By Rathindra Kuruwita

Sri Lanka was no longer capable of carrying out random sampling which helped identify clusters at an early stage during the first and second wave of the pandemic, Public Health Inspectors’ Union head, Upul Rohana said yesterday.

Rohana said the country could only test about 26, 000 PCR samples a day and most of that capacity was used up to test the first-rung associates of COVID-19 cases.

“There were over 3,600 COVID-19 positive cases on Wednesday. Imagine how many first-rung associates they had? And what about the first-rung associates of the first-rung associates of confirmed cases? Right now, we cannot quarantine these people. We have to wait till we get PCR reports of first-rung associates of confirmed cases to quarantine their associates.”

Rohana said that on average it took four to nine days for a PCR test report to be issued and by that time many potentially positive persons were freely mingling in society. Thus, the number of actual COVID-19 cases could be what was reported, he said.

“During the first wave, we overreacted and that was good. We pursued potential cases and dismantled clusters before they exploded. However, we just do not have the capacity to do this now,” he said.

Given the circumstances, the best thing that could be done was to restrict the movement of all Sri Lankans until the authorities could get a grip of the situation, Rohana said, adding that unlike in the first and second waves of the pandemic, some private laboratories were not sharing PCR test results with the government.

“This is a punishable crime under the Quarantine Ordinance. Because of this, some people infected with the coronavirus are staying at home. On the other hand, we must admit that people have unpleasant experience at treatment centres,” he said.

Rohana said that although the number of COVID-19 cases had dropped around 2021 March, the PHIs had seen some disturbing signs and warned the Health Ministry that all was not well. For example there were clusters being reported in work places and factories.

“When the Sinhala and Tamil New year season started we urged caution. We saw that people had started celebrating even by 06 April. People went on trips and went shopping. In most clothing shops there were infections among employees. There were a person or two in most of the groups that went on trips. As we noted, COVID-19 was in factories and during the vacation; these workers went home and mingled with their friends. Now, we are seeing the results.”