Medical lab technologists raise fears over further relaxing of preventive measure to please businesses

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Sri Lanka should not change quarantine laws at the whims and fancies of big businesses, President of the College of Medical Laboratory Science, Ravi Kumudesh told The Island yesterday, commenting on attempts made to relax such laws to facilitate tourist arrivals.

“Former ambassador to Russia and an architect of the plan to bring in Ukrainian tourists, Udayanga Weeratunga, tells the media that Sri Lankan quarantine laws are not practical and that it’s unrealistic to expect tourists to be quarantined for 14 days. He also tells us that there is no need to subject tourists to 5 – 6 PCR tests. These sentiments are echoed by Ministers and MPs in Parliament.”

Kumudesh said that countries like Malaysia and Thailand, which had larger tourism industries, had not changed their quarantine laws to attract tourists. Compared to Sri Lanka, the contribution of tourism to the GDP of those countries was much larger, he said.

Kumudesh said that Ukraine already had five new types of coronavirus and was struggling to contain infection in their own country. He also criticized the government for misleading people by saying that tourists remained in a Bio-secure bubble.

He said: “Bio-secure bubble is an environment where tourists are cut off from the outside world, to minimise and prevent the risk of being exposed to the coronavirus. But is it what’s happening now? No one puts COVID-19 cases, associates or those untested for the coronavirus inside such a bubble. We are also responsible to ensure the safety of tourists as well. We are heading for big trouble and if tourists contract COVID-19 here, that will spell trouble for us in the long term. If you want to change the quarantine laws, do it based on science and not because of what business people want.”