Meeting economic imperatives amid a pandemic
The number of positive infection detections climbed to 242 yesterday after a happy 24-hour gap on the previous day with no detections. The data emerging on the COVID-19 pandemic in the country seems to be giving the medical experts room for cautious optimism. They note that the all-important ‘curve’ is flattening out in Sri Lanka.
The ‘curve’ that all the world’s media is talking about is the line in the statistical graph that shows the rate of increase in positive cases of the disease. In every nation hit by the pandemic, the disease at first spreads rapidly until action is taken fast enough to halt its spread. Thus, as the number of cases increase, the line in the statistical graph shows an upward curve. When the rate of increase slows, that curving line flattens out gradually.
In Sri Lanka, the first case of infection was that of a foreign woman tourist who was detected with the illness on January 27. That early detection was possible because the country’s health authorities and experts had already instituted measures to medically check on people entering the country after the reports of an epidemic in the city of Wuhan, China.
In the subsequent months, under the leadership of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, all agencies have acted in a coordinated manner and with much co-operative response from the general public. Today, we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Much of the rest of the world, especially some of the richest and industrially strongest countries, have been afflicted on a far greater scale. In Italy, France, the UK, and the USA, the number of infections is in the scores of thousands or, in worst case USA, in the hundreds of thousands.
Thousands are dying of the pandemic in these supposedly ‘developed’ states. In developing Sri Lanka, despite our poverty in physical resources, our institutional strength, depth of scientific expertise and level of popular collaboration has helped us to limit the impact to just 242 cases and seven deaths, so far. Our scientific capability also includes comprehensive linkages with the global research institutions, enabling our medical experts to be in constant consultation with their peers around the globe, especially China, in fine tuning our handling of the crisis.
While the rate of spread of the disease may be declining, yesterday’s reported new cases shows that the country has still to continue dealing with the pandemic on an emergency footing.
Nevertheless, the President has already put in place special fiscal and administrative measures to blunt the impact of the epidemic on the economy. The urban concentration of the epidemic has meant that, thankfully, the agricultural sector, on which a sizeable proportion of the population depends, has been least affected. Agricultural production has continued even as the country’s main urban centres have been kept under lockdown.
The Government has already initiated various financial support programmes for the most affected sectors and the most vulnerable elements within these sectors. These include debt moratoria for various types of affected industry and services, special loan schemes for small and medium scale enterprises lacking reserves to sit out the lockdown and, stimulus packages for revival of businesses in the aftermath of the crisis.
As the slowing down of the epidemic enables the Government to look beyond the health crisis, attention is being paid to the revival of manufacturing and services which, combined, now deploys 75% of the productive population.
Since the rural areas are under a softer lockdown regime than the urban centres, the Government has announced a phased opening up of factories in these areas. The Board of Investments have given the green light to BOI ventures to begin operations in coordination with the Board and strictly in accordance with the Health Ministry guidelines. Once health and safety conditions in plants are approved, these factory labour forces will be given curfew passes to begin working.
While there is an element of disease risk even in a gradual opening up of factories, it is only such economic revival measures that will reduce the overall pandemic impact on the economy and ease the expected economic and social pain that is still to come. Some of the richer countries are considering the re-opening of affected economic sectors even while they are yet in far worse pandemic conditions than this country, precisely because they know that the longer the suspension of economic activity, the greater the economic damage and corollary social pain.
And unlike the rich countries, this country does not have vast financial resources to throw around to ease such pain. Thus, the country has little choice but to take some risks in terms of livelihood as a nation in the global economy. What is needed is the continued social discipline and perseverance that has taken us this far in our fight with COVID-19.
The number of positive infection detections climbed to 242 yesterday after a happy 24-hour gap on the previous day with no detections. The data emerging on the COVID-19 pandemic in the country seems to be giving the medical experts room for cautious optimism. They note that the all-important ‘curve’ is flattening out in Sri Lanka.
The ‘curve’ that all the world’s media is talking about is the line in the statistical graph that shows the rate of increase in positive cases of the disease. In every nation hit by the pandemic, the disease at first spreads rapidly until action is taken fast enough to halt its spread. Thus, as the number of cases increase, the line in the statistical graph shows an upward curve. When the rate of increase slows, that curving line flattens out gradually.
In Sri Lanka, the first case of infection was that of a foreign woman tourist who was detected with the illness on January 27. That early detection was possible because the country’s health authorities and experts had already instituted measures to medically check on people entering the country after the reports of an epidemic in the city of Wuhan, China.
In the subsequent months, under the leadership of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, all agencies have acted in a coordinated manner and with much co-operative response from the general public. Today, we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Much of the rest of the world, especially some of the richest and industrially strongest countries, have been afflicted on a far greater scale. In Italy, France, the UK, and the USA, the number of infections is in the scores of thousands or, in worst case USA, in the hundreds of thousands.
Thousands are dying of the pandemic in these supposedly ‘developed’ states. In developing Sri Lanka, despite our poverty in physical resources, our institutional strength, depth of scientific expertise and level of popular collaboration has helped us to limit the impact to just 242 cases and seven deaths, so far. Our scientific capability also includes comprehensive linkages with the global research institutions, enabling our medical experts to be in constant consultation with their peers around the globe, especially China, in fine tuning our handling of the crisis.
While the rate of spread of the disease may be declining, yesterday’s reported new cases shows that the country has still to continue dealing with the pandemic on an emergency footing.
Nevertheless, the President has already put in place special fiscal and administrative measures to blunt the impact of the epidemic on the economy. The urban concentration of the epidemic has meant that, thankfully, the agricultural sector, on which a sizeable proportion of the population depends, has been least affected. Agricultural production has continued even as the country’s main urban centres have been kept under lockdown.
The Government has already initiated various financial support programmes for the most affected sectors and the most vulnerable elements within these sectors. These include debt moratoria for various types of affected industry and services, special loan schemes for small and medium scale enterprises lacking reserves to sit out the lockdown and, stimulus packages for revival of businesses in the aftermath of the crisis.
As the slowing down of the epidemic enables the Government to look beyond the health crisis, attention is being paid to the revival of manufacturing and services which, combined, now deploys 75% of the productive population.
Since the rural areas are under a softer lockdown regime than the urban centres, the Government has announced a phased opening up of factories in these areas. The Board of Investments have given the green light to BOI ventures to begin operations in coordination with the Board and strictly in accordance with the Health Ministry guidelines. Once health and safety conditions in plants are approved, these factory labour forces will be given curfew passes to begin working.
While there is an element of disease risk even in a gradual opening up of factories, it is only such economic revival measures that will reduce the overall pandemic impact on the economy and ease the expected economic and social pain that is still to come. Some of the richer countries are considering the re-opening of affected economic sectors even while they are yet in far worse pandemic conditions than this country, precisely because they know that the longer the suspension of economic activity, the greater the economic damage and corollary social pain.
And unlike the rich countries, this country does not have vast financial resources to throw around to ease such pain. Thus, the country has little choice but to take some risks in terms of livelihood as a nation in the global economy. What is needed is the continued social discipline and perseverance that has taken us this far in our fight with COVID-19.
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