Nissanka Senadhipathi, Chairman of Avangard, was convicted on May 21 of possessing 816 firearms and 203395 live ammunition in a floating armory near the Galle harbor without a license. It stated that the allegation in the complaint could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, a three-judge bench comprising Justices Aditya Patabendige, Manjula Tilakaratne and Mahen Weeraman acquitted Nissanka Senadhipathi of all charges. Simultaneously, the Assistant Commissioner of the Kotmale Land Settlement Department Chamila Jayasinghe was arrested by the CID on the afternoon of the 21st. It is related to an allegation that a news related to an incident related to the Sinharaja forest was shared with others a few months ago in the Facebook social media space. At the same time, on the 21st, the Secretary of the Ministry of Health had sent a letter to the health workers banning them from commenting to the media on the Kovid situation. Recently, it was reported that Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa, a Deputy Director of the Ministry of Health, had been summoned for a disciplinary inquiry after covid told the media about the situation. As the past week has gone by with a number of such incidents, the number of Kovid infections reported daily has crossed the 3,000 mark. Commenting on this, Minister of Medicine and Minister of State Sudarshani Fernandopulle stated that she estimates that there may be three times as many patients in the society as reported. On the night of May 21, the Ministry of Health officially stated that 44 deaths would be reported on that day. The Epidemiology Unit stated that the total number of deaths was 1132.
Physicians’ Joint Statement
In this context, the Sri Lanka Medical Association, the Government Medical Officers’ Association, the Association of Specialist Physicians and the Sri Lanka Medical Inter-Academic Committee, which will hold a joint press conference on May 21, have stated that the active travel restrictions for this weekend will be enforced for a period of 14 days. They said there was no point in re-imposing or easing traffic restrictions for two or three days and that the current catastrophic situation could be reversed if the traffic restrictions were strictly enforced for at least 14 days. This is the view of almost all the pioneers on the subject of epidemiology and community medicine associated with the health sector. They all unanimously say that the country must be shut down for at least two weeks immediately to break this cycle of catastrophe. Or that the lockdown should be done. The Minister of State, who is actively working on the epidemic, also said that people should be confined to their homes for a period of 14 days. She says she can’t break this bike without it. At the same time, the government is being accused by the health sector of not listening to the opinion of health experts. That is what we as ordinary people see.
On May 21, the Presidential Task Force on Presidential Suppression of Kovids met under the chairmanship of the President, where he stated that he was doing everything about the Kovid regime on the advice of expert groups. So we have to ask the President who this expert group he is expressing is. There they reprimanded the health officials, telling them not to scare people if anything happened. This nonsense means that people should not be ready to tell the truth. Therefore, we tell the President that the people have a right to know the truth about this catastrophe. Therefore, we call on the President to listen to the views of health experts now and give them the freedom to control this epidemic, without giving priority to what the military or politicians say, let alone hiding the truth. If not, Sri Lanka will inevitably become another Delhi. It’s the real picture of any fool.
Child mortality and travel restrictions lie
According to Dr. Deepal Perera, a specialist in the Association of Pediatricians, about 1,000 children have been infected with the virus. About 5 of them have died. On the other hand, according to the Epidemiology Unit, the highest death rate is between the ages of 61 and 75. Its percentage is 42.33%. This also shows that the future is crucial. According to health experts, if this cycle is not broken, our health sector and the country will collapse. In such a situation, there will be no economy left to defend. Considering the concept of lockdown and its implementation, it should be said that the current active travel restrictions in Sri Lanka are a systematic joke. If the government wants to know how to do the lockdown properly, it can turn its eyes to Australia. It will explain how to control the spread of the disease without disrupting public life. But it is not surprising that we struggle to recover from such nonsense in a context where we are not a nation that learns like that.
At a meeting of the Presidential Task Force on the Suppression of Covid on the 21st, it was announced that vendors and fishmongers would be allowed to distribute Chun bread trucks and home-grown dried food items. According to this writer’s experience, chunpan vendors who do not wear proper face masks may be a carrier of the disease. Therefore, it is the duty of the government to look into and regulate these. Therefore, the government should pay attention to the proper implementation of the lockdown system. On the other hand, if the government, out of arrogance, puts all this aside and implements only restrictions on travel, we have to say that it or the liquid should be activated properly without lying. If not, the next thousand deaths will be completed in two or three days. Then crocodile tears make no sense.