Letters to the Editor
View(s):Vaccination must be stepped up and not just in Colombo
The process of contact tracing, quarantining of contacts was done efficiently.
Later they were possibly overwhelmed by numbers.
Once vaccination commenced they seem to have got onto low gear and were not very enthusiastic. In the Kandy area as far as I can gather only the health care workers have been vaccinated. Outside Kandy and Colombo vaccination has hardly been carried out
People who got the first shot of Astra Zeneca have been denied the second shot.
As far as I know 70%of the people have to be vaccinated for herd immunity to occur. I gather this means about 20 million shots.
At the beginning of the pandemic we were shown tents put up outside hospitals in the USA since hospitals were full. Now Americans can walk about in parks etc without masks.
After vaccination was introduced in the UK, Test cricket is played in front of audiences who do not wear masks.
Hope our authorities step up the vaccination drive. This will be a huge investment but fully worth the cost.
Dr V. P.H. Rajapakse Via email
COVID -19 data: As the public we like to be in the ‘informed’ loop
The discerning public, I am sure would be grateful, if the Health Ministry keeps them abreast of a few bits of data related to the local COVID-19 situation. We would like to know the ratio of PCR/Rapid Antigen tests to the number of positives per district/day; a ratio would do, rather than the less informative data dished out daily by the electronic media.
Further we are into the third week of restrictions put in place by the authorities. Any new cases are probably being looked at as to their origin. Are they; Quarantine Pokuras, ‘Pora lack pokuras’, Five thousand queue pokuras, Vaccination default pokuras, Vegetable-fruit sale centre pokuras etc.
I am sure the authorities are taking action to mitigate such sources, but we too as members of the cooperating public would like to be kept in the ‘informed loop’ please.
Dr Channa Ratnatunga Via email