Sudden spike in Covid-19 cases: who is responsible?

Cause for the sudden rise of covid-19 cases in Sri Lanka is the government’s mismanagement in controlling the pandemic and the unscientific decision made by the authorities, Dr. Prasanna Cooray said.

Speaking to Medialk, International Health Consultant and a Regional Epidemiologist, Dr. Cooray said the government’s responsibility is to take the right decisions at the right time but GoSL and its authorities have failed in doing so.

“The key position in this fight to contain and fight the virus is held by an Army Official. What message does this give to society? This whole situation is bound with people’s social and medical statures. The government is acting with no respect towards the citizens of this country.” Dr. Prasanna Cooray said.

He also emphasized that media outlets also have a huge responsibility in this regard but there seems to be a huge racial discrimination in their reporting.

Whom do you think is the most responsible for this sudden raise in positive cases to the virus? The Government or the Public?

There were several times in the recent past where the government put all the blame on people. I remember the Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi saying that they had done everything possible and then it’s on the shoulders of the public to take necessary measures. As professionals and experts in the matter, we have suggested and recommended many procedures to implement in order to contain the virus and I believe that our voices have fallen on deaf ears.

Everyone has a role to play, everyone has a responsibility under these circumstances. The first thing is the individual responsibility, which is to stay at home. But as we can see it is not practical at all the time but still people need to avoid going out as much as possible.

Government’s decisions are like Soda cans

Private Sector of the country is miles ahead than the public sector when it comes to adapting to the ongoing situation. The private sector has allowed and provided necessary facilities for most of the employees to work from home, which ultimately helps to control this pandemic. I said these things about a year ago when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. If a country is governed by leaders of good knowledge and understanding, there should have made arrangements to operate the state-run institutes with a proportion of public employees working from home. No steps were taken to implement such procedures. Their methods are like opened soda cans. Everything prevails for only a short period of time. All the strategies the government adapted were very short lived. They do not address the issue in a proper way but implement solutions just for the situation.

Public events during a pandemic: Practical jokes by the Government

The other thing is maintaining the distance. We do not even have to talk about it, this whole idea is a practical joke by the government. During all these times, the government never set an example to the public by action. How many public events were held by the government last year and even this year with no absolute social distancing?

Last year, in New Zealand, which is one of the countries known for handling this pandemic most efficiently, the Deputy Health Minister was dropped from her position for not maintaining social distance. That is a fine example for leading the people in the right course with exemplary actions.

What is the government’s responsibility?

Always take the right decisions at the right time. When we look down the path we can clearly see the mismanagement, human rights violations, shortcomings, discrimination, unscientific decisions and misinformation publicized to achieve their desired propaganda by the responsible authorities.

This country is like a ship drifting at sea without a captain. Another thing is, the key position in this fight to contain and fight the virus is held by an Army Official. What message does this give to the society? This whole situation is bound with people’s social and medical statues. The government is acting with no respect towards the citizens of this country.

As professionals, in every field, everyone has a responsibility to maintain the supply chain continuously. Patients in NCD clinics are left unattended for over a year now. This clearly shows that the health service sector has completely collapsed due to the pandemic. Not only in the health sector, everywhere is the same. No proper protocol is established anywhere to keep the system running.

Media outlets also have a huge responsibility in this regard. Last year, we could clearly see that there was a huge racial discrimination when reporting.

The waves were nothing but a myth!

There are no such things as the first wave, second wave or a third wave. This is just an idea carved to the minds of the public by the government.

The first priority should have been shutting down all the paths that had potential in bringing the virus to the country. To start with, there were no such efforts at all. A virus with this behavior is quite hard to contain after it has developed to a community spread. First wave, second wave, third wave all are nothing but just words. Didn’t people get infected with the virus in between the first and second waves? Didn’t people die during that time?

Many experts are of the view that the country has responded to this pandemic in a protracted manner. There is no use of implementing remedies after the harm is already done. They only imposed curfew where a lock-down for the whole country was needed. It was not something in accordance with the Public Health Protocols. These matters were never brought up to discussion.

Do you believe that Covid 19 outbreak started from Brandix? Or the fish market? It is very clear that the protective bubble the government hid inside has been burst. They are just making justifications to the wrong approach they made initially. The government is basically running naked.

What do you suggest that the government should do in order for the country to overcome the prevailing situation?

All I have to say is that the wave that came above the nose line has already surpassed the head leaving us to suffocate. If we are ever to get rid of this situation, our health system should be reset and overrun from the beginning. We cannot reconstruct the system. What we need is a ‘Deconstruction’ like the French Philosopher Michel Foucault described decades ago.  This system is so putrid that you have to demolish everything to the ground and rebuild it piece by piece.