Public Trust A Must For Effective Contact Tracing

While the Melbourne lockdown has brought down the numbers, in Sri Lanka October has been the worst since the outbreak first broke. More so that the strain is virulent and according to the WHO, Sri Lanka’s numbers are going up, while those in the region are going down

- Amantha Perera

Looking at Sri Lanka while stuck somewhere thousands of miles far off has always given me a sense of living in two parallel universes. Like the time I ended up in a side street

in Yangon, Myanmar in an old Rosa bus that reminded me of getting to school in a similar vehicle decades back. Or meeting with Sri Lankan colleagues forced to flee the country because they just wanted to tell their stories. Meals with them would be surreal, trying to save the last morsels of the Luni-miriss from home like they were gold dust.

Since the pandemic, that sense has been amplified. The longest I have been locked down has been during the last three months in Melbourne, 112 days to be exact. Just a few weeks back, I would wake up and my social media feeds would be full of those in Sri Lanka travelling all over the country. While I was risking a hefty fine travelling beyond the 5km radius from my residence to buy bread. The number of infections reported from both countries were not that far apart though.

The situation has changed on its head in the past month. While the Melbourne lockdown has brought down the numbers, in Sri Lanka October has been the worst since the outbreak first broke.