Dedicated Management of Covid-19 control tasks

Don’t dishearten or belittle experts, health workers and tri-Servicemen in COVID-19 control tasks!

The feature article, “Failure to Manage COVID-19: Who is responsible ?” of Prof Sunil Wimalawansa, in Thursday’s issue of ‘The Island’ newspaper, critical of strategic approaches of the Task Force for COVID-19 control, spread of the virus, ‘inhuman’ and ‘draconian’ military measures, ‘worthless’ imposition of ‘quarantine curfew’, hiatus in system-thinking, ‘search and arrest’ mentality of the Army, punishing of victims and ‘contact-tracing mechanism’, etc., deserves clarification and correction, since unfounded utterances, and scathing remarks, attribute the increase of the infection to ‘adoption of wrong approaches, both by the Health Department stakeholders and tri-service troops, involved in quarantine work’.

Let me first place on record how the first wave of the attack was brought under control, no sooner than the first COVID patient was traced in March this year, and a necessary control mechanism was brought into effect on a Presidential directive after the President established a Task Force exclusively to work for it, well in advance, even before the first infected ones were reported in the country. The Task Force consists of the Minister of Health, Secretary to Ministry of Health, Director General of Health Services, Chief Epidemiologist, Medical Specialists, Tri- Service Heads, Inspector General of the Police, and a few other relevant stakeholders, for which the Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Army was entrusted the task of establishing the state-of-the art National Operations Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO), at Rajagiriya, for coordination of all preventive roles.

He was invited to man it as the Head of NOCPCO by none other the President himself, most probably because of Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva’s well-proven leadership and man-management as the Commander in the largest organization, well-equipped at all levels.   The NOCPCO Task Force was, in fact, the ‘think-tank’ that regularly monitors, reviews, evaluates, predicts, proposes, implements and finally launches all necessary plans of action, after extensive discussions and decisions with all stake-holders. For example, it was the President who at first mooted the notion of establishing hitherto unheard of ‘Quarantine Centres’ across the country, to accommodate first and second contacts or their close associates, which have been very instrumental in isolating family members from infected ones. It was the Tri-Services which took the challenge and established such Centres in record time, and facilitated the evacuation to keep the contacts in quarantine.

It is pertinent to mention here that the NOCPCO and its Task Force, since its founding in March, has worked to-date very closely with each other, and has been accommodating all shades of expert opinions on the pestering issue, and in some instances, by going even to the extent of inviting such expertise to regular NOCPCO Task Force sessions. As such, the Task Force has been burning midnight oil, and succeeded in establishing more than 150 tri-service-managed Quarantine Centres across the island, new hospital wings, makeshift wards and newly converted ICUs for COVID-19 patients, management of Sri Lankan expatriates and foreigners arriving in the country, conduct of health checks on inmates and transportation of such groups. All those preventive measures, mind you, were done effectively on the basis of strategic decisions that were taken during those Task Force meeting sessions, and none of them were adopted as arbitrary or ‘inhuman’ measures, as claimed by the writer.

The question of conduct of PCR tests, en masse, at random and at other vulnerable places, has in fact been repeatedly taken up during those sessions,  and alternative solutions to multiply numbers of such tests were explored, highlighted and finally agreed upon; thus now being able to perform more than four-digit numbers of PCR tests a day. Management of infected persons, for example, found in Suduwella, Keselwatte, Welisara, Kandakadu clusters, etc.,  during the first round of the virus attack, has very well proved that the combination of health officials, tri- servicemen and other stakeholders, in the preventive mechanism, delivered very effectively, as everyone knows with the public support that  was also forthcoming from those in quarantine.

The other baffling task was the maintenance of day-to-day affairs of the country; we still being a country with a majority of low-income groups. Hence, the Task Force while running more than 150 Quarantine Centres with no complaint whatsoever, completed the quarantining of 63,439 persons while providing all three meals and refreshments free of charge at state cost. The Task Force was more focused on the general public and maintenance of normalcy in the country. Those subjected to quarantining for over 14 days or more, at such hurriedly-established Quarantine Centres, have been lavish in heaping kudos on those working at such places at the risk of their own lives, which was well articulated and self-explanatory in video clips, some of which have already gone viral. More importantly, where else in the world are such contacts accommodated, cared, fed at government cost, and transported home after quarantining? Although this practice has now been stalled, and confined to self-quarantining at homes, considering many facets of such programmes, particularly in terms of risks involved in exposing them to new areas, family commitments, etc. While caring for locals here, the government got down a total of 44,245 foreign land-based expatriates, who were also subjected to PCR tests and subsequent quarantining in those Centres. It was Sri Lanka which was among the firsts to fly home a group of 33 stranded students from Wuhan, and facilitated quarantining in Diyatalawa Army camp for the first time in our country.

The question of Quarantine Curfew was another concern to the writer. Quarantine Curfew and isolation of affected areas, was meant to cause the least inconvenience to the public  after positive detections were reported during the current wave, were implemented purely as the only possible alternative in an area where there lives a large concentration of people. The public, though largely cooperative with health and tri-service workers, are seen taking this deadly virus for granted at times, and were going on with their daily business with no concern for others at all, unlike in some disciplined societies. Police were called in to wrest control of such miscreants. A greater responsibility, needless to reiterate, befalls the public, and they are repeatedly urged to maintain basic health guidelines, such as social-distancing, wearing of masks, regular washing of hands, etc., but the reports received unfortunately confirm the contrary. Hence, the imposition of quarantine curfew is just a deterrent to restrict movements for social contacts, instead of going for complete lockdowns, as in other worst-hit countries. For an economy like ours, such total closures would work counter-productive, and affect the community at large in a very negative manner if such closures persist.

 On the other hand, not a single person, taken to state-sponsored Quarantine Centres by tri- servicemen or by coordination of PHIs, has so far complained of any such ‘search and arrest’ mentality or the so called ‘inhuman’ harassing  as far as the NOCPCO is concerned, as claimed by the writer. We would be glad if the writer, although from overseas, is prepared to bring any such instance to our notice where the public has been purposefully inconvenienced or harassed by contributors in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka.

The second wave, with the emergence of the Brandix cluster, at Minuwangoda, and the Fish Market cluster afterwards, of course, has posed a varied threat to us, as the virus itself has unpredictably generated into a new form, according to medical experts. Yet, it is with a collective responsibility that we should face it unlike in the past, since its behaviour patterns, clinical qualities, and perhaps its mode of transmission itself, are still under strict surveillance at medical levels. at a time the whole world awakes to new dimensional threats of the same virus almost on a daily basis. So, the expertise of epidemiologists and other counterparts is constantly used in this exercise and welcomed with open arms.

Finally, it is noteworthy to record here that Sri Lanka could perhaps be the one and only nation that takes so much care of her own citizens, considering multifaceted challenges this deadly virus is creating to the very survival of man, sustenance of society, economy, social contacts, employment, education, health, and to almost every fabric of our society. NOCPC Task Force, having identified those challenges closely and quite accurately, would stand by the nation at this critical hour of our history, in order to salvage all Sri Lankans from this pandemic. which has threatened the whole mankind in the world. To do that, expertise of the writer’s caliber, re-visit of new developments, and scientific research, etc., are also most welcome, in true spirits with concrete and positive work plan, although such support has not reached us or seems to be not forthcoming from our critics; despite attempts, earlier made by the  NOCPCO’s Task Force in that regard.

Brigadier

WIPULA CHANDRASIRI

Brigadier Coordinator, NOCPCO