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• COVID red alert sounded as mystery variant reveals deadly presence
• Global fears heightened with ‘Lancet’ claiming ‘virus maybe airborne’

The deadly coronavirus has become deadlier and maybe winged to boot, local health authorities warned on Friday, as Britain’s internationally respected medical journal, The Lancet published claims that solid and consistent evidence suggest COVID maybe airborne.

THE LANCET: Articles to inspire further discussion and inquiry; not final truths

It comes in the week health authorities issued a COVID alert warning that there had been a sudden increase in the number of patients being admitted to hospitals, with Wednesday marking a record high of 578 people testing COVID positive. In the 24 hours ending Thursday 10am, there was no letup in the casualty figures with the toll standing at 672.

The President of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, Dr. Padma Gunaratne said that there has been a rapid increase in the number of patients at the Intensive Care Unit and the increase in the number of younger patients have been noted. Even small children have not been spared. She said: ‘Doctors working at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital have observed the rapidly increasing number of positive cases of COVID-19 among children. Presence of a new variant with possible rapid transmission also was suspected following preliminary laboratory studies.

The Health Ministry’s Health Promotion Bureau said that new variants of the virus had been detected in Sri Lanka in the recent past and scientific data in this regard is currently being studied.

Sri Jayewardenepura University’s Immunology and Molecular Medicine Department Director Dr. Chandima Jeewandara told the media on Thursday his team of researchers have observed a severe change in COVID-19 symptoms and a fair number of ICU admissions among young patients.

Aggravating global fears, Britain’s internationally respected medical journal ‘The Lancet’ published claims that there is solid consistent evidence to suggest that COVID may be airborne. In a paper written by six experts from the USA, Britain and Canada, the claim is made that the virus may well be airborne thus rocking the very basis of the approach universally adopted to prevent its spread.

The paper challenges the predominately held scientific opinion that holds that the coronavirus spreads through smaller aerosols that remain suspended in the air or through fomites. The authors argue that there are “insufficient grounds for concluding that a pathogen is not airborne” while “the totality of scientific evidence indicates otherwise”. It then proceeds to list 10 scientific reasons in support of their claim.

Some of the reasons the
6 experts cite are

a.  studies demonstrating long-range transmission of the virus between people in adjacent rooms in hotels; people who were never in each other’s presence:

b. that 33 percent to 59 percent of all coronavirus cases can be attributed to the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic transmission without the infected person coughing or sneezing:

c. that viable SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the air during laboratory experiments, where the pathogen stayed infectious in the air for up to 3 hours;

d. that the pathogen has been detected in air filters and building ducts in hospitals with COVID-19 patients in the, locations which could be reached only by aerosols:

e. that studies conducted on infected caged animals that showed SARS-CoV-2 being transmitted via an air duct.

In conclusion the authors state that ‘’it is a scientific error to use lack of direct evidence of Sars-Cov-2 in some air samples to cast doubts on airborne transmission while overlooking the quality and strength of the overall evidence base. There is solid, consistent evidence that Sars-CoV-2 is spread by airborne transmission. Although other routes can contribute, we believe that the airborne route is likely to be dominant. The public health community should act accordingly and without further delay.”

So what does this paper show, apart from advancing a novel thesis that challenges the whole scientific body of opinion presently held? As the authors admit in their conclusion, it merely says that airborne transmission of the virus is another route and is likely to be dominant. They also confess and acknowledge that ‘there is a lack of direct evidence’ to cast doubts of it being airborne but hold that it should not be a reason to refute their findings.

The local health authorities should, however, do well to bear their advice ‘to act accordingly’ in mind but should act with restraint not to hit the panic buttons by claiming the virus is already airborne in Lanka and trigger off undue alarm, solely on the vague findings of a single paper published in The Lancet which publishes findings of eminent persons not as final truths but as worthwhile topics to promote further discussion and research.

Far better to devote the limited resources available on identifying and combatting the new strain detected rather than getting the Lankan pants in a twist and beating the living daylight of the people by making them fear the very air they breathe.

Mrs. World gives up crown to strike a blow for justice CAROLINE JURIE: Solitary voice for justice Caroline Jurie’s reign as Mrs. World ended prematurely with eight months to spare when she gave up her tinsel crown to strike a blow for justice. The final renunciation came this week when Mrs. World Inc, the parent company of the world contest, which brands it as the contest ‘to celebrate the married woman,’ accepted her resignation, stating: “Caroline Jurie’s resignation was made solely by herself. We wish Mrs. Jurie and her family all the best in their future endeavours.” It was an untimely end to the reign of the woman who was crowned Mrs. World 2020 at the grand finale held at Las Vegas on December 7, 2019. Her abdication came following the now famous incident on Easter Sunday night when she publicly de-crowned the newly crowned Mrs. Lanka on stage in the honest conviction the new winner was a divorcee and thus not eligible to wear the crown. It later turned out that the new winner was technically married, though separated for four years, since she had still not been granted the divorce she had sought for four years in court. Caroline Jurie was arrested by the police after she refused to extend the demanded apology to the new winner Pushpika de Silva, a politician. She was later released on bail. The rest of the contestants for the Mrs. Lanka title, including the runner up, came forward, last week, to give a televised news conference where they spoke of how Caroline Jurie had repeatedly assured she would not allow an injustice to be done to anyone of them. They spoke of how at their interview with the local board, they had been told that they must presently have an ‘active’ marriage and that they must produce their marriage certificate and must be accompanied by their husbands as proof of an ‘active’ marriage when they come for the second interview. But when they turned up duly armed, no one even bothered to speak on the matter. It was totally ignored. They praised Caroline for speaking of the injustice they feel they suffered and regretted the price she had to pay to bring the injustice to attention. On April 9 Caroline Jurie made her statement via a recorded video message. She said her only intention was to stand up for the injustice caused to the competitors throughout this competition which she alleged was tainted with heavy politicization. She declared: “It upsets me greatly when justice doesn’t prevail. This is why I stood up for injustice, from the beginning of the event, I stood up for what was wrong, but my efforts were futile until the very last moment, which led me to do what I did.’’ She said she only stood for what she believed was right and will follow all legal procedures – as a normal Sri Lankan citizen – without influence – while always holding her head up high. As Caroline Jurie walks into the sunset, she walks with her head held high. At a time when every trivial tinsel is fast becoming politicised with rules cast to the winds with scorn, it is refreshing to find amid the odious muck, a lone voice for justice remain unbowed. Take a bow Caroline. You may have lost your crown but you have retained your integrity and your quest for justice has won the applause of all right thinking men and women of Lanka.

Parliament’s day of shame

No doubt, the much touted policy of instilling discipline into the nation’s unruly spirit and wayward behaviour seemed to be successfully working when, on Wednesday, Parliamentarians on both sides of the House erupted in fury and charged the well of the chamber to do battle but, amazingly, stopped short of coming to blows, exhibiting a remarkable iron clad restraint not to flaunt the power and eloquence of their battle scarred fists.

Unlike in the ‘anything-goes’ Yahapalana days of 2018 when members occupied the Speaker’s seat, threw chairs, files and books and not even the Good Book was spared, television viewers watching their screens, this week, on the day the nation mourned the Easter blast dead and Catholic churches were swathed in solemn prayer, wreathed in grief for the fallen and the maimed, were shocked to see parliamentarians standing in the well of the House, abiding as best they could with the national mood.

DIYAWANNA’S PRIDE: Three million buck stand-off in the well of the House

True, it was not good enough, not the best of all possible examples to be set on any day, let alone one reserved for commemorating the second anniversary of the Easter Sunday carnage but, in the circumstances, it was possibly the best the public could hope for. It seemed, as if by some divine intervention from ’bove, an iron curtain had descended on the centre of the well, inhibiting either side from making the first move; thus preventing an orgy of violence from ensuing to further tar with the blackest grime the august image of Diyawanna’s exalted Pagoda wherein lies enshrined the sovereignty of the people.

Yet, perhaps, the unbecoming scene left some disappointed, even cheated that they didn’t get their money’s worth of live action. That the millions or more the public spends each day to host a single Parliamentary sitting, didn’t deliver the goods this time and fell far short in entertainment value.

That their favourite stars who had performed so well on November 16, 2018 when Parliament was turned into a battlefield to prevent a no-confidence vote against disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa from going through, hadn’t given display of their full prowess. Instead, they seemed to be positively shamming, appearing like a bunch of nerds, holding posters with inane slogans at the reserved site near the old Parliament for protesters to obediently use.

Contrast that with the glorious action they, the voters, had seen that November day? Of their MPs barring the Speaker from taking his seat, of throwing books and chilli powder mixed water,  of how their stars had taken the speaker’s chair and how, when the Parliamentary staff replaced it with an ordinary chair, they had broken it into pieces and thrown it at their rivals and police guarding the Speaker Karu Jayasuriya?

What exhilarating entertainment? So much so, despite civil societies’ advice to the contrary, they had voted in the same lot of their stars for more encores, to give the same works they had doled out so impressively and with such sincere force 3 years ago. Had they left their primordial fire on the opposition benches that they have turned into such damp squibs now?

Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told the House on Friday that every minute of a parliamentary session costs Rs. 100,000 of the people’s money. By that reckoning, Wednesday’s approximately half hour parliamentary stand-off would have cost the nation a cool 3 million bucks and that, too, as the delinquent lot of voters, who voted again their fighting stars to make a comeback to the House, would undoubtedly say ‘without the final entertaining show down’.

For the rest of Lanka’s decent, responsible and intelligent society, however, this Wednesday marked yet another black page in the annals of Parliament: and it is to be hoped that the committee of seven, the Speaker announced he will be appointing to probe the ugly incident, will publicly name and damn those responsible for Parliament’s day of shame.