{"id":116963,"date":"2021-08-10T16:59:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T23:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=116963"},"modified":"2021-08-10T16:59:42","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T23:59:42","slug":"covid-control-in-sri-lanka-the-needs-of-the-hour-are-vaccinations-compliance-with-health-advice-and-stopping-the-super-spreader-uthgoshanas-if-necessary-invoking-emergency-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/08\/10\/covid-control-in-sri-lanka-the-needs-of-the-hour-are-vaccinations-compliance-with-health-advice-and-stopping-the-super-spreader-uthgoshanas-if-necessary-invoking-emergency-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid Control In Sri Lanka – The Needs of the Hour Are Vaccinations , Compliance With Health Advice and Stopping The Super Spreader Uthgoshanas, If Necessary. Invoking Emergency Regulations."},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse FRACP\/FRCP\u00a0 MNZM<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

A\npodcast  today from a front line doctor involved in Covid Control in Sri\nLanka ,ended with call to seeing and staying positive<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nagree with this doctor that a most important requirement  for Covid contra\nin SL was staying positive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nSadly, the biggest impediment  to this as I see it are the politicians,\nsocial media and rumor mill that exaggerates the negatives and ignores the many\npositives in Covid control in SL today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nexample,   the unprecedentedly  successful vaccination program even\nacknowledge  by WHO, has not and I suspect never will be acknowledged by\nthese sources. The reason is politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nWith their ever negative narrative they undermine compliance with COVID health\nmanagement recommendations, including proper mask wearing, social distancing,\navoiding crowded door locations and now the ultimate requirement vaccination<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First\nthe narrative was no vaccines, governments fault, Next it was, inferior Chinese\nvaccination. Now it is it\u2019s administration by the army not withstanding the\nfact that they are from the highly trained army mdical corp. The epitome of\nthis hypocrisy was the former Prime Minister decrying the army\u2019s involvement in\nCovid control, having himself received his vaccination from an Army vaccination\ncentre. Even yesterday 9th August,, over 70% of the 90 odd mortality had\n not been vaccinated despite
\nover 13.8million vaccinations having been administered in SL by then. Had they\ngot them selves vaccinated there is a god chance hat a majority of them would\nnot have suffered that sad fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes\nthis is the worst SL has experienced but far better what other parts of the.\nThis was expected, warned of, the population was warned , adequate vaccination\nsupplies have been secured, what was wanting was compliance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\nbody asked me how NZ has kept Covid at bay successfully so far. The answer\n was compliance with the same advice as a team of  five million,\nfollowing the calls led by it\u2019s Prime Minister.  The same calls in SL led\nby the political and health leadership , was undermined with a negative narrative\non anything the govt does or calls for  by the political opposition ,\nmedia and social media hence not listened to and not complied with by the\npopulace, Sad but true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nSri Lanka\u2019s  negative narrative makes  it sound as if the epidemic in\nSL is the worst in the world  which is far from the truth.
\nFor 20 million population the worst mortality so far was around 100. At that\nrate of 100 deaths per day for a 21 million population , a population of 350\nmillion in the US should have a maximum mortality of about 1750. In reality\n12\/2\/21 they had mortality of 5463 per day, more than three times SL \u2018s worst .\nThe numbers were similar in Italy, France & UK.. This bad experience\nin these countries  was even without the Delta variant . One can only\nimagine what it would have been had there been a Delta variant then. These\ncountries improved only when vaccinations reached 60% levels .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nof 10\/8\/21 SL has 13.8 mil with single dose, 2.78mil double dose ie 12.7% of\ntotal pop fully vaccinated. ( 10\/8\/21  , the fully vaccinated population\nwas over 3 million, 15 % of population.)Now, vaccinating  at rate of\n1million every 3 days ,in 10 to 15 <\/strong>days the required 70% full\nvaccination<\/strong> for herd immunity  should be reached. The consequent\npopulation herd immunity should breached   two weeks<\/strong> ithere after\nie I the first 2 weeks of September. Another FACT not advertised  and\nknown much  is that Kalum Life Sciences, a BOI project in Kundasale, is\nawaiting WHO clearance to bottle Synopharm vaccine. This clearance is expected\nin Aug\/Sept. They are ready to go into immediate production  thereafter,\n to ensure uninterrupted vaccine supply , upto 100 million by end 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nwould be music for the ordinary people of SL but terrible news for the prophets\nof gloom, unless they can manufacture another schema to undermine it and an\nequally catchy negative narrative to go with it.The present hike in numbers\nafter having gone down to around 1500 cases per day and well below 50 deaths\nper day, coincides well with the aftermath of a  spate of demonstration,\nUthhoshana\u2019s , first staged by JVP & SJB against oil price increase on the\nroad to partliament and other parts of the country,  there after the JVP\ninspired   Pora Diyaw , Diyaw\u201d Uthgoshanas and the latest the dreaded Joseph\nStalin led School Teachers and Principal\u2019s Uthgoshana , more vociferous more\ndeadly than any thing ever seen  in the original Joseph Stalin’s Russia.\n And, they are still not done with these and so also not done with their\ncovid consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncountry is facing the worst emergency in it\u2019s recent history. Surely ,isn\u2019t\n it time to invoke emergency regulations <\/strong>to stop these ongoing\nsuper spreader events <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we are seeing now is on the one hand is the govt trying\nit\u2019s best to contain Covid  and opposition politicians doing the best to\nundermine it and project the blame on govt.
\n
\nThis hypocrisy has to be exposed if SL is to reap the harvest excellent\nvaccination program . Sadly lacking is an attendant and effective  media\nprogram to keep on  the negative campaign at bay..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCol South hospital pts being in lawn happened for one day , during a transition\nphase, got all the social media attention but not  it\u2019s clearance in one\nday nor the addition of two more wards for COVID at Col South & Col North\nRagama and six dedicated wards for National Hospital Colombo and many more\nwards all over the country. Also highlighted in social media  were\npatients on the floor. Floor patients  have been the order of the day in\nSL hospitals form time immemorial . I remember the days when as a junior doctor\nover fifty years ago  during the daily  ward round , the floor\npatients,  would come upto a bed  in turn for examination. Recent\nnegative narrative has tried to make out that it never happened before! 
\n
\nWhat SL needs is a relentless, relentless, relentless, media and social media,\nmedia and social media, campaigns to get Sri Lankans  to practice Covid\nhealth care practices ( hand sanitisation, proper use of masks, social\ndistancing and avoid crowded indoor locations) and get vaccinated <\/strong>at the\ncentres that are abundantly available now.<\/strong>
\n
\nThis is the message that should be orchestrated and orchestrated by the govt ,\ndrowning out the oppositions  negative narrative undermining it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do\nso  & stay positive<\/strong>, for  there is definitely light\nand life at the end of the tunnel. 
\n
\nDr. Chula RajapakseMNZM
\nFRACP\/FRCP
\n10\/8\/21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse FRACP\/FRCP\u00a0 MNZM A podcast  today from a front line doctor involved in Covid Control in Sri Lanka ,ended with call to seeing and staying positive I agree with this doctor that a most important requirement  for Covid contra in SL was staying positive. Sadly, the biggest impediment  to this as I see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}