Opposition Locked Down

The Government has announced that the schools and universities that had been indefinitely closed earlier in view of the COVID-19 pandemic would be reopened on May 11. Does it mean that the Government is confident that the pandemic would be wiped out from the country or at least it would sufficiently be under control by May 11?

- M.S.M.Ayub

It is the hope and the prayer of all Sri Lankans that the country would emerge victorious in its struggle against the coronavirus as early as possible, but is there an assurance that we would succeed before May 11? If so, unlike the schools which small children attend, why have the authorities decided to open the universities in three stages?

The rationale behind these plans may be the claims made by the Health Ministry officials that they have traced all contact persons of those who had already contracted the virus. They claim that they have successfully isolated the next possible COVID-19 patients in their homes and quarantine centres run by the armed forces and there is hardly any case that would possibly be reported from among others in the country. We hope and pray it to be so too.

The coronavirus has invaded almost all countries in the world with the number of cases reported exceeding two million and the number of deaths being around 135,000 on Thursday (April 16). Many powerful countries including the most powerful United States of America have failed and are desperately struggling to cope with the situation. The US, the worst-hit country, had reported 644,348 cases and 28,554 deaths by Thursday.

In fact, only a political hypocrite would deny that the fight against COVID-19 in Sri Lanka is successful, compared to many countries in the world. For the past 37 days since the first Sri Lankan national having reported to have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the daily detection of COVID- 19 patients has been fluctuating without exceeding 21 persons.