Infected man had associated with more than 50 people: Minister
Posted on March 27th, 2020
Courtesy The Daily News
Health Minister Pavithradevi Wanniarachchi today expressed her utmost disappointment and anger when the Police and Health authorities detected a 67-year-old COVID 19 infected individual who had dodged quarantine for more than a week and suspected of having infected over 50 other Sri Lankans in the last few days.
The patient from the East has come back to Sri Lanka after a two week stay in India on March 18 and travelled to many parts of the country and associated with more than 50 other persons.
After he realized that he had fever and breathing difficulties, he had gone to a famous private hospital in Colombo where he was diagnosed for viral infection. When he sought inbound treatment, the doctors and private hospital authorities refused and asked him to enter a government hospital. But he had not done so and until last Monday has travelled widely and associated with many people, probably infecting dozens of people,” Minister Wanniarachchi said.
The action of this man is unacceptable and highly irresponsible. He may have infected several dozens of people by now. It is sad and unfortunate if people behave like this ignoring the facilities provided by then government to protect the people from this viral infection and ignore the advice of health officials, the Police, the Army an the media, she stressed.
Minister Wanniarachchi said the man who has been admitted to the IDH – Angoda would be charged under the Criminal Procedure code and Quarantine and Prevention of Disease Ordinance.(Sandun A Jayasekera)
March 27th, 2020 at 11:17 pm
The clearest example that this decease is not playing havoc in SL is the fact that the patient who got infected at airport did not spread it to anybody in Dedigama although he had taken part in many social gathering in his area. The doctors themselves say that there is the possibility that over 500 cases exist in the country. Why is it not spreading so fast when it come to the second or third level after arriving from foreign county?. The doctors may want to show a good job thanks to the immunity level the locals already have. Besides the treatment with local herbs have been effective since time immemorial it appears. I am not a doctor but there are three specialists in my family who were most probably exposed to this. They are now in high risk countries but are convinced that we all had it right here in SL when they visited end of December. Though we had planned to visit many places in SL we had to stay in the house due to a flu.
Please read the article by Dr. Janapriya in Financial times a week or so ago who says that the herd immunity has taken place end of december when some SL parents returned from China after visiting their children, around the same time. According to him his aunt too died.
I therefore appeal to the Hon. Minster to rethink about the GOSL’s decision to keep the country under a locked down situation indefinitely like this. If we go on like this the people will become weaker due to lack of nutrition.
March 28th, 2020 at 1:11 am
Sorry, the article was in Colombo Telegraph and the link is given below:
“https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/we-have-at-least-got-corona-by-the-tail/”
One more thing: according to another article the strength of the virus reduces as it goes from one to another; effectively reducing its fangs or the corona in a flu. May be our specialist should study how this takes place with respect to timeline in our situation as against in a cold country.