COLOMBO – Sri Lanka has reported 30 coronavirus deaths with eight home deaths as of Friday (6), and authorities are placing more responsibility on containing the epidemic on members of the public.
With multiple COVID-19 clusters emerging and curfews expected to be relaxed soon, the authorities continue to insist there is no community transmission in Sri Lanka.
The Health Ministry said on Friday, Sri Lanka was now in Alert 3 or multiple clusters, which is before community transmission.
Guidelines have been released for various businesses and activities and people are being asked to practice DReAM (D-Social Distancing, no gathering, mainly stay at home/Re-Respiratory Etiquette, A – aseptic practices/hand-washing/sanitizing) and M – proper use of masks. Though the SARS-CoV-2 strain found in Sri Lanka is said to be highly transmissible, social distancing had not been increased from the current one metre.
In community transmission, clusters cross-infect and the distinctions between them disappear.
Sri Lanka’s Public Health Inspector Union officials have warned that conditions of imminent community transmission exist in some areas of Colombo, which are densely populated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also classifies Sri Lanka as a country with clusters of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Army Chief, Lt. General Shavendra Silva, who is also head of the COVID-19 task force, on Thursday (5) indicated that curfews will be relaxed as soon as possible.
“President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has instructed us to do all the PCR tests and measures necessary during the nine days and work towards re-opening the Western Province by the morning of November 9,” he said during multiple television appearances.
President Rajapaksa has said businesses and daily income earners are finding it difficult to cope with curfews, unlike State agencies which would anyway pay salaries.
A curfew covering the entirety of the Western Province was imposed from midnight October 29, initially for three days, but was later extended till Monday (9). Several areas in the northern parts of the capital with high concentration of COVID-19 cases, were already under lockdown when the curfew was imposed.
The president has said health authorities would be allowed to isolate smaller areas. In the past three days, several areas in the provinces, which were placed on isolation have been opened as contact tracers caught up.
Health authorities and public health inspectors have been engaged in a major battle to trace, test, isolate, and quarantine contacts. About 11,000 tests are being conducted daily on contacts, on those under treatment and on random and targeted samples in high risk groups.
There are around 84,000 first and second contacts of confirmed persons in quarantine in 31,000 households, the authorities have said.
Sri Lanka has confirmed 12,970 cases and 30 deaths, with 1 death and 400 new cases being reported on Friday. A day earlier five deaths were reported, including three who had died at home. This was the highest number of deaths recorded in a single day.
Sri Lanka’s Government Medical Officers Association had earlier warned against discharging patients without multiple coronavirus tests, as discharge criteria were relaxed and large numbers were deemed recovered.
This week new cases were also found in the country’s largest prison in the capital, in the port and among the police force in Colombo.
The WHO says community transmission starts in cities and spreads, though it is not classified as a separate stage, noting that cities act as centres of community transmission, as well as entry points into further country-wide transmission through national and international travel and trade and that they also often serve as points for health-care surge.
The fish-market cluster from Peliyagoda, north of Colombo, has particular significance for the spread of the infection far and wide.
Officials initially attributed all discovered cases to the Minuwangoda cluster which emerged on October 3.
But on October 20 random tests at the Peliyagoda fish-market, after several fish vendors were infected, found an even larger cluster. Health Authorities have already said the Minuwangoda and fish-market clusters have been cross infecting.
Workers going from Colombo port and several apparel factories have also taken the disease home. In many rural areas, patients are turning up from a cluster at the Colombo Dockyard, as the Colombo Port saw a surge in cases.
However, Sri Lanka’s Chief Epidemiologist Sudath Samaraweera has said that numbers from the Minuwangoda cluster have started to fall.
Meanwhile, in northern Colombo, several older people with chronic diseases have died in their homes. Only one person in Colombo 13 was a contact of a known traced case, according to information publicly available.
Out of 30 deaths reported in Sri Lanka, 17 have been home deaths attributed to coronavirus after post-mortem examination.
As clusters multiplied Sri Lanka dropped institutional quarantine, converted the facilities into treatment centres as started to quarantine first contacts at home.
Officials are now saying it is the responsibility of the public to protect their elders.
“If you take this virus home, and if your mother and father or grandparents get it, the bigger chance is that they will die, rather than recover,” Jayaruwan Bandara, spokesman for Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry told reporters recently, urging, “The responsibility is yours. Carry out the responsibility for them. If you go out do not bring it in.”
Institutional quarantine stops infections of second level contacts in a family where the first contact has not completed the incubation period, observers have said
.If first contacts are not in institutional quarantine the chances of family members including the elderly getting infected is higher, observers familiar with the practices followed in the most successful countries in East Asia say.
If contact tracers get to the contact before the incubation period is over and takes a first contact to a centre, other family members will not get infected.
However, if first contacts are kept at home until they develop the disease and becomes a patient, there is a greater chance of other family members becoming infected increasing pressure on hospital beds and intensive care units
There is in general about a six-day window for tracers to find contacts, before they get to the next level, according to researchers in East Asia.
On November 3, a 68-year old woman from Jampettah Street died at home while under home quarantine. “A family member of the deceased woman was diagnosed as COVID-19 and other members were under home quarantine,” the state information office said.
It was not clear whether the infected family member had already developed the disease by the time tracers found him.
Another person who had committed suicide also had a family member taken to hospital. It is not clear whether the other home deaths are related to known contacts and whether family members were found.
Meanwhile, President Rajapaksa had asked officials to ensure that home quarantine is enforced after curfews are lifted.
“While paying special attention to close associates and the areas they belong to in the event infected persons are found in the community, and if necessary, declare those areas as isolated,” the President’s Office quoted him as saying in a statement.
-economynext.com
