Daily News Editorial

COVID-19: Testing the key

Wednesday 01st, April 2020

If the symptoms of COVID-19 infection are similar to that of acute influenza, how do we know we are afflicted by the new, highly infectious disease? And, since the virus spreads rapidly from person to person, we will certainly need to know it fast enough to avoid infecting others.

Just as with all other diseases currently known and treated by the medical sciences, the diagnosis of COVID-19 is done by tests. Body samples are taken and analysed in laboratories and the result will indicate the nature of the infection.

The current challenge is to design testing systems that enable the quickest possible accurate diagnosis. After all, the earlier we know who and how many are COVID-19 positive, the quicker we can act to prevent them from infecting others. And, most importantly, the sooner the treatment of victims, the easier it is to prevent fatalities.

Medical scientists the world over, from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to our own medical scientific community, are unanimous in seeing testing as the core means of fighting the epidemic. In the long term, ultimately, it is hoped that a vaccine will be developed to prevent infection. Till then, it is prompt diagnosis that is the primary measure of preventing a contagion.

But this means test systems that are proactive rather than reactive. That is, rather than wait for symptoms to show sufficiently to suspect COVID-19 and then seek the test, there needs to be constant testing of people in different parts of the country – at public transit points, gathering places – to identify not only the number of infections but also the geographical spread. Such systematic testing will enable anticipation of directions of viral spread and the potential for increases of infections. At the same time, such proactive testing will ensure early diagnosis and thereby save lives.

The more convenient such testing is for the public, the easier it is to ensure the maximum public participation in testing. Simply put, there are broadly four stages in testing for a disease such as COVID-19.

Firstly, there is the stage of noting symptoms and engagement with the testing authorities. Secondly, there is the procedure for providing body fluid samples for analysis. Then, there is the analysis of the samples in a suitably equipped laboratory. The fourth stage would be the medical response to the diagnosis, either by treatment of the patient or by the discharge of the person because she/he is cleared of the disease. Sometimes, the cleared person may be subsequently monitored for a period just in case the infection arises later. Or, the person could be asked to under-go self-quarantine.

South Korea, which has had thousands of COVID-19 positive cases, is being held up as an example of a country that has taken swift and extensive steps to counter the spread of the infection. The success of South Korea is based on the most pragmatic measure of maximising the testing of the population so that those infected are identified as early as possible.

When COVID-19 initially hit Sri Lanka with that single case of a foreigner (who was successfully treated), the medical specialists here were quick to develop a test kit. It was one that could be used in a convenient interaction with potentially affected persons. However, to date the testing procedure currently in use throughout the world needs several hours for sample analysis at specialised laboratories, though at least one company has developed a five-minute test.

Even as it consolidates its early systematic handling of COVID-19, the Government is already moving on to the logical next stage in fighting any lethal and volatile contagion: proactive testing of people across the country. The medical specialist community is already busy developing test procedures designed for convenient public use on a mass scale.

It is not an easy task and certainly an expensive one given that it requires the urgent deployment of design systems, production mechanisms and rigorous ensuring of scientific quality standards.

The medical scientific community, which is broadly unanimous about the need for extensive and systematic testing of the population, is looking to the Government to facilitate the process at the earliest. They point out that the current success in responding to the contagion by slowing down the spread cannot be sustained in the long term unless the spread itself is anticipated comprehensively and stopped.

They point out that some level of mass sample testing at centres across the country will be the final means of containing the epidemic in a viable manner which reduces the greater costs of having to deal with any expansion. Our medical scientists and administrators are already known to be in close consultation with counterparts in South Korea and China as well as the WHO in this regard.

This is the moment for the business community, too, to contribute with design and innovation in cost effective medical engineering on the one hand and investment in mass production on the other.

The Island Editorial

Virus and food

Wednesday 1st April, 2020

Whoever would have thought a microorganism would put the brakes on the seemingly unstoppable process of globalisation? All countries have walled themselves off and are now hermit kingdoms, just like North Korea, to all intents and purposes. They are frantically guarding their national borders to protect themselves against COVID-19. This kind of hysterical response to the threat is not without a tinge of xenophobia, which is frowned on by the civilised world.

With the world now in the quarantine mode, as it were, speculation is rife that there could be a shortage of some agricultural commodities, in this country, owing to lockdowns in India, etc. Given the huge local demand for food items, in India, which has about 1.3 billion people, restrictions are bound to be imposed on its agricultural exports. There was a shortage of big onions, here, a few weeks ago, due to a poor crop yield, in India. So the possibility of a shortage of food items, imported from India as well as other coronavirus-hit countries, sooner or later, cannot be ruled out. We can only hope that such a situation won’t come to pass.

It has become patently clear from the present crisis and the attendant problems that the local food production has to be increased substantially. Fortunately, wholesalers usually maintain buffer stocks of imported food items, in March and April, to meet the Avurudu demand. Had the country been hit by coronavirus after the traditional New Year, panic buying would have caused a severe food shortage. It is hoped that action will be taken to replenish food stocks urgently.

The problem with lessons learnt from crises is that they are soon forgotten, as we have argued in a previous column. A world grain shortage, in the early 1970s, jolted Sri Lanka into increasing its local food production to face the resultant food crisis. The then SLFP-led United Front (UF) government swung into action with revolutionary zeal. The people were encouraged to grow their own food as far as possible, and home gardening became the order of the day. However, the government unnecessarily resorted to extreme action, which hurt the public, who grew resentful. It chose to ignore the people’s suffering, and the arrogance of power became its undoing. The country benefited immensely from the national cultivation drive, which would have lessened our heavy dependency on food imports. Unfortunately, it did not find favour with the UNP government, which came into power in 1977, and adopted economic liberalisation and promoted imports. If the momentum of the campaign to increase local food production had been maintained, during the last four decades or so, perhaps the country wouldn’t have been so desperate for food imports, today.

We have seen several much-advertised cultivation drives, over the years, but all of them, launched by Heads of State, at colourful ceremonies which cost Citizen Silva an arm and a leg, withered on the vine for want of state assistance afterwards, and we are where we are; even kurakkan (finger millet) is imported to meet a shortfall in the supply thereof. Cheap imports have taken their toll on the local food production due to the short-sighted policies of successive governments. There have been instances where rice was imported shortly before the commencement of the harvesting season, here, so as to bring down the prices of rice and, thereby, enable big-time millers to purchase paddy at extremely low prices and hoard it. This kind of exploitation has caused many farmers to give up paddy cultivation, unable to recover even the cost of production. In the early noughties, some political pundits advocated that paddy fields, in the Western Province, be filled up and factories built thereon because it was cheaper to import rice than to produce it here. They were also responsible for bankrupting Sathosa in a bid to privatise it and pocket kickbacks.

It may be possible to make use of the current situation to promote home gardening while action is taken to meet the immediate needs of the people.

Daily Mirror Editorial

If we did not have our rice stocks.....

April 01, 2020

Calamities and crises have the ability to add rationality and sanity to otherwise capricious human mind. They awaken men to the reality and that nothing else but life itself is the most precious thing in life. It’s not that posh car or the highflying top job or that much awaited cruise to Alaska. What you thought necessary all these years out of greed, is now redundant. Your social status or prestige hardly matters. Being alive and breathing is the most important thing in life. It’s simple healthy living with family that matters.

For centuries, if not millennia, right-thinking men took pains to drive this point home. However, the overambitious and the greedy stifled their voices and got the human race into a vicious cycle of instability and greed. The consumerist agenda urged people to fulfil their greed at any cost instead of managing them.

As Coronavirus or COVID-19 rages the world, the informed people are recalling the wise words by philosophers, academics, economists and others, which the human race have ignored all these years only to fall into the depths of misery.

There is a long list of thinkers. Among the many names that come to mind is E. F. Schumacher with his iconic book “The Small is Beautiful”. Published in 1973, the book by this German-born British economist went on to expose the fundamental flaws of the modern western civilization and its economies and urged the world to replace it by more self-sufficient, manageable systems, which have average man’s happiness in the forefront. Among his many proposals was a suggestion to the Buddhist countries to go with what he called ‘Buddhist Economics”, which he saw as the ideal model. Schumacher lamented that the Buddhist nations had started following the alien western model which is based on economic liberalization that had proven to be a massive failure, instead.

"Despite this pathetic state of affairs, some hundreds of thousands of determined farmers toiled on. Thanks to them today, though the country is locked down, still there is enough rice for a few more months"

“……therefore, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant people is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale,” Schumacher argued in his book.

Nothing better could have been suggested to an island nation like Sri Lanka which realized the importance of food security belatedly. In fact it is in the process of figuring it during this phase of the coronavirus epidemic.

Till two weeks ago, for nearly four decades or so, political leaders happily imported rice citing the high cost of production here. Farmers were neglected and hundreds of thousands of paddy lands were abandoned due to poor patronage by consecutive regimes. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) continued to harp on the need for food security for governments here. But nothing worked.

Despite this pathetic state of affairs, some hundreds of thousands of determined farmers toiled on. Thanks to them today, though the country is locked down, still there is enough rice for a few more months. It is anybody’s guess as to what would have happened, had the remaining farmers too given up agriculture. With no ships coming, Sri Lanka would have been forced to starve!

It is high time the rulers realize their mandatory duty towards farmers. There is no other option left for us, but to be self-sufficient and if possible, make Sri Lanka the ‘Granary of the East’ once again.