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These are unprecedented times. For most nations around the world they are testing times in more senses than one.

Frontline workers such as doctors, nurses and care workers fighting to contain the spread of this dreaded disease and save lives, too have fallen victim. Last week a doctor from Sri Lanka Dr Anton Sebastianpillai died after several days in intensive care at Kingston Hospital where he worked.

As these workers including bus drivers still dutifully at work fall victim there is growing pressure on governments not only to test more of them for symptoms of Covid-19 before they are deployed but to also hasten and widen the testing process and provide them with personal protective equipment.

Testing might not be the complete answer. But it does help minimize the chances of spreading the virus as those affected are identified and isolated.

Last week British authorities fighting their own ‘war’ with Prime Minister Boris Johnson now thankfully out of intensive care, had calls asking them to emulate Germany which was undertaking far more tests per day than the UK. That made it safer for frontline staff who would then know their own condition before attending to others.

There is one thing that should be clear. It might be platitudinous to repeat it but Sri Lanka like other nations are fighting a war against an unseen enemy. It needs to be reiterated because this truth appears to escape some as propaganda tends to overtake truth and fact.

Some people tend to compare battling the Coronavirus with the country’s military victory ultimately annihilating the LTTE in our own 30-year war. But that was an enemy that walked and talked and killed.

This, however, is not an enemy that could be killed with bomb and bullet. This is not to devalue the military triumph at Nandikadal. But that seems like old-style warfare compared to what Sri Lanka and the world face today and has been increasingly confronted with in the last five to six months.

Moreover this is not just Sri Lanka’s war against a long time foe. It is a battle that has engulfed the entire globe so to say, with even the world’s most powerful nations thrashing around trying to contain an advancing enemy as some desperately search for a solution and others continue to battle each other in a game of geopolitical oneupmanship.

Worst of all, some great nations that have the resources to fight back are led by arrogant and over-confident individuals such as US President Donald Trump whose dismissal of advice and assessments by his own officials and experts has proved a disaster for the United States.

Instead of course correction even at this late hour, “Trump the Blameless”-some say Brainless but let that pass- is blaming everybody but himself for not acting quickly enough to meet the threat when his officials had already posted danger signals well ahead.

It is scant wonder then that commentators in the US and abroad are already describing the disaster that has overtaken the country as Trump’s Vietnam and his daily 5 pm news briefings as the “Five O’clock Follies” as Vietnam-based journalists derisively labelled the US official news conference in Saigon at the time for its falsehoods, misinformation and deception.

When this virus attack could be overcome must remain speculative. The crisis is a long way from over. The effect of Covid-19 on countries affected has varied considerably for multiple reasons. Some, like Taiwan, who reacted to the outbreak expeditiously-some say because of foreknowledge- and dealt with connected issues fast, had also readied themselves for the long haul.

They, therefore, were better prepared to meet the emerging situation. But if one ignored early expert advice, displayed a disturbing nonchalance to intelligence alerts as our leader’s did over the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, playing politics at a time like Trump did, it is not just foolhardiness but a streak of idiocy.

While one commiserates with Prime Minister Johnson, his over-optimistic video message last December 31 on UK’s glowing future, it serves as a lesson for all politicians big and small not to play Trump and drive the people over the edge and into the abyss.

While Sri Lanka reacted to Covid-19 at the initial stages with some lack of clarity and logistical organization to implement whatever policy decisions taken, current information coming from various sources indicate that food deliveries are better organized and generally reaching the people, pharmacies have largely been able to meet peoples’ needs and contact tracing mainly carried out by the armed forces have been able to corral Sri Lankan workers returning from abroad and trying to avoid testing.

These measures have helped what has come to be called “social distancing”, meeting the citizen’s needs and at the same time picking up those who seem to have kept out of the self-quarantine regime.

No doubt there were shortcomings and possibly still are. Still the fundamental principles of the strategy of combatting the virus now seems to be firmly established though it might take months before it is eventually controlled.

But there is a long term issue that could be equally, if not more, devastating than the epidemiological catastrophe caused by Covid-19. That is the economic/ financial consequences on the world of the coronavirus from which nations powerful and weak would take years before they could pull through if at all.

Economists will probably point out that Sri Lanka has been an open ended economy that it has depended on imports and exports to survive. Globalisation has made Sri Lanka even more vulnerable as it has many other societies.

Each one of them with which we are interconnected has suffered untold damage and would have to rebuild their economies, their supply and demand chains ruptured and therefore seriously damaging our economy.

The tourism sector was just recovering from the Easter bombings when Covid-19 delivered the crushing blow. The apparel industry is in virtual shambles. Our foreign workers whose remittances were a key foreign currency earner are losing their jobs or having their salaries slashed. Sri Lanka is facing severe fiscal problems.

The other day Sri Lanka’s new High Commissioner in London Saroja Sirisena sent out a message to Sri Lankan associations and well- wishers welcoming monetary contributions to President Rajapaksa’s special COVID-19 fund.

This apparently is a Foreign Relations Ministry initiative to help meet the costs of fighting the virus. What it does signal is that Sri Lanka is facing a fiscal reserves problem which is not new.

The real test for Colombo comes in the next phase when it has to restart its economy and perhaps rethink its policies. Should it move away from what has been called predator capitalism and focus on the small businesses and corner and wayside shops that provide employment and sustain the country’s economy.

Should Sri Lanka lessen  its dependence on neo-liberal policies such as globalization and look inward as a new approach to economic revival. Would not smaller countries in our region also be considering new approaches as they try to struggle to their feet to mitigate the impact of Covid-19?

These are questions that need to be examined as we ponder how and where to begin.