Govt. says interventions made to avoid grave Covid-19 predictions made by US research centre

State Minister Sudarshani Fernandopulle said that predictions made by a US health research facility would be the case if no interventions are made.

The Minister made this comment in response to a question from a journalist about projections made by an independent health research centre based in the the United States.

“It is certainly a prediction. The report states that daily deaths due to Covid-19 could be as high as 200 and daily positive cases could reach 10,000 to 20,000 per day. This could be the case if no interventions are made,” the Minister said.

Minister Fernandopulle referred to a recent publication by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) affiliated with the University of Washington, which projected a daily death count of 20,000 due to Covid-19 in Sri Lanka by the month of September.

The State Minister assured that necessary healthcare interventions to avoid such a grim situations have already been made.

“As a government, we have made the necessary interventions. The restriction of movements between districts and provinces is such an intervention we made,” she said.

“In addition to this, when we are alerted of high number of positives in each Grama Niladhari (GN) division, we have proceeded to lockdown those areas. The infections therefore have been contained to each particular respective GN division,” the Minsiter explained.

“As a mid-term strategy, we have fast-tracked vaccination rollout. PCR tests are being conducted regularly to identify positives who are being sent to hospitals, while their close contacts are being quarantined. These are the interventions that are already in place, through which we would be able to disrupt the spread,” she added.

But it is impossible to tackle it without the corporation of the public. In order to stop the spread of the disease, public must put an immediate stop to gatherings of family and friends and venturing outdoors unnecessarily.” State Minister Fernandopulle also said that transport of Covid-positive patients to healthcare facilities is facing a gridlock at present due to the high volume positives being reported.

“If you suspect to have contracted the disease, please remain isolated within the house until you’re results are confirmed or until the healthcare workers can hospitalise you. This delay is mostly due to the priority given to elderly patients and patients with complications,” the Minister explained.

Meanwhile the government has sought an explanation from the IHME for its projections, according to Joint Cabinet Spokesman Minister Udaya Gammanpila.

“The government has sought an explanation from this university about the report. We have asked them to explain the projections and the data on which it has been based,” the Minister said during the weekly Cabinet briefing. (Kalani Kumarasinghe)