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Surprise lockdown might cause rise in Covid cases: Kumudesh

23 Aug 2021

  • Claims no system in place to monitor spread during lockdow
By Dinitha Rathnayake The Government’s abrupt announcement of a lockdown last Friday (20) could have resulted in exacerbating the Covid-19 situation, charged Joint Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (JCPSM) President Ravi Kumudesh, while alleging that there is no programme in place to evaluate the state of the Covid-19 situation in the wake of this ongoing lockdown. Speaking at a press conference yesterday (23), he said: “It was not easy to bring about this scientific lockdown, as we had to go on the warpath to achieve this. Now we have reached the third day of this lockdown, but there is no evaluation done by the authorities to understand the situation in the country. We are already concerned about the way the Government declared this lockdown. It was a surprise lockdown, and most people were on the roads on 20 August without concern for the pandemic, since they needed to buy essential items.” Kumudesh also expressed his concerns over a fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic during the lockdown period owing to the latest sudden lockdown. He added that the current lockdown is not successful, as there are many people outside, engaged in their usual activities, despite the restrictions. Kumudesh said they would force the Government to carry out the lockdown in a scientific manner by imposing it only for a limited number of days, during which at least 100,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and rapid antigen tests (RATs) should be carried out to test for the virus. Additionally, he noted, infected persons should be isolated, and home-based care should be provided for those with minor symptoms. “We ask the Government to conduct at least 100,000 Covid-19 tests per day, and there is no additional cost for this. Also, places should be prepared with 100,000 beds as intermediary treatment centres, while another 10,000 beds should be allocated for essential treatment. Surveillance should be carried out to provide a disease forecast,” he recommended. Kumudesh also noted that tourists should be prevented from coming into the country during this period, while special attention should be paid to Covid-19 variants that may be carried by those arriving from abroad. The Covid-19 death toll in Sri Lanka had shot up to 7,366, with 393,223 total cases at the time of writing.


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