The virus that’s going viral

The coronavirus or COVID-19 is showing no signs of relenting but is continuing to spew its venom locally and globally with countries such as the United States, France, Spain and Italy among others, doing their utmost to curb its spread and its catastrophic fallout.

In Sri Lanka, the Health Ministry on Friday urged people to desist from stigmatising and marginalising those infected by COVID-19 because this had resulted in infected patients or those who had come into contact with them being reluctant to seek medical help.

The Ministry underscored the importance of seeking treatment without delay or dilly dallying as it will save the lives of the patients and help prevent the spread of the viral infection. A case in point was that of a virus-infected 28-year-old pregnant woman, who had falsified her symptoms and admitted herself to the Nagoda Hospital in Kalutara where she gave birth to her baby. The negligence on the part of this woman, a resident of Pannila in Beruwala, has led to the nursing staff who attended on her, having to be quarantined. 

These are incidents that should not be allowed to happen because it makes the fight waged by the government, the healthcare services, the security forces and the police to eradicate the deadly virus that much more difficult.
Meanwhile, the Director General of Health Services (DGHS), Dr. Anil Jasinghe said the ministry has set up an emergency hotline No: 1390 through which people who think they are suffering from the viral infection could obtain free medical advise on how best to handle their concerns instead of rushing to a hospital in the first instance. He said the hotline was set up in an effort to prevent the coronavirus from infecting doctors, nurses and others who may unknowingly come into contact with those showing any symptoms.

He said the doctors responding to the calls received on the hotline will check the symptoms and where necessary assist in admitting the patient to a hospital via the Suwasariya ambulance service.

Sounding a note of caution, the Health Ministry and the Government Information Department requested all media institutions to report only bulletins issued by authorised State sources and refrain from circulating questionable news items so as to avoid causing any confusion, fear or panic and to refrain from mentioning the ethnicity or the religion of the virus-infected patients, those who die from the disease or those quarantined.

Dr. Jasinghe also issued a set of guidelines to be followed by media personnel and media institutions when reporting the developing situation with reference to the pandemic.

To sum up the chaos that has eclipsed the world we use this excerpt from an article,titled ‘The Pandemic is a Portal’, written by India’s award-winning journalist Arundhati Roy to the Financial Times:

“Who can use the term “gone viral” now without shuddering a little? Who can look at anything anymore — a door handle, a cardboard carton, a bag of vegetables -- without imagining it swarming with those un-seeable, undead, un-living blobs dotted with suction pads waiting to fasten themselves on to our lungs?

“Who can think of kissing a stranger, jumping on to a bus or sending their child to school without feeling real fear? Who can think of ordinary pleasure and not assess its risk? Who among us is not a quack epidemiologist, virologist, statistician and prophet? Which scientist or doctor is not secretly praying for a miracle? Which priest is not — secretly, at least — submitting to science?

 “Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.”

Like other affected countries worldwide, Sri Lanka too is fighting an invisible enemy, which does not pick and choose whom it infects. People, no matter who, are falling prey to this deadly virus and this is all the more reason why all Sri Lankans, whatever their caste, creed or ethnicity, need to cooperate with the authorities to exterminate this common enemy from our soil.

If those infected and those who come into contact with them continue to play hide and seek there would be no end in sight to the curfew imposed to rope in the recalcitrant few.