Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) has urged the government to extend the current travel restrictions for a period of two weeks from the 14th of June.

In a letter directed to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the SLMA said the number of COVID-19 infections would exponentially start to increase again if the restrictions on movement are lifted at this point of time.

“We find that the number of new cases, though still high, have remained fairly stable. This is a major improvement compared to the time before the lockdown when the COVID incidence was rising exponentially. It will take 2-3 weeks for the ‘lockdown’ to have an impact on case numbers and even longer on deaths. This is because the incubation period of the disease, the time it takes for the disease to progress, and for people to seek health care.”

The SLMA pointed out that the daily COVID cases still remain high as the number of cases at the beginning of the lockdown was extremely high. “Therefore, it will take a longer period of time for the pandemic to decline and to begin to show a decrease in cases.”

In its letter, the association stressed that the movement restrictions imposed were not “highly stringent.” Some workplaces, such as factories and some offices, continued to function during the lockdown and this too will slow the impact of the lockdown, the SLMA said further.

“However, very early information we are receiving from the health system suggests that the number of cases in the community, wards and ICUs may be showing the first signs of deceasing,” the SLMA went on to emphasized, cautioning against lifting the current travel restrictions.

The SLMA reiterated that vaccines in general have markedly less action on transmissibility of the infection. “Most countries that have effectively controlled the disease have done so by relying on and stringent implementation of public health measures, including very specially, movement restrictions.”

Whilst being cognizant of the potential impact of severe movement restrictions on the economy and the livelihoods of the people, the SLMA have made several recommendations to the government to implement:

• To extend the current “lockdown” at the very minimum for a further period of two weeks from the 14th of June

• To implement the movement restrictions more stringently, allowing only the very minimum number of persons to leave their homes

• To increase surveillance for COVID-19 in factories and workplaces that continues to function during the lockdown period, by increasing testing and isolating positive cases

• To disallow tourists from countries that have ongoing COVID transmission, in order to avert major risk of introducing new, more highly transmissible and deadly variants of the virus.

• To increase the number of PCR tests done randomly to detect the true number of cases in the community. At present most of the PCR tests are performed on those who are already positive and recovering (exit PCRs) which will not detect new infections, the SLMA noted.

• To improve the communication strategy to get better compliance from people on strictly adhering to the public health measures being recommended for COVID-19 control.

The SLMA also emphasized the need for Health Ministry to use a format of data reporting that will enable the epidemic to be tracked more clearly.