There is a community spread; country must go into lockdown - Dr. LakKumar Fernando

The country must go into a lockdown at this point, Dr. LakKumar Fernando, the Chairman of the Association of Medical Specialists of Sri Lanka, says.

Expressing his views at the Ada Derana ‘Big Focus’ program today (10), Dr. Fernando said that, health authorities have failed to provide proper information to the political authorities in order to make the necessary decisions.

Responding to a question regarding the government parties’ statement that they had been informed by the health sector that isolating the areas where the virus is rapidly spread is sufficient control, Dr. LakKumar Fernando said that isolation on the Grama Niladhari level is clearly not adequate at this point.

He said, “When the tap is open, you should run to close the tap instead of mopping off the water. We believe that there should be at least a district-wise lockdown and restrict traveling between districts completely.”

Speaking on lockdowns, Dr. Fernando further said, “Most of my colleagues think that we should go for a lockdown. But they do not want to say it. Thinking that this [lockdown] is a bad word. But I think this is just professionals misunderstanding political authority.”

Some have told me that representatives of the health sector don’t even open their mouths at meetings. If they [health sector] do not inform, how will the political authority make decisions? Top health officials, who had the opportunity [to inform] have avoided this. We have assumed that the political authority does not like this [lockdown].”

He added, “As a result of using the word lockdown as a forbidden word, we have failed to design a lockdown that will have the least impact on the economy. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail.”

Dr. LakKumar also mentioned that there is a community spread of the virus within the country.

“We wasted a lot of time trying to tell everyone that there was no community spread. I say very clearly that there clearly is a community spread.

When I diagnose a patient, I may make mistakes. I need to accept these mistakes in order to treat the patient. The ego is not worth sacrificing many lives of people.

There is a severe community spread. We may show that it is not [a community spread] by using some references from World Health Organization or something. But that too is just deceiving ourselves. The people who are in this are deceiving others. But it starts but deceiving themselves.”