Features

A science-based strategy to control the current covid-19 situation

Published

5 years ago

2021/05/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Malik Peiris

Chair/Professor of Virology, School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Medicine, Hong Kong and

Kamini Mendis

Professor Emeritus, University of Colombo, Public Health and Malaria Expert formerly at the World Health Organisation.

I. The current covid-19 situation in the country

There is a high intensity of transmission of covid-19 in the country just now. Although it became apparent with cases increasing in the last week of April, the increase in transmission began about 4 weeks before that. The incubation period of the virus (3-14 days) together with testing / reporting delays mean that the cases detected and reported now were the result of transmission that took place 1-2 weeks ago. Since deaths follow with a lag period of a further two weeks, the deaths occurring now were the result or transmission that took place around one month ago. The mortality impact of the increase in cases is only just starting to be felt now.

The B.1.1.7 variant of the virus spreading now is more transmissible, and possibly more virulent, than in previous “waves”. An even more concerning variant B.1.617 (first detected in India) has also been detected in Sri Lanka and it remains to be seen how widespread it will become. WHO has designated it a “variant of concern,” it is now spreading in the UK and is the cause of some of the recent case clusters in Singapore.

There was an exponential increase of cases from mid-April to date. Although case numbers appear to plateau in recent days, it is likely that this is a result of limitation in testing capacity. Testing numbers have remained flat, in spite of high positive rates (exceeding 10% in most laboratories), raising concerns of whether the epi-curve we now see reflects reality. ICU admissions and deaths continue to increase, as will be inevitable, from infections that have already occurred.

As a result, the capacity of the health system to manage covid-19 patients has already been exceeded, the inevitable consequences being more avoidable deaths. With increasing cases, even the implementation of the public health measures that were being implemented– i.e. testing, isolating, contact tracing and quarantining, have exceeded the capacity of the health sector. In addition, health staff in the curative and preventive sectors is becoming victims of covid-19 themselves, which makes the situation grave.

The vaccination programme, currently getting under way within the constraints of limited vaccine supply, even if targeted to those at highest risk of death, i.e. the elderly and those with co-morbidities (a policy that has NOT been consistently followed in Sri Lanka so far), will take many months to translate into an impact on mortality. Vaccines, which require two doses at least a month apart, take optimal effect >2 weeks after the second vaccine dose. As of now, only 1% of the population have received both doses of vaccine and 6% received at least one dose, that too, mainly in one province of the country. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, it will be over 6 months before most of the high-risk population receives protection from vaccine across the country.

The only available option in the short-medium term to arrest this impending catastrophe is to significantly curtail transmission through social and public health interventions.

Although a few public health interventions have been implemented in the past week, we explain below why these recent measures of small-area isolations, prohibiting inter-provincial travel, intermittent and short period lockdowns, as the one during 14 – 17 May, together with mild restrictions on human movement such as those based on identity card numbers, will not arrest this wave of the epidemic.

We explain why a nation-wide lockdown of at least 14 days (defined below) is absolutely necessary, if increasing ICU admissions and deaths from this wave are to be contained. We also comment on the likely economic impact of these different approaches.

II. Why small-area isolation, preventing inter-provincial travel, short and intermittent lockdowns and mild restraints on human movement will not work

1. The testing is not sufficient to make small area isolation have an impact.

Small area lockdowns are based on obtaining information of a cluster(s) of cases from a particular location. The detection of these clusters are based on testing a population in an area in response to detecting a few cases from that location – i.e. reactive case detection rather than proactive surveillance. Thus, by the time the cluster has been detected, multiple weeks have lapsed since the initiation of each cluster and therefore the people in that cluster would have already spread the virus through their movement, to many other areas, adjacent and distant. In other words, isolating that small area will not have much effect on the spread of the virus to other areas, because it has already happened. If small-area isolation is to work, then an extensive amount of active surveillance and testing in the population (as opposed to being based on contact tracing) is necessary, but this is currently not feasible given the laboratory system being already overloaded. Initiating these small-area lockdowns are sucking up a huge lab testing capacity at the moment, which will be more productively deployed elsewhere.

2. Since all provinces have ongoing high transmission already, stopping travel between provinces will have little effect.

By the end of April, all provinces had ongoing high transmission of the virus and therefore stopping inter-Provincial travel will be of no avail at this stage. It may have had a role in early or mid-April, soon after the B.1.1.7 variant was detected in the Western Province. But not any more, with the virus entrenched in every province.

3. Countrywide lockdowns of 3 days will not block even a single cycle of virus transmission or cover the period of infectiousness of an individual.

Intermittent countrywide lockdowns (such as the one from 14 – 17 may or the proposed one from 21 – 25 May) will only have effect during those three days. Three days is far shorter than the incubation period of the virus, i.e. from infection to manifestation of illness and transmission, which is around 5 days (range 3- 14 days). It is even shorter that the infectious period of one infected individual, which is around 8 days. For example, if an infected individual begins to be infectious on day one of a 3-day lock down, he/she will remain infectious at the end of the lockdown, at which time the person will be again moving in the community. In order to even partially interrupt transmission, one needs to cover at least two cycles of transmission, i.e. 10-14 days of intervention. That will allow an exponentially higher probability of chains of transmission being interrupted. Therefore, the minimum period of lockdown should be countrywide and at least 2 weeks in duration. The impact of 5 successive intermittent lockdowns of 3 days each (i. e. 15 days in aggregate) will therefore, be much less than that of one continuous 14 day period of lockdown. Furthermore, the former strategy will be spread out over a much longer period, when we do not have the luxury of time any more.

4. Partial restriction of human movement using ID card digits will not have much impact on virus transmission.

Limiting the movement of people and crowd-gathering through means such as restricting them to alternate days based on identity card numbers is not sufficient to prevent the congregation of people because up to half the population could be out of home at any given time. This is not sufficient for transmission is to be halted.

5. Standard preventive measures are not having optimal impact because of overcrowded living conditions

Even the strict enforcement of social distancing and mask wearing will not have its optimal impact because they are not ideally implementable under overcrowded living conditions in urban areas.

6. People working in enclosed environments e.g., office spaces will enhance virus transmission

Offices such as banks, and industrial working places such as garment factories require people to be in enclosed and confined spaces with insufficient ventilation for the entire working day. These are extremely and highly conducive to the spread of the virus.

Thus, these recent measures have impeded economic activity and sucked up huge resources and effort from the security forces for a marginal public health gain, at best. Moreover, repeated, intermittent short-duration restrictions also carry significant economic costs. The uncertainty associated with the introduction of these measures/future measures create an unstable environment for most economic activities. Most daily wage earners are not given work by employers because they travel daily from unknown risk situations at home. Most industries and offices are working within a context of uncertainty and are unable to plan even for the medium-term. This is not conducive to economic growth.

A rational, determined and convincing strategy is needed, both to get control of an impending public health disaster and also to restore economic confidence.

III. A countrywide lockdown for at least 14 continuous days is immediately necessary for the following reasons:

1. Only a degree of restriction of human movement enabled by a total countrywide lockdown of 14 days will lead to interrupting at least one (preferably two) cycles of virus transmission in the community. Such an intervention would give an opportunity for the health sector, currently at or beyond breaking point, to catch its collective breath, to face the future. Otherwise, exponential increase in the number of cases (and deaths) will lead to health staff succumbing and the consequent collapse of the health system.

2. Such an intervention can be signaled >5 days in advance so that the community, traders and businesses can make adequate preparations. It will give some level of certainty for planning and instill confidence in the population, the business community and the health sector.

3. The daily wage earners will need to be given an allowance to tide over this period. But this investment will be amply repaid by the opportunity to get faster control of an epidemic that is rapidly spiraling out of control.

4. Access to essential commodities – food, fuel, medicines, health care will not be compromised because the necessary logistical arrangements can be made. The experience of the March-April 2020 lockdown will be an asset in planning and implementing the distribution of essential goods to the people.

We recommend the following:

All persons to remain in their homes at all times for a period of at least 14 days continuously, and all schools, industries, commercial enterprises and places of worship to remain closed, with the exceptions listed below. These exempted places will be subject to social distancing, capacity restriction, wearing of face-masks, hand sanitizing and operating under conditions of optimal ventilation.

1. All essential services to be functional.

2. A minimum number of grocery stores, pharmacies, and fuel stations to remain open in every district. A limited number of vegetable, fruit and fish/meat, bakery and other food delivery vehicles permitted to operate on the basis of permits.

3. Restaurants able to prepare food for delivery on order, but not allow in-house dining.

4. Government departments deemed essential, to keep an office open for a few hours a day and function with a skeleton staff on a roster basis.

5. Any organization or enterprise may allow its employees to work from home.

6. A person can leave home only for a health need (including vaccination), any other emergency, or to purchase food supplies, but only one person can leave home at any one time for these purposes.

7. Gatherings of more than 4 people to be prohibited.

8. Outdoors agricultural work permitted to continue.

We request, in addition, that all ongoing preventive measures be enforced rigorously, including increasing vaccination coverage, and that case management and treatment interventions are greatly strengthened in the country.

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

22 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

22 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

22 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.