Covid-19: Protect The Protectors

Sri Lankans did not seem to have been alarmed by the rapidity of spread or the looming threat the virus posed to their lives, despite more than half of the world having been struggling to survive.

- M.S.M. Ayub

Going by some of the malicious comments posted by a section of society on social media over the spread of COVID-19, they seem to believe rashness is a legacy of a particular community. If one compiles a list of causes of the rapid worldwide spread of the pandemic, recklessness on part of the people in every country might be the first among them.

No country or community could be cited as an exception. The famous “Atapattama” programme on ITN aired on Wednesday how supermarkets were turned into battlefields in some countries soon after people were allowed to go out and purchase essential items during intervals between two curfews.

While China, South Korea, Iran and several European countries struggled to contain the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak among their citizens and the new virus had invaded through more than half of the countries in the world, Sri Lanka was initially seen as a mysterious anomaly that remained unscathed from the deadly newfound virus. However, it is in a way incomprehensible that since the first Sri Lankan was tested positive for COVID-19 on March 11 within the country, new cases started to emerge back to back.

Yet, Sri Lankans did not seem to have been alarmed by the rapidity of spread or the looming threat the virus posed to their lives, despite more than half of the world having been struggling to survive. When the government declared holidays for the public sector while requesting the private sector to follow suit, in order to implement the “social distancing” concept as a measure to mitigate the spread of the virus, people took advantage of the holidays to go on picnics and pilgrimages.