writing on early Buddhist philosophy
(Economic Review, Peoples Bank, 2011) observed that Buddhism recognized
the mental and physical needs of human beings. According to Agganna sutta the
fundamental human needs are reproduction, existence and protection.
Buddhism
recognized basic needs such as subsistence, economic stability, education,
social interaction, mental and physical health, human dignity and social
status. Kutadanta, Agganna and
Mahasuddassana sutta focus much attention on the economic condition of
individuals and advice is given for the fulfillment of economic realities by
the state.
Buddhist gave
equal importance to all the sections of society. In the Pali discourses much
emphasis is made of cultivation, agriculture, government service, business
ventures and employment. The hoarding of wealth was condemned.
Buddhism emphasizes the appeasement of the divided sections of
society by building a harmonious and cordial relationship among the conflicting
sections of society. It is necessary to
be responsive to the need and expectation of others and to have a regard and respect
for them. This sort of responsible social behavior is known as samacariya,
observed Rajitha.
A system of
good governance was needed in human society primarily for the maintenance of
justice and peace. There should be a good system of law (justice) and order
(peace) above everything. . It is the responsibility of any government to
create a harmonious atmosphere in which justice and peace are enjoyed. (Concluded)
An Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Asking Him to Call Upon the United States of America to Forthwith Lift-All Embargos and Sanctions imposed on Some Countries
We, the members of the Sri Lanka Study Circle in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka call upon the Secretary-General of the United Nations to immediately impress on the United States of America and some other countries to forthwith lift, unconditionally, all sanctions and embargos imposed against some Nations, in order to save human lives and facilitate the global war against COVID 19.
We, as citizens of a
country committed to Non-Alignment and global health, share with the people of
these countries on whom sanctions and embargos have been placed, their
frustration and sorrow in having to deal with the Corona Virus with these
man-made impediments in place.
The Eelam war IV victory can be interpreted historically, as yet another Sinhala triumph over Tamils, when they threaten to destabilize the country. This is not the first time that the Sri Lanka army, acting on its own, defeated Tamils in the north.
In the Gampola period, when Ariyachakravarti, the head of the Pandya outpost at Jaffna, attacked, the Sinhala king ruling at Gampola (forget the name) refused to fight or ran away or some such thing. The army took over and defeated the Tamil invader.
In 2002, the army was in a similar position. The armed services had angrily observed the deliberate bungling of Eelam war II and III. Then came the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002. The Sri Lanka army deeply resented the Ceasefire Agreement. The soldiers had told Kamal Gunaratne in 2005, at Muhamalai, that they preferred an honorable war rather than be insulted and ridiculed by the LTTE.
Like in the
Gampola period, the armed services decided they were going to fight and they
were going to win. Preparation for winning the war started during the Ceasefire
Agreement of 2002-2005.
Under terms of the Ceasefire agreement negotiated by Norway and underwritten by the US, EU, and Japan, the military was ordered to suspend all operations and return to base. Kamal Gunaratne observed that the soldiers were sitting passively at FDLs and their combat efficiency had deteriorated. The government showed no desire to improve the army during this ‘rest’ period.
Eelamists would
have hoped that the army
would rot away, but
that did not happen. Instead, the armed forces used the Ceasefire period to
improve the forces. Even before the Ceasefire, during Eelam Wars II and III,
despite the defeats, the armed forces had managed to develop additional
capabilities. The capability to mount
large scale amphibious operations, for instance, was developed during Eelam War
II. Army conducted Special Infantry
Operation Team (SIOT) training sessions during
the Ceasefire,
The army made a detailed analysis of what they had done wrong in Eelam war II and III. Kamal Gunaratne received valuable input from those who took part in earlier battles, including sergeant majors and sergeants. We rectified the weaknesses and improved our strengths, he said. New products were tested such as a new type of claymore bomb.
An Air Mobile training enclave with capable
course instructors and excellent facilities had been set up at Muhamalai,
during the ceasefire, on the personal initiative of Col Udaya Perera. It was an
excellent facility, with imposing entrance, good accommodation, superb
curriculum, and capable teachers, said Kamal Gunaratne.
In 2005 Kamal Gunaratne initiated fresh training for his troops. He found that combat efficiency had fallen to a low level because the soldiers had been sitting passively at the Forward Defence Lines, obeying the Ceasefire. All soldiers, old and new had to be freshly trained. The soldiers were enthusiastic.
It was not possible to train everybody at once. Therefore, a platoon from each battalion was selected and given six weeks of training. At the end of which they were combat-ready with enhanced combat skills, physical fitness, and a high level of fighting spirit and morale. Kamal Gunaratne made soldiers and officers train together, to develop team spirit and rapport.
The best soldiers from this preliminary course were sent to a ‘Special Infantry Operatives Training Course’, where they were trained in target shooting, marksmanship, sniper attacks, and maximum use of limited ammunition. They became competent and accomplished infantry soldiers. Soldiers with weak marksmanship improved.
This group was
then trained further staring with a Signals training course conducted by the
Signals Corp. This trained the soldiers in handling communication equipment,
including the highly secure communications devices in the field. Then the group
was sent to the School of Artillery for training in obtaining artillery
support, and direction of artillery fire.
They were then sent to the Air Force for training in how to obtain air support for combat. Then came a course on the use of explosives, conducted by the Engineering Corp, then lastly a special training at Commando or Special Forces training schools were inter alia they also learned GPS, first aid and physical training. The Commandos and Special Forces always accommodated our requests despite their busy schedules, said Kamal Gunaratne.
This combined intensive training transformed
the infantry soldier to an extremely efficient and capable warrior. This group
of soldiers received a badge at the end and increased pay. They were then asked
to go back and train the others. You
could see the infantry improve before your eyes, said Kamal Gunaratne. Firing skills were honed to the highest
standard. Even the weakest soldier
improved.
This was not all. ‘Rifle companies’ were given special training at Maduru Oya and Minneriya training schools. They received training in advanced combat skills, high tech weapons training, and jungle warfare.
The ‘Support companies’ trained in operating mortars, machine guns. Selected Non commissioned officers were sent to Non-Commissioned Officers Training School in Kala Oya for leadership training so that they could provide their troops with good junior level leadership. Special Operations Platoon and Recce platoons were given specialist training. This was not officially sanctioned training but was an initiative of a group of visionary commanding officers who got together at a personal level and planned this, said Kamal Gunaratne.
The soldiers had to be physically very fit since they carried into the battlefield, protective helmet, body armor, weapons, ammunition, food, and water, which put together weighed a lot. They had to carry all this while moving through minefields. The soldiers also had to be trained to withstand the high temperature of the north.
LTTE mostly attacked us during the night. The soldiers were therefore scared of darkness, said Kamal Gunaratne. We showed them that for infantrymen, darkness is our best friend as we are not visible to the enemies. We inculcated this in the minds of our soldiers and trained them in night fighting. Finally, they became good night fighters. They were also trained in GPS night vision.
In 2005 the government changed, Mahinda Rajapaksa became President and Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Secretary, Defence. The two brothers prepared for war. They changed their attitude to the war. Instead of the defeatist ‘, We can never win this war,’ they substituted ‘We will definitely win this war’.
Thanks to Eelam War II and III, there was a reluctance to join the army. Also, the public had been given a poor image of the soldier. Gotabaya Rajapaksa took steps to change this. ‘Army karaya’ was replaced with ‘ranaviruwa’.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa decided that an advertising campaign that would simultaneously bring in recruits and also change the negative image of the soldier was needed. Rs. 1 billion worth of advertising was negotiated free of charge, with all local media companies contributing. Triad Advertising was given the account.
Initial agency research showed that a
major shake-up in the attitudes and perceptions of the general public was
essential before attempting to attract new recruits. A stronger, more positive
image of the soldier had to be crafted first, in order to create respect for
this profession.
Instead of depicting the soldier as a Rambo-style hero in battle, Triad produced an advertisement that said the soldier was one of us”. The images showed touching, intimate moments of family life. By presenting the soldier as a son, a daughter, a fiancé, a neighbor and a friend, the communication created a strong bond between the soldiers and the general public, said, analysts.
My recall is that there were three different presentations, set in three different backgrounds, catering to different ethnic, religious and age groups. The impact of the advertisement was not in the visuals but in the song. The song had meaningful lyrics, a haunting melody and was sung beautifully, with feeling. It became a hit. Mobile phones used it as a ring tone” due to its popularity. The images, lyrics, and music were an emotionally charged combination that appealed to the viewer, said, analysts.
Acceptance of the “Api Venuwen Api ” communication campaign by the people was instantaneous, said Kamal Gunaratne. Recruitment figures showed an increase in numbers as never before. Desertion rates reduced. Troop morale skyrocketed. We were quickly able to expand the troops, said Kamal Gunaratne.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa as Defence Secretary inquired from the field commanders about the needs of the soldiers and then took steps to supply them. Having been a soldier himself, he understood. Salaries and allowance of the armed forces were increased substantially. The soldiers were given good uniforms with body armor and equipped with good weapons. He also saw to the welfare of their families.
The total strength of the army was increased from 120000 to 230,000. This enabled the army to create sufficient infantry formations to take the battle into the hitherto enemy-held territory, through deep penetration units and frontal assaults from several directions, said Kamal Gunaratne
The army expanded its divisions. New divisions, brigades, battalions were started. The nine Divisions were increased to 20 divisions. The 55th Division was made an offensive division. The army also created three new offensive divisions, 57th, 58th, and 59 divisions.
A new mechanized infantry regiment was created and armored personnel carriers were imported for them from China. This regiment was able to travel across the country at high speed fitted with powerful machine guns. This gave additional power to the 53rd division.
Military intelligence
was revamped under Major Kapila Hendawitarane. The intelligence community began
working together for a common purpose, said Jayanath Colombage. After 2005,
there was one chief of national intelligence, and all the agencies reported to
him. This allowed us to acquire actionable, precise intelligence.
The latest technology was adopted. Satellite images were made available. Special Forces and commando regiments were provided with satellite phones and commanders were provided with satellite imagery of any area as demanded. Attacks planned in a sophisticated manner using satellite imagery were highly successful. LTTE camps, training centers and other military facilities located deep within the Wanni jungle were fully destroyed, using these.
The Special Forces branch of the army, which included, I believe, the commandos, had developed specialized skills and were a force to be reckoned with. They had been trained in counter-insurgency, counter-guerrilla, jungle warfare and urban warfare. They knew long-range patrolling, jungle patrolling, waterborne operations and heliborne operations. They had gained extensive experience in Eelam war II and III.
Three new groups were formed. Home guards were transformed into Civil Defense Force. the number was increased from 18,000 to 42,000. They were given new uniforms, new weapons, and asked to look after the border villages. The soldiers there were brought back into fighting.
Battalions of injured but well enough to function soldiers were deployed to secure the road network during the fighting. Those who could fight, including cooks, were released for duty, replaced by those disabled. Human rights groups had objected, said Kamal Gunaratne.
Disabled soldiers dressed in civilian clothes were placed in public places in the south to observe suspicious behavior. They sat in public places like bus halts and railway stations and maintained vigilance, in rain and shine, with and without food or comforts. They rendered an invaluable service to the nation, said Kamal Gunaratne, many citizens are unaware of this.
A new company, Lanka Logistics and Technologies Ltd was created for the procurement of military items from vendors. This eliminated middlemen and arms dealers. Navy got new ships, air force got new planes. Essential weapons such as missiles, battle tanks, artillery, mortars and radar systems were bought.
Sri Lanka Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Unit were asked to repair weapons, using parts from old or obsolete weapons. The unit also sent teams to the war zone to repair equipment like night vision goggles. The Ordnance Corp repaired items like helmets and reissued them.
After making the Sri Lanka Army stronger, we were waiting for a day for the Government to give us the final nod to commence Eelam War IV, said Kamal Gunaratne We knew that the LTTE was also getting prepared to attack us. We had profiled and studied the capabilities and modus operandi of every senior LTTE leader and when we heard that a particular LTTE leader had arrived on the scène, we knew what he would do.
In July 2005, LTTE closed Mavil Aru anicut. in the second week of Aug 2006, LTTE carried out simultaneous attacks in the north and east. That was the start of Eelam War IV. ( continued)
Most countries in the world are
experiencing a shortage of essentials. These include day-to-day household
items, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, food items, etc.
Luckily, only a couple of cities in
China were locked down, due to the COVID-19 threat. If the whole of China had
been locked down, there would have been a catastrophic situation in the world,
which is dependent of Chinese products. COVID-19 has alerted the world to the
danger of relying on one country for supplies.
Open economic policies have worsened
this situation, especially in the developing world. Once a country opens its
economy, domestic products of that country disappear from the market, and are replaced
with cheap imports, mostly from China.
COVID-19 has sent a message to the
developing nations: Don’t rely on China, or any other country, for that matter,
for the products you can produce by yourselves. Grab this opportunity and start
manufacturing whatever you can. Don’t be the victims of the open economy
anymore.
Genuine compassion is based on the
rationale that all human beings have an innate desire to overcome suffering and
be happy. As an integral part of the Buddhist spiritual path, compassion is a
state of mind that is non-violent, non-harming and non-aggressive. It is a
mental attitude based on the wish for others to be free of their suffering. Compassion is associated with a sense of
commitment, responsibility and respect towards the other. It brings about a
sense of affinity and closeness with others. Reaching out to help others can
induce a feeling of happiness and a calmer mind. Developing compassion and
altruism has a positive impact on our physical and emotional health.
Clinical Psychologists Elisha Goldstein and Stefanie Goldstein reveal that research shows that feeling compassion causes our heart rate to slow,
which makes us more relaxed and calm and leads to the release of the bonding
hormone” oxytocin, which helps us to feel more connected and affectionate toward
others. Also, it activates regions of the brain linked to empathy, caregiving,
and pleasure. Researchers have discovered that people who actively practice
compassion and altruism have lower levels of inflammatory gene expression and
higher expression of antiviral and antibody genes than people who lived for
greater self-gratification or pleasure. Adopting
an altruistic or unselfish lifestyle is a critical component of good mental
health. Studies have shown that those regularly involved in volunteer
activities helping others, display feelings of warmth, more energy and elation.
They have a distinct feeling of calmness and enhanced self-worth. These caring
activities provide an interaction that is emotionally nourishing and relieves
one from a variety of stress- related physical disorders.
Metta
bhavana” is a popular from of meditation practiced by Sri Lankan and other Theravada
Buddhists. The word Mettā (Pali) or Maithri
(Sanskrit) implies loving-kindness, benevolence, friendliness, amity, goodwill,
gratitude, kindness and appreciation of others.
Mettā signifies a
strong wish for the happiness of others caring for the well-being of
another living being, not expecting
anything in return. This practice includes reciting specific words and phrases
to evoke a boundless warm-hearted feeling,” or visualizing suffering and
wishing well for those who are suffering. It is practiced as a means of
cultivating and expanding our natural capacity for an open and loving heart
that evokes compassion and joy in the happiness of others. The practice begins with the meditator cultivating compassion
or benevolence towards oneself and then
towards others, including one’s loved ones, friends, teachers, strangers,
enemies, and finally towards all sentient beings. The primary aim of Metta bhavana, is to send unconditional love,
positive feelings and best wishes to others starting from familiar people to
all the living beings in the universe expecting nothing in return. One needs to
first direct compassion, and positive feelings towards oneself before directing
them towards others as it would naturally be difficult to radiate love and
positive feelings towards others unless one has them within oneself. Those who practice self-compassion ruminate and experience less resentment, and have higher
emotional resilience. It is an effective way to control aggressive feelings
including anger and has a therapeutic effect on reducing stress and anxiety. Self-compassion provides emotional strength allowing us to admit
our shortcomings, forgive ourselves, motivate ourselves with kindness, care for
others, and be fully human. Each one of us possess the
potential to free ourselves from mental states that perpetuate our own
suffering and the potential to find inner peace for ourselves and contribute to
the happiness of all around you. If we learn to cultivate inner calm and altruistic
love, our lives certainly would not lose any of its richness. Rapidly expanding research clearly demonstrates that
self-compassion is related to emotional wellbeing, lower anxiety and
depression, maintenance of healthy habits such as diet and exercise, and more
satisfying personal relationships.
A
Contemporary Scientific Field
‘Metta’ or Compassion meditation is a contemporary scientific field that
demonstrates the efficacy of metta and related meditative practices. Richard J. Davidson (Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison as well as Founder and Chairperson of the
Center for Healthy Minds) has shown metta
to induce changes in the brain’s tempo parietal lobe. The benefits of metta
practice are increasingly identified by contemporary research. Meditation on
compassion or benevolence is considered a good way to calm down a distraught
mind and an antidote to anger. Someone who
has cultivated benevolence will not be easily angered and can quickly quell
anger that arises, being more caring, more loving, and more likely to love
unconditionally. to harbour ill will or hostility. Cultivating benevolence is
thought to contribute to a world of love, peace, and happiness. Meditation on
benevolence is considered a good way to calm down a distraught mind and an
antidote to anger. Someone who
has cultivated benevolence will not be easily angered and can quickly quell
anger that arises, being more caring, more loving, and more likely to love
unconditionally. Compassion meditation and mindfulness meditation are
complementary, going hand in hand enhancing the positive effects of both
practices.
It is through
‘bhavana’ practices that one develops peace and tranquillity of mind. With
peace, comes the end to fears and expectations, anxiety and stress, and the
ability to see yourself as you truly are, or in other words, a deeper
understanding of the ‘self’. Using
self-directed neuroplasticity through meditation, we can return our brains to
their natural states of joyful peace, opening the way to our own path of
awakening. We spend a lot of time and effort to improve the
external conditions of our lives, but in the end it is always our mind that
creates our experience of the world and translates this experience into either
our well-being or suffering. Training our mind is important if we want to
develop emotional balance, inner peace and wisdom that would lead to
well-being. We have within ourselves the potential to develop these qualities
using the mind-training bhavana or meditation practices. If we want to observe
the subtlest mechanisms of our mental functioning and have an effect on them,
we must refine our powers of looking inward. In order to do that, our attention
has to be sharpened so that it becomes stable and clear. We will then be able
to observe how the mind functions and perceives the world. Buddhist Meditation practices,
especially samatha” and vipassana”, help
us to unmask the causes of our stress, discontentment and suffering and to
dispel our mental confusion and turbulence. It helps us to develop our own
understanding of ourselves that comes from a clear view of reality.
Navin Gooneratne Honorary Chairman Light of Asia Foundation
His Excellency Gotabaya Rajapaksa President of Sri Lanka
BAN ON ANIMAL SLAUGHTER – PROTECTION OF NATURE
The Peoples Republic of China announced the ban on the slaughter of Wild Animals which is a lucrative Billion Dollar Industry, after experiencing the disastrous effects of the Corona Virus that started in China now spreading across the globe in uncontrolled proportions.
Over 2600 years ago, the path shown by The Enlightened Buddha clearly defined the need to protect all living beings as a fundamental principle of the five precepts to be observed to overcome suffering.
Furthermore, the act of Mindfulness thorough the practice of Meditation as a means to enrich life, is presently sweeeping across the world, which also originated from the guidelines given by The Buddha.
The untold damage caused to nature by the relentless greed for materialistic advancement at any cost, by almost all the countries in the world, has resulted in the adverse reaction we face today with no remedies in sight . This gives us a window of opportunity to restructure our global development strategies if we are to survive from the predicament we face today.
The enforced isolation is an ideal time for reflection and to arrive at a solution where we can all live in harmony with nature, without destroying it for selfish enrichment and enjoy its unsurpassed bounty.
To achieve this for the benefit of all humankind, we must resolve firmly to denounce greed as the driving force of our actions and instead embrace Loving Kindness, Compassion, Equanimity and Sympathetic Joy – Metta, Karuna, Muditha and Upeksha – again proposed by The Buddha, as the essential four wheels for a journey of lasting happiness.
Sri Lanka, the resplendent isle selected as the repository of the Dhamma that would benefit all humanity, must now take the lead in spreading the all encompassing words of The Buddha to the helpless global community to overcome the rising tide of disaster before us.
The Light of Asia Foundation requests the President and the Government of Sri Lanka to initiate the ban on animal slaughter and purify our hallowed land as a first step towards its commitment towards the ushering of a New World Order.
Navin Gooneratne Honorary Chairman Light of Asia Foundation
Sri Lanka, dubbed as the pearl of the Indian ocean, is a very famous tropical destination among thousands. The island nation ranked as the number 01 tourist destination by lonely planet.
We did a thorough analysis of public health measures employed by Sri Lanka.
The point to ponder is how a properly organized preventive care plan can bring about astounding results in a pandemic situation.
Sri Lanka Health System – Brief
Sri Lankan health system has both public and private health care sectors. The public health system is free for all citizens. Going hand in hand, Sri Lanka has a free education system until graduate school for the last 60 years. Thanks to the free education system. Sri Lanka has trained thousands of well-qualified healthcare professionals and paramedical workforce for many decades through 9 well regulated and state of the art medical faculties covering all regions of the country. And, all free of charge. The doctors and paramedical staff receive post-graduate training and continuous medical education throughout their career.
Sri Lanka boasts to a well-planned radial public health institution system. The private health system is tightly regulated under the private health care regulatory commission and the government.
The island nation has a robust century-old community health program. Health statistics such as maternal and child mortality rates are the lowest in the region. In fact, comparable to the western world. The life expectancy is highest in the region. The paradise nation is 100% vaccination covered, and all treatments under the extended program of immunization are administered free of charge.
The ministry of health regulates and sets the guidance to the future policies of the health system.
Coronavirus threat
Since the origin of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan Sri Lankan authorities started to take vigilance in stopping the potential danger. The military forces and the national intelligence service was put on high alert. The government created specialized aviation and border control expert teams, to track the movement of all inbound tourists and with a potential threat.
The first case
27th January:
A 43-year-old lady from Hubei Province, China was the first confirmed case of Covid19 in Sri Lanka. The authorities immediately admitted the patient to the National Infectious Disease Hospital. She was isolated and treated by infectious disease specialists. The patient recovered uneventfully and discharged back to china with a public farewell event.
A warm farewell to the Chinese lady who recovered in Sri Lanka by Minister of Health (Lady with Pink Saree to the left)
One of the first countries to rescue and quarantine
1st February:
Sri Lanka became one of the first countries to send rescue missions to Wuhan, China to evacuate 33 Sri Lankan families. The families were brought down via an exclusive carrier and quarantined in a unique quarantine facility. All potential contacts are observed continuously under quarantine.
The first local case
10th March:
A 52-year-old Sri Lankan becomes positive for Covid 19. The patient has served as a travel guide to a group of Italians. The patient all contacts are quarantined and supervised.
The sequel
12th March:
The second local infected with the virus is detected. The 44-year-old man admitted to the infectious disease hospital, and they traced his contacts.
Sri Lankan government has requested the general public to practice proper hygiene methods and self-quarantine methods to safeguard from the disease.
14 March:
The Sri Lankan government declared 16 March 2020, as a national public holiday to contain the coronavirus spreading in the country.
15 March:
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa proposed plans to combat coronavirus to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) leaders during a video press conference. Sri Lankan President directed the authorities to implement quarantine centres to examine the foreigners and ordered relevant authorities to provide necessary essential services to the general public via the internet.
A Sri Lanka army quarantine facility
16 March:
The Sri Lanka Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) requested the President to extend the Public holiday to 1 week, and close all ports of entry to the country. The government of Sri Lanka extended the public holidays to three days from 17 March to 19 March due to an increase in new cases except for health, banking, food supply and transportation.
17 March:
The President ordered the banking sector not to overburden the coronavirus hit business sector, which is unable to repay the loans and ordered the banking sector further to extend the payback period to another six months.
Ministry of Health revealed that around 24 hospitals are available ready to tackle the coronavirus emergency.
19 March:
The government decided to further extend the public holidays for eight days to both private and public sectors. Therefore, work from home for eight days was declared. The state-imposed island wise curfew to cease all public gatherings and movement. All potential contacts and people with travel history were registered by the local police authorities.
Sri Lanka Air Force, conducting fumigation at the famous ” Temple of the Tooth Relic.”
21 March:
The government also urged the public not to utilize chloroquine at will. Many leading 4-star hotels offered their facilities to the government as quarantine facilities.
Hotels offered as quarantine centres to the government
23 March:
Sri Lankan authorities have reported 86 positive coronavirus cases and 0 deaths.
We have studied the responses of many countries to the coronavirus pandemic. We at healthreviewglobal.com decided to select Sri Lanka for its swift and impressive response to the global epidemic despite being a second world economy. On top of it, we learned the importance of investing in public health.
26 March:
Sri Lankan authorities have published details of 2 more positive cases after a day of silence. The government has extended the local curfew for three urban districts suspecting more sporadic cases. According to local media, the police and state and private sector have arranged door to door food and necessity delivery services. Work at home policy got extended as well.
The island nation has closed its airports for arrivals since last week.
healthreviewglobal.com team brings more updates on the global coronavirus pandemic
Dr Sarath Obeysekera CEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard Colombo Sri Lanka
Today I went to the Thalangama police station after calling
the OIC who asked me to come in person to get a curfew permit
I had a letter from the company involved in export and foreign exchange earnings
At the gate a young cop who was surrounded by many people trying to get into the police station
After much persuasion, I went in to see the small police station of 30x 30 feet reception full of people waiting to see the OIC get curfew permit
He was either chatting with someone or engaged in official work ignoring the crowd outside shoulder to shoulder despite the advice to keep away from each other
I approached a cop on duty and explained my requirement and
he bluntly told me without even reading my letter to see the OIC
I was not happy to stand there even a minute fearing to contaminate myself and walked out disgusted
How can police behave in such an irresponsible manner rather than imposing strict rules of keeping distance among possible virus carriers?
The government should first educate OIC’s of police stations to be more disciplined
Local company Atlas, a subsidiary of Hemas, has manufactured and supplied the robots to Homagama hospital.
Colombo, March 28 (newsin.asia): At the Homagama Base Hospital near Colombo, indigenously manufactured robots called Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) will be used to assist the treatment of persons suspected to have been infected by the COVID-19 virus.
The robots had been designed by the Sri Lankan company Atlas, a subsidiary of Hema’s.
It will now be possible to send medicines and other substances to the patient through these robots. Using the camera and speaker in the robot, it will now be possible to communicate with the patient without coming into close contact.
This has been custom built for this very purpose of looking after patients in isolation wards by the Sri Lankan company Atlas – a subsidiary of Hemas. The robot has been built using mostly materials sourced locally.
Though this is the first time I witnessed an appliance of this nature made in Sri Lanka,” said Dr Anil Jasinghe, it has been very well designed and developed.”
Built with sensors, this smart appliance can stop in its tracks without colliding with objects and persons in front of its path. Each bed in the ward is tagged with what is termed as an RFID identification. The robot is sent to the required bed by giving the respective identification tag. Among its sophisticated features is also the ability to control the speed of its movement. By pressing the home” button, the robot is brought back to the originating point.
These robots save not only manpower hours but also ensures the safety and protection of the hospital staff.
Considering the prevailing situation in the country,” Dr Jasinghe further said, I request from the Hemas subsidiary Atlas Company to provide us with 25-50 of these robots.”
Besides the Homagama Base Hospital, the center used by Voice Of America in Uswatakeyya will also be converted to monitor and treat patients suspected to be infected with COVID-19. This unit will be ready In about four days, noted Dr Jasinghe. Likewise, a large number of hospitals throughout the Island will be soon equipped with special wards with isolation units to manage the situation, he stated.
Accordin to Hema’s, the AGV can carry food and medicine to patients and perform basic medical check-ups, such as checking temperatures. It also enables doctors to monitor patients remotely, while having conversations with them through the cameras mounted on it. In addition to this, the AGV can charge itself using a wireless charging port, further reducing its physical proximity to healthcare workers. The use of the AGV will automate patient monitoring, thereby enabling healthcare workers to apply their expertise in managing the crisis more efficiently and to stay safe while saving lives.
Atlas AGV Robot at the Homagama Base Hospital
Dr. Indika Jagoda, the Regional Director of Health Services, Colombo lauded the launch of the prototype AGV. It is truly remarkable that a Sri Lankan company has developed a home grown robotic medical assistant. The advancement of technological development is vital in the fight against this pandemic. The ready access to patients that healthcare workers have without putting themselves at risk, thanks to the AGV robot, is truly a massive advantage in the fight against COVID-19,” he said.
Speaking on the initiative, Asitha Samaraweera, Chief Executive Officer, Atlas Axillia said, I am extremely proud of our team for creating a solution to address one of the challenges our medical personnel are facing today in the country with respect to infectious diseases such as the Coronavirus. We humbly share this invention to further the national cause to effectively combat COVID-19. We are gifting the prototype to the Homagama Hospital, as it is a designated facility to treat COVID-19 patients exclusively”.
As a company with the national interest at heart for over 60 years, we have remained focused on contributing to Sri Lanka’s economy by investing in the country. This innovation by our team is the best way for us to do so in this critical time of need, ensuring that we are enabling our healthcare workers to fight the spread of this pandemic more efficiently,” Asitha Samaraweera added.
Currently, healthcare providers who work closely with infected patients use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when treating them, at great physical discomfort to themselves. The deployment of the AGV will ease this burden to a great extent, where one-on-one patient interaction is focused on mandatory and critical health requirements.
Dr. Janith Hettiarachchi, Medical Superintendent, Base Hospital Homagama, thanked Atlas Axillia for stepping in to help the nation at this crucial juncture. The most important thing in a situation like this is keeping our staff safe. If even one of our staff is infected, the entire team will have to undergo quarantine, upsetting the entire operation. To have a robotic nursing assistant doing the work that a human healthcare worker would otherwise have to do, significantly reduces the chance of an infection and is therefore invaluable. This is apart from the large monetary saving the state makes, from not having to use multiple sets of expensive PPEs by healthcare workers to interact with patients each day.”
The AGV was developed by a team of innovators within the manufacturing and engineering division of Atlas, led by Viraj Jayasooriya, COO / Director Operations. The team, which practices manufacturing innovation, developed the AGV originally as a robotic assistant to carry goods within the Atlas production facility. With the outbreak of the Coronavirus, the team immediately began innovating the existing model to create a machine that can be used at hospitals, as a remote medical assistant.
Viraj Jayasooriya from Atlas said, Our teams designed and fabricated the entire robot from scratch and have been working around the clock the past few days to perfect the modifications that will enable it to monitor COVID-19 patients. Medical professionals are constantly in danger of being exposed in the frontlines. With the AGV in place, we can minimize the need to send humans inside the ward, as the robot goes to each bed in multiple wards and allows the remote monitoring of patients by doctors. We welcome organisations who are interested in scaling up the production of this robot, in order to deploy them for the support of more medical personnel combating COVID-19.”
Atlas intends to secure all design and patent rights in respect of this invention as soon as the circumstances permit it, in order proceed with further development.
Sri Lanka on Saturday reported its first COVID-19 death, of a 65-year-old patient, who had diabetes and renal health complications, Health Ministry officials said. The island nation has 113 confirmed coronavirus patients so far.
Sri Lanka’s health officials have also detected four COVID-19 positive cases in people who recently returned from Chennai, prompting authorities to term Chennai a high-risk” zone.
Two cases detected today and two more cases from earlier this week were all Chennai returnees, Chennai is definitely a high-risk zone” Director-General of Health Services told The Hindu on Saturday. The government has asked all those returned from Chennai in the last 14 days to report to health authorities for quarantine.
Mid-March, Sri Lanka reported four persons — an Indian tourist and three Sri Lankans — who tested positive on arrival from India. With the latest detections, a total of eight cases have originated from India, according to authorities. Nine patients have recovered and been discharged from hospital, according to an official bulletin.
Sri Lanka stopped flight arrivals in all its airports on March 17. For a week now, the island has been on a near-total shutdown and travel between districts has also been banned.
Three more patients have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, hiking the total number of cases in Sri Lanka up to 113.
Earlier today (28), four patients were reported as having contracted the COVID-19 virus.
It was also reported that two patients who contracted the virus had made a complete recovery today, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 9.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s first coronavirus death was confirmed from the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), earlier this evening. The deceased is a 60-year-old kidney transplant patient who had suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure.
Currently, more than 190 patients suspected of contracting the virus are under observation at selected hospitals across the country.
The president was aware of the danger from the coronavirus – but a lack of leadership has created an emergency of epic proportions
When the definitive history of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the date 20 January 2020 is certain to feature prominently. It was on that day that a 35-year-old man in Washington state, recently returned from visiting family in Wuhan in China, became the first person in the US to be diagnosed with the virus.
On the very same day, 5,000 miles away in Asia, the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was reported in South Korea. The confluence was striking, but there the similarities ended.
In the two months since that fateful day, the responses to coronavirus displayed by the US and South Korea have been polar opposites.
One country acted swiftly and aggressively to detect and isolate the virus, and by doing so has largely contained the crisis. The other country dithered and procrastinated, became mired in chaos and confusion, was distracted by the individual whims of its leader, and is now confronted by a health emergency of daunting proportions.
Within a week of its first confirmed case, South Korea’s disease control agency had summoned 20 private companies to the medical equivalent of a war-planning summit and told them to develop a test for the virus at lightning speed. A week after that, the first diagnostic test was approved and went into battle, identifying infected individuals who could then be quarantined to halt the advance of the disease.
A nurse at testing booth outside the Yangji hospital in Seoul. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
Some 357,896 tests later, the country has more or less won the coronavirus war. On Friday only 91 new cases were reported in a country of more than 50 million.
The US response tells a different story. Two days after the first diagnosis in Washington state, Donald Trump went on air on CNBC and bragged: We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
‘A fiasco of incredible proportions’
A week after that, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion article by two former top health policy officials within the Trump administration under the headline Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic. Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb laid out a menu of what had to be done instantly to avert a massive health disaster.
Top of their to-do list: work with private industry to develop an easy-to-use, rapid diagnostic test” – in other words, just what South Korea was doing.
It was not until 29 February, more than a month after the Journal article and almost six weeks after the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the country that the Trump administration put that advice into practice. Laboratories and hospitals would finally be allowed to conduct their own Covid-19 tests to speed up the process.
Today, 86,012 cases have been confirmed in the US, pushing the nation to the top of the world’s coronavirus league table
Those missing four to six weeks are likely to go down in the definitive history as a cautionary tale of the potentially devastating consequences of failed political leadership. Today, 86,012 cases have been confirmed across the US, pushing the nation to the top of the world’s coronavirus league table – above even China.
More than a quarter of those cases are in New York City, now a global center of the coronavirus pandemic, with New Orleans also raising alarm. Nationally, 1,301 people have died.
Most worryingly, the curve of cases continues to rise precipitously, with no sign of the plateau that has spared South Korea.
The US response will be studied for generations as a textbook example of a disastrous, failed effort,” Ron Klain, who spearheaded the fight against Ebola in 2014, told a Georgetown university panel recently. What’s happened in Washington has been a fiasco of incredible proportions.”
An empty Times Square. New York is now considered a global center of the pandemic. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters
Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the US government’s response to international disasters at USAid from 2013 to 2017, frames the past six weeks in strikingly similar terms. He told the Guardian: We are witnessing in the United States one of the greatest failures of basic governance and basic leadership in modern times.”Advertisement
In Konyndyk’s analysis, the White House had all the information it needed by the end of January to act decisively. Instead, Trump repeatedly played down the severity of the threat, blaming China for what he called the Chinese virus” and insisting falsely that his partial travel bans on China and Europe were all it would take to contain the crisis.
‘The CDC was caught flat-footed’
If Trump’s travel ban did nothing else, it staved off to some degree the advent of the virus in the US, buying a little time. Which makes the lack of decisive action all the more curious.
We didn’t use that time optimally, especially in the case of testing,” said William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University medical center. We have been playing reluctant catch-up throughout.”
As Schaffner sees it, the stuttering provision of mass testing put us behind the eight-ball” right at the start. It did not permit us, and still doesn’t permit us, to define the extent of the virus in this country.”
Though the decision to allow private and state labs to provide testing has increased the flow of test kits, the US remains starkly behind South Korea, which has conducted more than five times as many tests per capita. That makes predicting where the next hotspot will pop up after New York and New Orleans almost impossible.
The national guard is helping to manage a Covid-19 testing site in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. Photograph: Bryan Tarnowski for the Guardian
In the absence of sufficient test kits, the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially kept a tight rein on testing, creating a bottleneck. I believe the CDC was caught flat-footed,” was how the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, put it on 7 March. They’re slowing down the state.”
The CDC’s botched rollout of testing was the first indication that the Trump administration was faltering as the health emergency gathered pace. Behind the scenes, deep flaws in the way federal agencies had come to operate under Trump were being exposed.
In 2018 the pandemic unit in the national security council – which was tasked to prepare for health emergencies precisely like the current one – was disbanded. Eliminating the office has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response,” Beth Cameron, senior director of the office at the time it was broken up, wrote in the Washington Post.
We didn’t use that time optimally, especially in the case of testing. We have been playing reluctant catch-upWilliam Schaffner
Disbanding the unit exacerbated a trend that was already prevalent after two years of Trump – an exodus of skilled and experienced officials who knew what they were doing. There’s been an erosion of expertise, of competent leadership, at important levels of government,” a former senior government official told the Guardian.
Over time there was a lot of paranoia and people left and they had a hard time attracting good replacements,” the official said. Nobody wanted to work there.”
It was hardly a morale-boosting gesture when Trump proposed a 16% cut in CDC funding on 10 February – 11 days after the World Health Organization had declared a public health emergency over Covid-19.
Schaffner, who describes himself as the president of the CDC fan club”, said he has been saddened by how sidelined the CDC has become over the past two months. Here we have the public health issue of our era and one doesn’t hear from the CDC, the premier public health organization in the world,” Schaffner said.
Under Trump, anti-science sweeps through DC
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates the diagnostic tests and will control any new treatments for coronavirus, has also shown vulnerabilities. The agency recently indicated that it was looking into the possibility of prescribing the malaria drug chloroquine for coronavirus sufferers, even though there is no evidence it would work and some indication it could have serious side-effects.Advertisement
The decision dismayed experts, given that Trump has personally pushed the unproven remedy on a whim. It smacked of the wave of anti-science sentiment sweeping federal agencies under this presidency.
As the former senior official put it: We have the FDA bowing to political pressure and making decisions completely counter to modern science.”
Highly respected career civil servants, with impeccable scientific credentials, have struggled to get out in front of the president. Dr Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert who has become a rare trusted face in the administration amid the coronavirus scourge, has expressed his frustration.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, with Dr Anthony Fauci and the health secretary, Alex Azar. Photograph: Al Drago/EPA
This week Fauci was asked by a Science magazine writer, Jon Cohen, how he could stand beside Trump at daily press briefings and listen to him misleading the American people with comments such as that the China travel ban had been a great success in blocking entry of the virus. Fauci replied: I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?”
Trump has designated himself a wartime president”. But if the title bears any validity, his military tactics have been highly unconventional. He has exacerbated the problems encountered by federal agencies by playing musical chairs at the top of the coronavirus force.Advertisement
The president began by creating on 29 January a special coronavirus taskforce, then gave Vice-President Mike Pence the job, who promptly appointed Deborah Birx coronavirus response coordinator”, before the federal emergency agency Fema began taking charge of key areas, with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, creating a shadow team that increasingly appears to be calling the shots.
There’s no point of responsibility,” the former senior official told the Guardian. It keeps shifting. Nobody owns the problem.”
Trump: everything’s going to be great
Amid the confusion, day-to-day management of the crisis has frequently come directly from Trump himself via his Twitter feed. The president, with more than half an eye on the New York stock exchange, has consistently talked down the scale of the crisis.
On 30 January, as the World Health Organization was declaring a global emergency, Trump said: We only have five people. Hopefully, everything’s going to be great.”
On 24 February, Trump claimed the coronavirus is very much under control in the USA”. The next day, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s top official on respiratory diseases, took the radically different approach of telling the truth, warning the American people that disruption to everyday life might be severe”.
Trump was reportedly so angered by the comment and its impact on share prices that he shouted down the phone at Messonnier’s boss, the secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar.
Messonnier was 100% right. She gave a totally honest and accurate assessment,” Konyndyk told the Guardian. And for that, Trump angrily rebuked her department. That sent a very clear message about what is and isn’t permissible to say.”
Traders, some in medical masks, work on the floor of the New York stock exchange last week. Traders are now working remotely. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Konyndyk recalls attending a meeting in mid-February with top Trump administration officials present in which the only topic of conversation was the travel bans. That’s when he began to despair about the federal handling of the crisis.
I thought, ‘Holy Jesus!’ Where’s the discussion on protecting our hospitals? Where’s the discussion on high-risk populations, on surveillance so we can detect where the virus is. I knew then that the president had set the priority, the bureaucracy was following it, but it was the wrong priority.”
Ventilators, literal life preservers, are in dire short supply across the country. When governors begged Trump to unleash the full might of the US government on this critical problem, he gave his answer on 16 March.
In a phrase that will stand beside 20 January 2020 as one of the most revelatory moments of the history of coronavirus, he said: Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment – try getting it yourselves.”
To date, the Trump administration has supplied 400 ventilators to New York. By Cuomo’s estimation, 30,000 are needed.
You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?” Cuomo scathingly asked on Tuesday. You pick the 26,000 who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.”
‘A total vacuum of federal leadership’
In the absence of a strong federal response, a patchwork of efforts has sprouted all across the country. State governors are doing their own thing. Cities, even individual hospitals, are coping as best they can.
In an improvised attempt to address such inconsistencies, charitable startups have proliferated on social media. Konyndyk has clubbed together with fellow disaster relief experts to set up Covid Local, an online quick and dirty” guide to how to fight a pandemic.
We are seeing the emergence of 50-state anarchy, because of a total vacuum of federal leadership. It’s absurd that thinktanks and Twitter are providing more actionable guidance in the US than the federal government, but that’s where we are.”
Valerie Griffeth is a founding member of another of the new online startups that are trying to fill the Trump void. Set up by emergency department doctors across the country, GetUsPPE.org seeks to counter the top-down chaos that is putting frontline health workers like herself in danger through a dearth of protective gear.Advertisement
Griffeth is an emergency and critical care physician in Portland, Oregon. She spends most days now in intensive care treating perilously ill patients with coronavirus.
Medical personnel are silhouetted against the back of a tent at a coronavirus test site in Tampa, Florida. Photograph: Chris O’Meara/AP
Her hospital is relatively well supplied, she said, but even so protective masks will run out within two weeks. We are all worried about it, we’re scared for our own health, the health of our families, of our patients.”
Early on in the crisis, Griffeth said, it dawned on her and many of her peers that the federal government to which they would normally look to keep them safe was nowhere to be seen. They resigned themselves to a terrible new reality.
We said to ourselves we are going to get exposed to the virus. When the federal government isn’t there to provide adequate supplies, it’s just a matter of time.”
But just in the last few days, Griffeth has started to see the emergence of something else. She has witnessed an explosion of Americans doing it for themselves, filling in the holes left by Trump’s failed leadership.
People are stepping up all around us,” she said. I’m amazed by what has happened in such short time. It gives me hope.”
Experts say the treatment might be the best hope for some patients until more sophisticated drugs are developed.
Doctors test hospital staff with flu-like symptoms for COVID-19 in triage tents at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York on Tuesday, March 24, 2020.
The Food and Drug Administration will allow doctors across the country to begin using plasma donated by coronavirus survivors to treat patients who are critically ill with the virus under new emergency protocols approved Tuesday.
The FDA’s decision comes a day after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state’s health department planned to begin treating the sickest coronavirus patients with antibody-rich plasma extracted from the blood of those who’ve recovered.
The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, dates back centuries and was used during the flu pandemic of 1918, in an era before modern vaccines and antiviral drugs. Some experts have argued that it might be the best hope for combating the coronavirus until more sophisticated therapies can be developed, which could take several months.
“The approach definitely has merit, and what’s remarkable about it is it’s not a new idea; it’s been with us for a good hundred years or longer,” said Dr. Jeffrey Henderson, an associate professor of medicine and molecular microbiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “I think we don’t know until we have experience and case reports with this particular disease whether it will be effective, but just based on its track record with a number of other viruses, I think it has a very good chance of working.”
Henderson is part of a nationwide network of doctors and researchers, led by a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who have been working to establish protocols for use of plasma to treat those suffering from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The method — essentially harvesting virus-fighting antibodies from the blood of previously infected patients — was associated with milder symptoms and shorter hospital stays for some patients during the 2002 SARS outbreak. And initial reports from China suggest convalescent plasma might also be effective in dulling the effects of COVID-19.
Under the emergency protocols approved by the FDA, doctors can request permission to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients on a case-by-case basis. For now, the experimental treatment will be reserved for patients who are in dire condition and at risk of death. The FDA will respond to most requests within four to eight hours, the agency said. For patients who require treatment faster, doctors can call the FDA’s Office of Emergency Operations to get approval over the phone.
If the treatment is proven safe and effective, experts said it would likely work best if given to patients before symptoms become too severe. And past studies indicate that proactive infusions of convalescent plasma might also be effective in protecting front line health care workers from becoming seriously ill.
It would be much
appreciated if readers read this article with a positive and constructive mind,
rather with a negative and destructive mind to criticise.
In the early
centuries, people in India were classified into various categories on caste
basis. Indians had a category known as untouchables (தீண்டத்தகாத / නොපැහැදිලි). The
disgraceful part is that the Indians categorised people based on their
profession. India has safety standards; however, they never apply and practice
the safety standards.
The untouchables and
some lower caste (පහත් කුලය) people were not allowed
into temples, not touch higher case people, not be close
to them, not fetch water from their wells, not bathe in rivers and several
other unhuman kinds of practice.
In the 21st
century, current era, even the top powerful person, Prince Charles heir to the
throne of the UK did not shake hands with others, be close to people, hug
anyone else and be unlike another normal person. The wife of the PM of Canada,
PM of Spain, and several people cannot be like normal persons. This
definitively does not mean that they are untouchables. The PM of Canada
is a top human being who loves everyone irrespective of their race, creed or
colour and a top Boxer. Such a lovely kind person (PM-Canada) has his wife
infected with Corvid-19. What is the cause? Its Nature, irrespective of who
their god is. These people are not from the ancient disgracefully
categorised category known as low caste and untouchable. They are top officials
and high-class humans.
Today law has been
enforced to maintain a distance of 1.5 meters between two people, no gathering
of more than 10 people, no congregating in temples, roads, mosques, churches,
no hoarding of foodstuffs etc. These laws were enacted by law enforcers in the legislature.
In the early centuries,
man-made cultural practice made these habits based on caste distinction. Even
now the Tamil folks practice the caste system in SriLanka and India. These
practices evolved among the Indians. After attending a funeral people do not
enter homes but take a head bath and various practice were practised by the
Indians. No handshakes but say Vanakkam (ආයුබෝවන් ) with their
two hands together.
It may be that
the world may get back to the old system of cultural practice quite soon.
Why did the
caste system evolve? It’s all based on financial status and capability. Liquor
and toddy were sold at a very cheap price, and it was based on supply and
demand. Thus, the financial status of a toddy tapper was quite low. To have a
good decent life people need money. This applies to the Fisherfolks also. Hence
based on the financial capacity of the people they were oppressed under the
caste system. Today the fisher folks are well to do people and rich. This
oppression and suppression prevail in India and SriLanka only. In the Muslim
race caste system does not conquer the people and all are treated equal. Even
among the Tamil and Sinhala Diaspora the caste system prevails among them
wherever they are domiciled. A lower caste person is not recognised even if
that person is intelligent.
Today Nature has
brought all to be equal in living standards and they cannot evade these
standards. This is by law.
Australians are
proud of our Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his team, for his
competency, reliability, capability, and the effort he has been making to
protect the Australians. Majority of the Australians are following the advice
he had given to the people. The PMs effort during the last few months had made
him be a Statesman in Australia similar to the former John Howard. May Nature
relive Australia from this evil Corvid-19 pressure. May all citizens of
Australia listen to the PM and follow his guidance.
At this
juncture, it would be appropriate to honour the SriLankan governance,
especially the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, His deputy Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa,
Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratna and the Army Commander Lt Gen. Shavendra
Silva for their efforts in keeping SL to be with minimum Corvid-19 infection
and the people are co-operating except a few Tamils who travelled from Italy
went on hiding in Point Pedro. Relatively SL has very few victims compared to
India.
The military is
to be commended for sacrificing their lives to protect the Northern people
(Tamils) from infection. The army works from day and night to keep people safe.
The world should acknowledge and commend the SL military and praise them for
the services they are rendering irrespective of caste, creed and race.
It is hoped that
SriLankans and Indians will now understand what the practice means. It is hoped
that the world may get back to the Indian customs and practice.
The Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is a true friend of Sri Lanka, has commended Sri Lanka for steps being taken to combat the Corona Virus pandemic and expressed his readiness to send a team of specialist doctors and health sector personnel who have gained expertise in treating corona affected people.
The reputed Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News” widely read throughout the Middle East similar to the well-known Al Ahram” newspaper of Egypt has hailed measures taken by Sri Lanka to confront the Corona pandemic threat. The Arab News on 24th March in a lead news item says that Sri Lankans from all walks of life welcomes measures announced by President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to breathe life into the virus-hit economy. The newspaper highlights that the President has announced relief packages to lessen financial difficulties and has also pledged a donation to the SAARC Fund even at this time of difficulties displaying the country’s desire for the welfare of the people in the neighbouring countries as well.
The newspaper has
also welcomed the President’s decision to keep the Pharmacies and Banks open during
the Curfew Hours to ensure smooth economic activities and to care and protect
the sick people.
Indian dai;y The Hindu” also has commended the measures being taken in Sri Lanka. The newspaper’s Colombo correspondent Ms Meera Srinivasan has posted a Tweeter message saying that Sri Lanka has the capacity to overcome the pandemic situation within one week as the country has the best health care services in the region.
Addressing the Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday 25th March President GR has said that the forthcoming two weeks will be crucial to Sri Lanka and he will not allow Sri Lanka to become another Italy. He has hinted the possibility of extending the curfew for the next two weeks and has assured that all steps will be taken to home deliver food and other essential items throughout the country. In addition to this that he has announced a plethora of concessions to cover people belonging to all walks of life including a six months moratorium from all banks, leasing companies, financial institutions, in respect of bank loans instalment recovery, monthly leasing charges for vehicles, three-wheelers, trucks and other vehicles, and levying of interest charges for pawned articles and mortgages. He has declared banks as essential services and has instructed the Central Bank. State Banks and Commercial Banks to be kept open during curfew hours and facilitate e-transactions. Post offices will also be kept open for 2 hours during curfew hours.
While the President, the PrimeMinister, Ministers of the government, health and security service authorities are working round the clock to ensure the safety of the people from this deadly virus which has already engulfed 198 countries throughout the world, some misbegotten fellows who call themselves politicians seem to be making relentless efforts to politicise the calamity and overcome their political degeneration as it has been rightly said by Prime Minister Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa the two factions in the UNP are attempting to gain political capital out of this pandemic”.
The biggest joker in today’s Sri Lankan
politics, the imbecile and nincompoop Sajith Premadasa who does not have any
original thinking and parrots borrowed views and suggestions has made a
colossal mockery of the situation self-contradicting his own statements. The borrowed views parroted by him included:
Shut down all government activities; – What about health services?
Lockdown Sri Lanka as it had been done by many countries; If that happens from where people get their food at least. Will it automatically fall down from the sky? Does this nincompoop have a magic wand to create things?
Convene the parliament immediately; Are they doctors or murses to combat the pandemic? A day’s sitting by the Parliament cost Rs. 7Million and former State Minister Vidura Wickremanayake have called for converting the Parliament as a quarantine centre. He has also offered to use his ancient bungalow in Ingiriya to be used as quarantine centre.
In addition to this nincompoop, Sajith in a Facebook note has requested people to take two varieties of tablets to prevent getting affected by the virus. Prof. (Dr.) Channa Jayasumana has written to him explaining that these two tablets are highly dangerous tablets with many side-effects and it should not be taken without prescription from a specialist doctor. What a messy ignoramus guy this fellow is? Latest reports confirm that the stupid politico who is parroting what is said by others without realising the meaning and gravity of such utterances has apologized for the statement he made about prescribing tablets to be used against coronavirus. He has made this apology only in English in his Facebook page maybe because he doesn’t care about the life of Sinhala speaking people and because he is only concerned about the English speaking elite society in Colombo, his new electorate!
People of Ruhuna has kicked him out from the Hambantota district. People of the district say that he is very fond of watching elephant games (Ali Keli) in the Yala forest and he went to Hambantota district to enjoy these games and not to serve for the people in the district.
The UNP leader Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe has requested to convene an all-party leaders meeting.
The politically eclipsing former Speaker Kalu Jayasuriya also has endorsed stupid Sajith’s call fore-convening the Parliament.
There is no news from 3% popularity Jeppos who unsuccessfully attempted to destroy this country twice and the other political merchants trading on the goodwill of their communities and from the terrorist TNA or Pottu Grandpa Vigneswaran despite a danger looming in all districts of North as several hundred people from these districts have attended a special church service conducted by a Swiss Priest who after returning to that country had been admitted to a quarantine centre as a carrier of the deadly virus. All these guys need to be locked up in solitary confinement in quarantine centres until the last affected patient is discharged.
Sri Lanka’s worst-ever quisling, even worst than Don Juan Dharmapala, and the alleged terrorist money launderer Mangala Samaraweera in a lengthy statement has stated that even after the whole country asked to stay at home, the President did not revoke the Election Gazette. This nincompoop purposely attempts to misguide the people by misinterpreting the constitutional provisions related to election laws and knowing very well that it is only Chairman of the Election Commission who is now empowered to take any decision related to Elections.
While the whole country is cooperating with the measures being taken by
the government at this hazardous situation he says that Sri Lankans have
lived through countless crises. Civil wars, insurgencies, constitutional coups
droughts and famines and blames the government which he says failed to take
adequate preventative measures, such as in the case of travellers from Italy.
With defeat looming in the horizon he says that there is no need for elections and the President, although briefed on the coronavirus threat, has decided to conduct early polls. If he is so scared of elections why don’t he withdraw the nomination list he had submitted for Matara district, he cannot do this because all those in his list except him are ready to face elections, and the ground situations indicate that only Buddhika Pathirana will get elected from the UNP (Sajith faction). At the same time why he didn’t urge his party (SLFP at that time) in 1988 to call for the cancellation of the Presidential election when his current bed-fellows JEPPOS were killing SLFP stalwarts and were taking all measures including shooting at his residence, to disrupt the elections under a clandestine contract with Premadasa.
He has in this lengthy statement implied that the government should solicit their assistance for the current activities. How can we Sri Lankans trust people like Rodee Ranawaka, Crocodile Van Rajitha and this Diaspora proxy when they even attempted at the last moment to block funds for government expenditure and topple the government? He has by this suggestion coughed out their ardent desire to topple the government regardless of subjecting the people to great inconvenience. It is only a desperate call to cushion out the inevitable wipeout of them in the forthcoming election.
This nincompoop who is in the last leg of his political misadventure criticizes all aspects of actions being taken by the government to help the people, has failed so far to visit Matara area and at least say a word of consolation to the people. He has only become a cardboard hero, a paper-tiger of issuing statements aimed for consumption by his foreign audience as he cannot face the people who now repent for electing him as their representatives. They even blame Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa for working hard during the 1989 elections to get Goigama votes to this ungrateful fellow and made him enter parliament for the first time. His hollow statements are only aimed at his image-building exercise of getting qualified for a UNHRC post. It is the bounden duty of all patriot Sri Lankans to ensure that this quisling is banished out of this country humiliated, disgraced and despised as soon as possible.
Contrary to the despicable attempts being made by imbecile Sajith and quisling Mangala to gain political advantage over the corona pandemic the stance taken by Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe can be appreciated. He has told the government that it is likely to face a peak situation from April 4 to 11 as highlighted by some health sector officials and urged that it is important to have a common plan, with the public and private sector stakeholders in the health sector and produce or import ventilators, masks and ensure that there are sufficient beds in hospitals, initiate a private/public supply chain to supply essential goods and use even ordinary three-wheelers other than taxi service companies and introduce special laws as done by many other countries worldwide. He has also drawn the attention of the government to the statement made by the GMOA where it has said there may be some 500 cases of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka. Mr Wickremasinghe has also stated that his party will support the government to introduce new legislation to combat coronavirus if it becomes necessary.
It is indeed pleasing to note that majority people of this country have come forward to fully cooperate with measures of the government and health authorities to prevent the spread of the pandemic which has already affected 198 countries in the world,
Several Ministers are reported to be making round the clock efforts to ensure the people get food and essential items at concessionary priced home delivery packages as well as fish, chicken and vegetables. Ministers Chamal Rajapaksa, Wimal Weerawana, Prasanna Ranatunga, and Mahinda Amaraweera are reported to be coordinating these activities in getting products from farmers, fish from fishermen, and transporting them to various areas.
On the instructions of President Minister S.M.Chandrasena has made arrangements for the paddy. Vegetable and fruit farmers too indulge in their farming activities unhindered during curfew hours, transport their products to rice mills, paddy marketing Board, and Economic centres, and ensure adequate fertilizer and other inputs are supplied to the farmers.
Meanwhile, under the directive of the President, a Task Force headed by former Minister Basil has been created and this Unit in collaboration with health and security officials, the staff of Sathosa, Cooperatives, an official from Gas. Pradeshiya Sabhas and Grama Sevakas have started home delivery of food and other essential items throughout the country. The Egg Producers’ Association on a request made by the Prime Minister has made arrangements to sell eggs at Rs. 10/- each and it will be delivered to all parts of the country in 400 odd trucks belonging to mem. The Litro and Laughs gas companies have announced hotline numbers for home delivery of gas cylinders throughout the country.
During the 3 days 24th, 25th, and 26th nearly 1,000 persons have successfully completed their 14 days quarantine schedules and have been released. They have profusely thanked the security forces for treating them March kindly and with much care during their quarantine period. They were transported to the nearest Police stations to their homes. More is to be released in the coming days and those who have been released have profusely commended the treatment meted out and care shown to them by the security forces.
Similar to the enormous service done by them during the war the security forces are reported to be working round the clock to make their maximum contribution to the pandemic combat situation. The Air Force on its own initiative has converted one of its transport planes equipped with 12 beds to transport coronavirus patients to and from ant part of the country. Meanwhile, the Navy has developed a disinfectant chamber to protect the people from the effects of the virus. In addition to this, the Navy is also carrying disinfection programmes covering public and private sector institutions. The army personnel have constricted wards om several hospitals
Many philanthropists have made valuable offers to the President in appreciation of his dedicated services and determination to overcome this unprecedented calamity. Following are some of the offers made by them in writing to the President.
The well-known business tycoon Dhammika Perera has placed an import order worth Rs. 70 Million from his personal funds to import 6 ICU ventilators and 485 modern hospital beds including 169 ICU beds.
The Chairman of the Derana Media Mr Dilith Jayaweera has offered his 150 room Citrus Luxury Hotel in Hikkaduwa to be used as a quarantine centre and the necessary modifications to be made by him.
John Keels Ltd. has offered one of its hotels in Trincomalee and Jemas has also offered one of its hotels to be used as quarantine centres.
Meanwhile, the Police have taken all measures to ensure people adhere to curfew rules. The Deputy Inspector General of Police Ajith Rohana told media that so far over 3,000 curfew violators and nearly 1,000 vehicles of all types have been taken into custody.
China successfully managed the virus situation because its health and public utility services were under State control. However, America and European countries have been unable to control the pandemic since health and utility services in these countries are completely under the control of the private sector and their services are commercially oriented. In Italy coronavirus patients of over 50 years are reported to be left out unattended by the hospitals there. The situation is reported to be same in other European countries and America as well. Fortunately, we have a highly admirable state health service and consumer products distribution networks such as Sathosa, Cooperatives, Litro Gas and other institutions which have prevented a private sector monopoly attitudes.
We are indeed fortunate to have the present government in power at this crucial time. If the Sirisena/Ranil government was in power we would have faced a greater carnage than the Easter Sunday carnage in which over 500 persons were killed and a similar ar number was injured due to purposeful negligence of the government which ignored all intelligence warnings and took actions only to protect its Ministers and MPs by preventing them attending church services on that day. Just imagine how the situation could have been if the nincompoop Sajith got elected as President last November? The country would have been completely shut down with a continuous curfew as in India and Italy, people unable to get their food and other essentials and forced to eat grass or Croten leaves, MPs meeting in Parliament to enjoy subsidized rich meals and in addition getting daily attendance allowance and the country incurring Rs. 7 million each day of parliament sittings and people forced to take the dangerous drugs he has stupidly prescribed. Sri Lanka will thus become the worst affected country in the world.
Worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Community addresses the worldwide Jama’at from his office, Tilfrod, Surrey,
United Kingdom.
Today
(27 March 2020), during the Covid-19 pandemic, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza
Masroor Ahmad (Khalifatul Masih V, may Allah be his Helper), delivered a LIVE
message for the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at.
Ahmadiyya Khalifa
at the beginning of his address said that due to the Covid-19 pandemic,
governments around the world, including the British government, have stopped
all congregational prayers.
His Holiness
pointed out that at present, the exact law is not clear. There are various
interpretations; some say that a few close relatives and people can congregate,
while others have differing opinions.
Nevertheless, in
such conditions, until it is not made clear, we cannot offer Jumuah (Friday)
prayers. For this reason, after consultation, he said that instead of
delivering a Friday Sermon, he would deliver a message.
It has become the
habit of Ahmadi Muslims around the world to watch the Friday Sermon on MTA. His
Holiness said that if he had not addressed the Ahmadiiyya Muslim Community
today, then they would have had a longing to watch the sermon and so, he
thought it best to address the Community in one way or another.
His Holiness said,
We cannot, for a prolonged period, leave the Jumuah prayer, and my connection
with the Community is also essential”. After consultation, His Holiness
explained, a solution to this will be found.
In the UK, people
are allowed, individually, to pray at mosques while maintaining distance. But
congregational prayers are not allowed at mosques.
In this condition,
Jama’at members should offer congregational prayers at homes and also offer
Jumuah prayer with the family. Extracts from Malfuzat,
or Jamaat literature, or the writings of the Promised Messiahas, or extracts from Al Fazl or Al
Hakam can be read and the khutba [sermon] can be given.”
The Jumuah cannot
be left for a long time. When people will prepare their sermons”, their
knowledge will increase.
Ahmadiyya
Khalifa said, Al Hakam has
started an initiative on how people are spending their time at home. In those
comments, most people are writing that they are increasing their knowledge by
reading the Quran, hadith and writings of the Promised Messiah, peace be on
him”
Ahmadiyya supreme
Head explained that even in the wider world, people are commenting on how they
are spending their time.
MTA (Muslim TV
Ahmadiyya International) has lots of beneficial programmes, which should
also be watched. He emphasised that the governmental advice that is being
spread should be followed.
Ahmadiyya Khalifa
made it clear that prayers are key and through them, one can draw the grace of
God. This is what the Promised Messiah, peace be on him, continuously said,
that the most important thing is that we seek God’s forgiveness, cleanse our
hearts and remain engaged in good works”.
Where the question
of not offering Jumuah prayer comes, it is clear from sayings of Prophet
Muhammad (sal) – ahadith that in some conditions, the Jumuah prayer become
exempt in mosques.
His
Holiness mentioned a hadith from Bukhari and Muslim in which Hazrat Ibn Abbasra, when it rained,
told the muazins to say Sallu fi buyutikum” (pray in your homes) as
opposed to Hayya alas-Salah” (come to
prayer) and this is also what the Prophetof Islam (PBUH)
practised when such conditions arose.
Further
references from Islamic scholars of jurisprudence were presented by His
Holiness to support this fact.
In the context of
the Covid-19 pandemic and instructions from the government, Ahmadiyya Khalifa
said that in their homes, everyone should continue congregational prayers and
offering Jumuah prayers.
Khalifa of Islam
made it clear that from an Islamic perspective, narrations prove that during
contagious pandemics, people should practise distancing and taking cautions.
Everyone should
offer Jumuah prayers at home and His Holiness said that he would make
arrangements for this as well.
Towards the end,
His Holiness prayed that this virus may quickly subside and that mankind
makes the most of this time in helping one another in the best possible manner.
Guwahati: Newspapers in many parts of the world face an uphill task to maintain its readership index as Bharat (India) goes for a complete lockdown till 14 April 2020 because of pandemic COVID-19 outbreak. A shutdown that prevents the vendors to deliver newspapers at the doorsteps of buyers and the rumour that the paper itself can carry the novel coronavirus has forced the publishers to drastically reduce their circulation figure.
As China originated deadly virus started smashing almost all the countries on the planet resulting in affecting over a hundred thousand people and casualties up to few thousands, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to the front to lead the fight against the deadly virus. Modi in a televised address to the billion-plus nation on 24 March 2020 declared a total shutdown to break the chain of infection so that the spreading of COVID-19 can be prevented.
As the pandemic infected over 700 people in the country
with over 15 casualties, its immediate impact was observed over the circulation
of newspapers in Mumbai as the vendors ceased to work because of
COVID-19 outbreak. Brihanmumbai Vruttapatra Vikreta Sangh had a formal meeting with the management of all print media houses and finally, they resolved to suspend publications temporarily. The decision resulted in no newspaper day for the residents of Mumbai as well as Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nagpur etc.
However, management of The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Mid-Day etc made it clear that even though no physical editions would hit the stands on account of the new-found restrictions their newspapers would be thoroughly available on the internet. Acclaimed news magazine Outlook also suspended its print edition making the digital edition available to nurture the need of readers.
After Mumbai, it was the turn for hundred thousand
residents of Bangalore, Hyderabad along with Guwahati, Imphal, Agartala, Aizawl
in Northeast to miss their favourite morning newspapers as the local
distributors decided to suspend their works because of the virus outbreak.
Guwahati newspaper-hawkers’ association, Manipur hawkers’
association, Tripura and Mizoram based newspaper vendors
separately came out with the resolution that they would not distribute the
newspapers fearing of the virus infection for some days.
The region witnessed the publication of over 50-morning dailies in different languages including English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Boro, Meitei, Karbi, Khasi, Mizo, Nagamese, Nepali, etc. A recent message that went viral on the social media indicating the newspapers as a potential career of coronavirus created panic to the newspaper agents and hawkers along with other media employees.
World Health Organization (WHO) has however asserted that newspapers are still safe to touch by anybody even though the coronavirus can live on some surfaces for several days. The papers used in print media outlets are produced in highly automated mills and the process hardly needs human hands. Moreover, the likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, travelled, and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low, it added.
But reports relating to the suspended publication of physical editions because of COVID-19 started pouring from different parts of the globe.
From Sylhet (Bangladesh) to Colombo (Sri Lanka), Rabat (Morocco) to Rome (Italy), Vatican City to Jordan, Oman, Yemen capitals along with American cities like Pittsburgh, Seattle, Missouri, West Virginia, Lewisburg etc witness the temporary suspension of newspaper productions. Those media outlets have already committed to entering into the digital platforms completely.
The largest democracy in the world today supports over 82,000 registered newspapers with a cumulative daily circulation of 11 crores estimated to be a Rs 32,000 crore (5 billion USD) industry. As India has been improving its literacy rate up to 75 per cent, more citizens now develop the capacity and resources to access newspapers and digital forums. More middle-class Indian families now start using the internet for various activities for the first time in their lives.
Understanding the heat of changing social engineering,
various print media houses opted for boosting their presences in the digital
media.
As millions of Indians now start using smartphones with internet connectivity, the media owners come to the realization that they would now prefer to get all necessary and almost free news contents from the digital platforms rather than paying for newspapers or even news channels. So the advertisers have also substantially shifted their focus to the digital media space.
It needs not to be reminded that a newspaper is sold in
the market at a lower price than its actual cost. The deficit (also profit) is
managed by the advertisers. They want a newspaper to reach more people (with a
price or even without it) so that their products get necessary visibilities.
Minus circulation, the advertisers would not support the newspapers anymore. So
no distribution of newspapers (even it is duly
published) simply means nil advertisement (read financial
supports) for the print media outlets.
The situation can emerge alarming for regional newspapers like those in Guwahati, Imphal, Agartala, Aizawl etc, as the owners may not be able to sustain their media houses for a longer period. It would directly impact the employees including thousands of scribes in the region. A number of media bodies came out with statements against the rumour that newspapers can carry the coronavirus. They also appealed to the governments to support the media houses in this time of crisis.
Lately, a host of Guwahati based media houses including Asomiya Pratidin, The Assam Tribune, Dainik Janambhumi, Niyomiya Barta, Dainik Asom, Amar Asom, Purbanchal Prahari, Sadin, The North East Times, The Meghalaya Guardian etc made a collective statement that there is no scientific proof for newspapers carrying the coronavirus to the readers. The managements also asserted that a section of electronic and social media outlets spread the unauthenticated news.
But countering it, many social media users put a harsh question to those media houses if they could assure their valued readers of authenticated, credible and balanced news items hereafter ! COVID-19 is a time-bound disaster and everyone would probably return to normalcy after some time, but will the traditional media houses ever get its dedicated readers back in the post-corona era, a difficult question to be answered.
KATHMANDU (AFP) – Foreign governments on Friday (March 27) stepped up operations to evacuate tens of thousands of tourists stranded by the coronavirus pandemic in remote locations across South Asia, from Everest base camp to beach hotels in Sri Lanka.
A plane chartered by Berlin took 304 people out of Kathmandu in the first of a series of flights aiming to ferry more than 10,000 people from Nepal.
Almost 17,000 tourists are stuck in Sri Lanka, while tens of thousands of travellers and expatriates are in India, according to the authorities in the two countries.
All have cut or virtually halted international flights over the past week in a bid to halt the coronavirus spread.
The plane that left Kathmandu on Friday was carrying Germans and other European nationals, Mr Rajan Pokhrel, director-general of Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, told AFP.
“Other countries are consulting us about evacuating their citizens,” he added.
A second German flight is to leave on Saturday and the Australian embassy said it was trying to negotiate a special flight.
Other countries, including the United States, are trying to secure joint flights.
Nepal’s government estimates about 10,000 people – from Europe, Australia, South Korea, the United States and India – are in far-flung places across the Himalayan nation that halted all international flights last weekend.
About 200 trekkers are waiting at Everest base camp.
The Nepal Tourism Board said 137 people were brought from high-altitude trekking trails on Thursday and taken to Kathmandu.Related Story
France and other governments organised local flights to get their nationals from remote towns to the Nepalese capital. Some hotels have given free rooms and meals to the stranded tourists.
France and Germany are also negotiating charter flights to get their nationals out of India.
Sri Lankan authorities have let almost 17,000 foreign tourists use their cancelled flight tickets as curfew passes since they became stuck after incoming flights were halted and a nationwide lockdown imposed. Many are stuck in beach resorts far from Colombo airport.
Those stranded include 2,439 Indians, 2,167 Chinese, 2,061 Russians, 1,732 Germans, 1,377 Britons, 916 Canadians and 614 French, the immigration service said.
“We are encouraging other governments to arrange evacuation flights to take back their nationals,” Mr Madubhani Perera, director of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Board, told AFP.
The Maldives, whose economy is dependent on tourism, on Friday halted the arrival of all visitors and ordered the 135 resort islands tobe empty of visitors within two weeks.
The nation of 340,000 people has reported 13 confirmed coronavirus infections and all are foreigners.
The United States said it was organising a special flight next week to take its nationals based in Pakistan.
Cases of the novel coronavirus have now been recorded in all South Asian countries. Dense living conditions, low hygiene awareness and overburdened healthcare systems make the region vulnerable to the worst effects of an outbreak. Preventive measures to stem the spread of the outbreak are set to exact a heavy economic toll. The Economist Intelligence Unit expects countries to provide fiscal and monetary stimulus, although the scope of such measures will vary. India and Bangladesh, given their stronger economic positions, will be able to provide relatively more; meanwhile, measures in Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be more limited.
On March 26th representatives of the South Asian Association for Regional Co‑operation (SAARC) came together on a video conference to exchange experiences of combating the spread of the coronavirus. This came as the region is emerging rapidly as a hotspot for a large-scale outbreak. The number of cases in South Asia has grown swiftly, with Pakistan and India recording the steepest rises. We believe that the number of confirmed cases is being underreported, primarily because of a lack of widespread testing. India, for example, had carried out around 10 tests per million people by March 20th; in comparison, Vietnam had conducted 160 tests per million people by the same date.
South Asia has one of the world’s youngest populations, which is advantageous, as younger people are generally less susceptible to the effects of the virus. Hot and humid conditions in many parts of the region would also inhibit the spread of the virus. However, these advantages are largely discounted in the face of other factors. The region has some of the world’s most densely populated cities, making social distancing difficult. Low hygiene awareness and unequal access to clean drinking water make it especially vulnerable to the worst effects of an outbreak.
We expect the countries to struggle as the number of cases rises in the coming weeks. Chronic underinvestment in healthcare infrastructure and a low number of doctors and hospital beds in relation to the population mean that health systems will not be able to cope with the further toll, exacerbating the spread of the virus and the death rate.
Healthcare infrastructure, 2019
Region
Doctors (per 1,000 people)
Hospital beds (per 1,000 people)
Healthcare spending (US$ per head)
India
0.8
0.5
83
Pakistan
0.9
0.6
33
Sri Lanka
1.1
3.6
161
G7
3.0
5.3
7,230
Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Reacting swiftly to the outbreak has been tough for the region. Wages are low and a large share of households are heavily dependent on employment for their daily sustenance. As a result, some governments in the region, such as that in Pakistan, were reluctant to implement lockdowns. Nonetheless, given the delicacy of the situation, India and Sri Lanka have announced countrywide shutdowns. Nearly all regions of Pakistan have imposed restrictions on non-essential activities, while Bangladesh has imposed a partial lockdown from March 26th. However, Afghanistan continues to be exposed because of its porous border with Iran.
Heavy economic toll
We expect the coronavirus pandemic to dampen economic growth substantially. Preventive measures taken by governments to curtail the movement of people will lead to a demand-side shock to private consumption—the primary driver of economic growth in many South Asian economies. The closure of factories and businesses will result in a supply-side shock, and the subsequent lay‑offs will exacerbate the demand shock.
Similar measures around the world will also constrain demand for exports. Countries like Bhutan, the Maldives and Sri Lanka have already experienced a halt in tourist inflows owing to travel restrictions and a collapse in demand. Lower private consumption and exports will lead to a loss of regular business revenue, making firms unable to pay dues on their loans and forcing them to defer investment plans.
Central banks and governments have responded by providing stimulus in the face of the economic costs of the pandemic. However, we believe the measures will not come close to offsetting the loss of economic activity. The Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan central banks have cut their policy rates and announced other measures to ensure liquidity in the financial sector, while the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi governments have announced fiscal stimulus plans, primarily to support low-income households.
Fiscal stimulus plans
Region
Additional committed spending (US$ bn)
Share of GDP (%)
India
24.1
0.7
Pakistan
7.1
2.6
Bangladesh
0.6
0.2
Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Stimulus measures unable to support growth
As the crisis worsens, we expect further fiscal and monetary stimulus to be provided by nearly all South Asian countries. Fiscal stimulus will continue to focus primarily on tax relief and support for low‑income households through direct or indirect cash transfers, while monetary stimulus will focus on deferring loan payments and ensuring adequate liquidity in the financial market.
However, the extent to which different countries are able to stimulate their economy will vary. India and Bangladesh have yet to provide large-scale packages, although we expect them to ramp up stimulus aggressively, given sufficient monetary policy space and manageable public debt and fiscal deficit levels. While the relaxation of IMF fiscal targets for Pakistan and Sri Lanka will provide space for stimulus, it will still be largely limited by high borrowing rates and fiscal deficit levels.
Monetary policy stimulus in these countries will also be constrained, as the authorities try to limit the depreciation of their currencies and strain on the external account. Meanwhile, weak institutional capacity in Afghanistan and in‑fighting within the government will leave it unable to respond aptly to the crisis. In the light of this, we will be revising down our GDP growth forecasts for various countries.
By P.K.Balachandran/Daily Express Courtesy NewsIn.Asia
Large-scale illegal migration to Italy makes tracking difficult, say researchers.
Colombo, March 25: Italy has been identified as the predominant source of COVID-19 infection in Sri Lanka. No wonder then that the Lankan government has imposed an indefinite curfew in the districts of Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara where most returnees from Italy reside.
Italy is one of three countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 24, Italy reported 602 new deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the total number of deaths to 6,077 with the tally of cases rising to 63,928.
Italy has been home to a large number of immigrants from Sri Lanka, both legal and illegal, since the 1980s. Many of the returnees in recent weeks could be illegal migrants on whom the State does not have adequate records. Identifying them, tracing them and examining them for the symptoms of the virus and treating or quarantining them pose a major challenge to the authorities.
On Wednesday the police sought public support to identify at least 12 persons who had failed to undergo quarantine on their arrival from Italy recently. There are reasons to suspect that the arrivals who have played truant are illegal migrants who had come back.
Illegal migration of Lankans to Italy has been a long standing phenomenon and a cause of concern too. V.P.N.Senadhi of the Department of Demography, University of Colombo, who had studied illegal and legal migration to Italy found that 46% had gone illegally by boat. This was so because they came from the West Lankan coast which had many multi-day trawlers with an ability to traverse the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Suez Canal and the Mediterranean to reach Italy. This was the cheapest transportation to Italy.
Italy had a liberal migration policy in the 1990s which helped both legal and illegal immigrants. The Dini Decree in 1996 made it easier for Lankan workers to bring their families to Italy. In Rome, Naples and Milan, Lankans had built up enlarged families”, where jobs were exchanged among relatives and compatriots, Senadhi says.
However, as illegal migration increased continuously, the Italian government gave the responsibility of controlling illegal migrants to NGOs, vocation campaigns and the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church treated them well by supplying food, medicine, clothes and every day necessities. The Church also taught them Italian to make it easier for them to find work. Although, eventually, Italy controlled illegal immigration, it could not stop it.
According to Jagath Pathirage of Charles Darwin University, in 2011, 88,000 Sri Lankan nationals were legally residing in Italy. They went from Lanka for the very good wages in Italy. Even cleaners earned in excess of Euro 1000 a month, enabling savings of at least E300 every month. Some of the informants with several years of experience in Italy were putting aside more than E5000 a year,” he notes.
As a result, in 2012, Sri Lankans were one of the largest immigrant nationalities in Italy and Milan, with about 80,000 Sri Lankans living in the country. About 16,000 Sri Lankans were residing in Milan alone. Lankans earning well in Italy helped their kinsmen back home to migrate likewise. Some of the migrants returned to Sri Lanka and invested in the fishery and tourism industries,” Pathirage points out.
Writing in Groundviews” in 2012, Bernardo Brown said that the fishermen of Negombo, Chilaw and Wennapuwa had been seasonal migrants for centuries because of the weather conditions. They would go to Kokilai in Mullaitivu and also Mannar. But with the start of the war in 1983, the presence of these migrants – although seasonal – was no longer welcomed by the Tamil separatists in Mannar and Mullaitivu,” Brown said. In 1984, Sinhalese Catholic fishermen were massascred in Kokilai. As the violence escalated in the late 1980s, fishermen could no longer migrate to these localities,” he pointed out.
The economically affected fishermen then began to look at other avenues to earn a livelihood. The first batch of Lankan fishermen travelled to Italy in the 1980s and managed to secure profitable jobs. Others followed suit.
At about this time, the Lankan government was encouraging fishermen to acquire motorized fishing trawlers, thanks to the then Fisheries Minister, Festus Perera. These motorized boats became multi-day boats and eventually helped in human smuggling from 1994 onwards.
In 1994, the charge for an illegal journey was less than US$ 2,000 per person. But it grew exponentially over the next few years, eventually to touch the US$ 4,000 mark, Brown said. Lacking the money to pay, many young Lankans would offer their family’s property as collateral.
Initially, only young Catholic fishermen from the west coast went to Italy but soon others from other communities and regions joined the bandwagon. Human smuggling also became an international business. Nationals from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan entered Sri Lanka through the main airport and were whisked away to Negombo and put on a boat to Italy and other countries in the West.
However, a change came about in 2002 which helped control or minimize illegal immigration, Brown said. The Italian Parliament passed the Bossi-Fini law, which offered a path to regularization to those already living in Italy even as it devised stricter border controls.
The second important change was a consequence of the ASEM — Ministerial Conference on Cooperation for the Management of Migratory Flows between Europe and Asia. Following this conference, the Italian government established bilateral agreements with sending countries to help curb illegal migratory flows. One of the advantages to the countries that signed was that Italy offered them special quotas for immigrants and readmission priorities in exchange for their cooperation,” Brown added.
As a consequence of these measures, illegal migration to Italy was drastically controlled, but not eliminated.
