“With COVID-19, we’ve made it to the life raft. Dry land is far away”
-Marc Lipsitch, Epidemiologist.
As I write this article, the President made a reshuffling of the Cabinet, with the notable replacement of Pavithra Wanniarachchi by Keheliya Rambukwella as the Minister of Health. While Keheliya Rambukwella has no qualification or experience in the health sector to the best of our knowledge, he is a sly fox and a past master of manipulating information, an art in which he has performed so well in his capacity as the Minister of Mass Media. If the government’s intention of placing him in charge of Health at this dire moment is suppression of information, manipulation of data and spreading of misinformation, it is a scientific choice, one may say. On the contrary, if the goal is curbing the raging COVID-19 pandemic, the decision is not only questionable but downright bad. Although Pavithra Wanniarachchi has very little to show from her stint as Health Minister in controlling COVID-19, it is no secret that as of late, she has voiced the concerns of the medical professionals in urging for a lockdown.
"When the opposition leader pointed out the need to import masks and vaccines, he was ridiculed by the outgoing Minister of Health who bluntly stated that she thought such measures unnecessary"
That being said, if one needs an example of how not to manage a pandemic, they need not look far; they can find a very convincing sample in the case of Sri Lanka. Well, some would say that it is unfair to put the entire blame on the government and unreasonable to evaluate the performance of a given regime based on the economic, social, healthcare and other related fallout such a public health care catastrophe engenders. We are not hypocrites not to allow some quarters to that strain of thinking. Even superpowers such as Italy, United States, Germany, Britain and India have grappled with the rage of the Novel Corona virus that emerged 18 months ago. When one appraises the score sheet of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime after five years, some allowance needs to be paid to this unprecedented disaster that took bigger giants than Sri Lanka by surprise.
Criticism
Then why is there so much of criticism of the government with regard to the way the crisis was managed? Why do such allegations sound so convincing? The answer is not in the outcome of over 5000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people who are afflicted with the COVID-19 virus which is now in its deadly fourth wave wiping every nook and corner of this island nation. We all are aware of the fact that there will be thousands, probably tens of thousands of deaths, even millions sickened, health care systems were bound to be strained even to the brink of collapse, as it is now. Whichever government might have been in power, the fallout would not have been so easy. Yet the government is responsible for the mismanagement, miscalculation it did, the misinformation and disinformation it spread and the failure to pay heed to medical and experts’ opinion which was based on objective and scientific data and facts.
The Gotabaya regime is guilty of turning the pandemic management in to a tool of political justification, a showing of colours of sort, to use the popular phrase, of being arrogant and adamant in not bowing down to expert advice given by the WHO, the medical professionals and in a few cases, even to the concerns of some members of the ruling circle. The hysterical laughing of our President at the very onset of the first wave which was less fatal and less transmissible, at a press conference aired over the nation, scoffing the requests by professionals to close down the country, on the pretext that he knew how to deal with it as he had done with the civil war, still haunts in the public’s mind. When the opposition leader pointed out the need to import masks and vaccines, he was ridiculed by the outgoing Minister of Health who bluntly stated that she thought such measures unnecessary. As the government was pooh poohing the dire warnings from all quarters, countries such as Germany and France were stacking up stockpiles of vaccines and other items necessary for a mass scale outbreak of COVID-19. The former health minister was busy engaging superstitious and unsubstantiated alternative medicine, misleading masses and subverting an objective course of action that should have been followed as top priority.
Unprepared
The Special Task Force established for the management of COVID-19 was headed by the Army Commander and not a medical professional. Even at that juncture, many had pointed out the peculiar issues that might have arisen out of the military being at the leadership of an unprecedented public health crisis, something the military was unprepared to deal with.
A news item stated two weeks ago that the first set of prison inmates were being vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine for the first time in Sri Lanka. Prisoners being given the jab after more than one and-a-half years since the pandemic broke out and after many prisoners have been detected as positive, itself tells a story about the approach of the government in dealing with the issue. In many countries prisoners and inmates were among the very first to receive the vaccine.
The ‘Economy’ Mantra
The governments mantra of not being ready to sacrifice economic status in the face of the pandemic reaching new levels with fatality rates rising and more and more segments of society falling victim to the virus is loathed by the people who are now faced with the prospect of painful and lonely death. Media reported that the authorities are looking for lands to be used as cemeteries for the bodies of those who die from the Virus. The citizenry is now taking the decision-making into their own hands in shutting down entire cities to avoid mass breakouts of the deadly pandemic. Hospitals have already run out of their capacity and on the brink of total collapse. The common man knows he has nowhere to go if contracted with the virus.
The government still fails to come up with decisive steps to stop the spread and instead, dilly dally with the situation by nonsensical decisions such as reducing the number of attendees at weddings, reimposing travel restrictions among provinces when all provinces are now affected and imposing a curfew that is in effect during the dead of the night.
Good for whom...?
On what seemed to be her farewell speech, Pavithra Wanniaracchi, narrated the story of a King and his Minister to show that everything that happens is for the good, the insinuation being that her removal might be for her best interests as she would not be responsible for the final outcome of the pandemic which, as things are turning out now could be mass deaths amounting to tens of thousands.
In that regard, Wanniarchchi may consider her removal as a blessing in disguise indeed, a thing that happened all to the good. But the general public, who now realize that they alone are facing the brunt of the COVID-19 Delta variant with the government abandoning them, are left to wonder whether everything is happening for the good!
The omens are that it is not good for the general public!
