By Saman Indrajith

The government had to set up a national mechanism to collect all information about COVID-19 to make its anti-pandemic drive more effective, says JVP-led National Intellectuals’ Association.

Addressing the media at NIA headquarters in Battaramulla yesterday, NIA General Secretary, Dr Nihal Abeysinghe, a former epidemiologist of the Health Ministry and regional advisor on vaccine-preventable diseases in the South East Asia region of WHO, said the researchers at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura had found that the latest version of COVID-19 virus spread faster than the previous strain. 

  Dr Abeysinghe: “Both the government and private sector must promote work from home because that would help ensure the prevention of the spread,” he said.

NPP MP Dr Harini Amarasuriya: We said in Parliament the other day that we should hope for the best but get ready for the worst. It has now been proved that none of the countries possess a sound mechanism to keep the pandemic at bay. Similarly, this is not a task that could be achieved by a single party. It is because the virus is evolving fast. This is not a simple issue. The leadership should be mature enough to make preparations and plans and to manage them. This is not an issue that should be used to score political points. A strong leadership would not pin the blame on the people. One of the main issues that we face today is that the government is trying to shift the responsibility to people. 

“Education sector suffered a lot and this year. Online teaching is only an ad hoc measure. All children do not have online facilities. There are many schools even without electricity. Therefore, how could one expect online education to be a solution? The country is going to have a generation in the coming years that missed schooling.”