President of the Sri Lanka Association of Government Medical Laboratory Technologists (SLAGMLT) Ravi Kumudesh stated today (19) that there is no scientific basis for the statement made by the Minister of Health that the COVID rate is declining or under control in Sri Lanka. “Considering the data from the Ministry of Health about Covid, it is clear that a scientific surveillance process is not working. Accurate data must be based on a systematic Covid test procedure to make a scientific prediction of whether the disease is declining in the country,” he stated. He pointed out that, for this purpose, randomized tests, active tracking tests and inactive tests of patients admitted to hospitals should be carried out in a proper manner. Many statements and predictions based on informal data are accurate, as we do not currently have any data on randomized patient activity, active and inactive testing tendencies, and there is no proper testing process to generate that data. He revealed that in the last ten days alone, about 68,000 PCR tests have been performed, and more than 2,500 cases have been detected. “A simple study of the relevant data clearly shows that the number of encounters varies with the number of tests performed, rather than the number of actual infections,” he stated. Kumudesh said that the scientific reason for the increase or decrease in the number of tests conducted by the Ministry of Health is not clear, but it is very clear that the number of patients found increases or decreases with the number of tests performed. “Furthermore, the Epidemiology Unit states that the incidence of foreign infections is very high, but they have not yet revealed the scientific process by which scientific data has been collected. Therefore, it is futile to revise the rules and regulations regarding the importation of foreign immigrants into the country, considering the unfounded data as informal,” he stated. He pointed out that for about eight months now, there has been a discrepancy between the official data of the Ministry of Health, but that no correction has been made so far. “Also, this official data discrepancy makes it very clear that the Ministry of Health is confused about the statistical expertise on the Covid epidemic. For the same reason, we urge the Minister of Health to be careful in issuing statements based on them can only become non-scientific and mere statements,” he concluded.