Just as we recover…
View(s):“Aiyo mage ath hodanna oney (I must wash by hands),” exclaimed Kussi Amma Sera. The corona-bug seemed to have got to her this morning, in a positive sense with health foremost in her mind, as she waited under the margosa tree for her friends – Serapina and Mabel Rasthiyadu for their regular Thursday morning ‘gossip’.
As the two walked through the gate and made their way to the ‘bankuwa’ (wooden seat) under the tree, Serapina asked: “Monawada thorathuru (what’s the news)?”
“Okkoma coronavirus eka gena (It’s all about the coronavirus),” replied Kussi Amma Sera. “Api apema arakshawa balaganna one (We have to take our own precautions),” said Mabel Rasthiyadu.
The three then engaged in a long conversation about the new virus and its impact on Sri Lanka, while I turned away from the office room window to answer the mobile phone which ironically has a ringing tone of a song from US folk-singing duo Simon and Garfunkel.
Ironic because an enterprising musician has released a parody of Simon and Garfunkel’s acclaimed ‘Sound of Silence’ with the song titled ‘Fight the virus’.
Its first few lines go like this: “Hello virus from Wuhan (Hello darkness my old friend)//Another problem’s here again (I’d come to talk to you again)///Because you see the contagion creeping (Because a vision softly creeping)//And the virus is indeed spreading (Left its seeds while I was sleeping)//… If interested in listening to this version, go to this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYTzX9JCbDY
Back to the ringing phone, it’s Kalabala Silva, the often agitated academic, on the line. After the usual ‘long-time-no-see’ welcome, we get onto the talk-of-the-town coronavirus and its impact on Sri Lanka.
“There is a lot of misinformation going around about taking precautions and no one knows what to believe and what not to believe,” he said. “On that point I agree my friend,” I said as we discussed Monday night when it was announced that Sri Lanka had its first case of a person (a Chinese tourist) being affected by the virus.
“People seem to have panicked and everyone began looking for face masks with pharmacies running out of stocks,” he said. “Yes there was panic but I think it stabilised after the health authorities, through the media, acted to inform the public on the steps taken to prevent the disease from spreading,” I said.
The first blow to Sri Lanka was in the tourism industry as the authorities were preparing to welcome dozens of Chinese tourists for the Chinese New Year holidays.
China is Sri Lanka’s third largest tourism source, but last year arrivals fell by 37 per cent to 167,863, largely owing to the drop in tourist traffic arising from negative publicity after terrorist bombs rocked three luxury hotels and three churches in Sri Lanka during Easter Sunday celebrations in April 2019.
While on-arrival visas for Chinese tourists were suspended, the Chinese government also urged travel agents to postpone their outbound tours across the world until the crisis ended. This meant many industry operators would have lost millions of dollars due to postponed or cancelled tours.
The main opposition United National Party (UNP), battling an internal crisis over leadership, urged the government to have a debate in Parliament over the coronavirus crisis, which Kalabala Silva alluded to in our conversation. “The UNP, rather than resolving its own internal issues, wants Parliament to be summoned to discuss the virus crisis,” he said.
“This may not be a bad idea. On the other hand, have debates on special issues and crises generated any positive outcomes? More often than not, these irrespective of their importance, turn into slanging matches and accusations being hurled from one side to the other. Often the main purpose of the debate gets lost in the process,” I said.
While sections of the media are being accused of overplaying the seriousness of the virus by, for example saying (quoting various officials) that people should wear face masks, the crux of the matter is that there is a tendency for the public – going on previous experiences – to be wary of various government pronouncements fearing that some information is being hidden from the people. People have little faith in the system and whether they actually work even though the authorities, in this case, seem to be moving in the right direction.
Authorities seem to be on the ball, urging people not to panic and that the health officials were on top of the situation.
To counter panic, rather than relying only on media conferences and other pronouncements, the government should have taken out full page ads in the print media and similar ads on radio and television with a checklist of “do’s and don’ts” on the coronavirus, how to take precautions and counter bogus messages like the one on social media about the different ways in which a person should wear face masks.
One of the challenges of taking preventive measures is that there is an explosion of information through social media unlike the time when another coronavirus – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) – was first discovered in Asia in February 2003. It is reported that the outbreak lasted approximately six months and, fortunately, Sri Lanka didn’t have a single case.
For the tourism industry struggling to recover after the devastating blow from the Easter Sunday attacks (tourist arrivals dropped last year when compared to 2018), this is another unfortunate impact on tourism. The industry has seen a large number of cancellations from China, while this is also likely to impact arrivals from other countries as travellers mull postponing a holiday as a means of avoiding mingling with crowds.
Colombo airport authorities have taken precautionary steps like suspending on-arrival visas for Chinese visitors, having separate parking bays for planes arriving from China, installing scanners at the airport to check the temperature of incoming passengers and making the arrival and departure terminals temporarily out of bounds for people other than travellers. Scanning the temperature at airports is not a foolproof mechanism since the virus can live in an individual for two weeks (incubation period) before manifesting symptoms.
Tourism has become one of Sri Lanka’s predominant lifelines in terms of accumulation of foreign exchange (particularly to pay for imports and borrowings in foreign exchange), providing thousands of employment opportunities to the country’s youth and enriching village communities. With the latest crisis impacting on tourism, the recovery of the industry after the Easter Sunday attacks will now take longer than originally planned.
As I pressed the button on the computer to complete writing this week’s column, Serapina walked in to the office room with a cup of coffee (which I had requested), saying “Me saukhya arbudaya ikmanata evara wei kiyala mama balaporottu venawa (I hope this health crisis is over soon)”.
I nodded my head, pondering over the fact that even if it impacts on the economy, jobs and foreign exchange, the nation’s first obligation is to ensure that its population is safe from the spread of any disease.