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THE NEW WAVE SET TO SWEEP THE ISLAND: After the Delta, COVID’s new Omicron face shows up with 95 percent cases attributed to it

Once more the red flag is being raised to alert the masses a major COVID wave is set to break. Named Omicron, the advance guard has already rolled in and made enough splash of its presence for the health chiefs to warn: This is only for starters. The full scale landing will follow soon.

Already the COVID toll for the year has begun to rise dramatically and is currently hitting an average high of nearly 900 a day. And, as the health bosses say: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet. The worst is still to come’, the people are once more warned to observe health guidelines and avoid gatherings to prevent the country from going to lockdown mode again.

Of course, we have heard the drill before. And we all know of the tragic consequences that have ensued for our failure to strictly abide by the basic health guidelines. We know the drill by heart but we have never learnt from the lesson.

We may have raised the drawbridge whenever COVID raged but the records reveal we lowered it and left the moat undefended no sooner the threat disappeared. We have staggered from heightened panic to gross negligence. The most recent example of this phenomenon is when the pandemic lull was exploited to celebrate without blush or mask the end of the year season. Scant regard was made to gatherings and social distancing and the protective masks, primly worn up to the entrance, were unceremoniously cast off in care free abandon when the party started.

Medical experts had warned then of the whirlwind to reap for the pre mature sowing of wild oats out of season but only few listened. If one vaccination had only kindled their confidence then two had doubly bolstered their faith in its power to bestow absolute immunity. A booster shot, available since November, made the armour replete.

But COVID statistics reveal, that while the Full Monty of 2 vacs and booster, certainly gives full protection, it’s still not COVID proof. There was a chink in the body plating. People, who had got all three jabs, had still contracted the virus. The medical position is: Yes, you can still get the infection but it may be milder.

One question though: In days past, when people took their small pox vaccinations and ventured into small pox infected zones, did they go with an iron clad certainty they will be immune from it or did they risk and happily accept getting a milder version of the pox, whatever ‘mild’ might mean?

One of the reasons why all COVID vaccinations are still issued ‘only for emergency use’ is understandably because the virus is in its first stages of evolving and none can predict how it will mutate.  More the reason, is it not, why people — even those fully jabbed — should exercise far more caution in adhering to health guidelines, and abide by its commandments, rather than repose blind faith in ‘testers’ and believe that they have been armed with a licence to fling caution to the wind and live carefree lifestyles.

In October last year, the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) warned of the inevitability of another COVID surge, if the people do not behave responsibly.  AMS President Dr. Lakkumar Fernando said the people were enjoying the freedom of movement and assembly following a protracted lockdown.

“However,” he said, “the irresponsible and complacent attitude of some members of the public disheartens civic-minded individuals who can sense the threat of another surge of Covid-19. Such behaviour not only undermines what we have already achieved but also sends wrong signals to the rest of the general public to follow suit.”

The public, ever the convenient whipping boy when things go wrong, has been placed in the frontline of fire, blamed for the rapid surge in the casualties. True, their negligence has been one of the prime causes. But if the gun is pointed at them, the sniper’s focus should also fall on the Health Service Chiefs for the double standards, smacking of a political hue, they sometimes adopt. For instance, while advocating social distancing, public gatherings can be held if it is approved by the COVID Czar, the Director General of the Health Services, even if it is bound to violate his own health guidelines.

Thus, thousands are allowed to freely mix at events promoted by the Government or held with Government blessings, while anti-government political gatherings are axed on health grounds. If gatherings are to be held or banned, does the purpose or motive for which they are to be held matter? Does COVID have a political bias? Some animus against those fighting for their rights but leaves those who gather to revel graciously untouched?

To cite a few recent examples:  Two months ago, on November 23 last year, Sri Lanka Cricket announced that ‘50 percent of the spectators out of the maximum capacity of the Galle International Cricket Stadium will be allowed to enter the ground to witness the test series played between Sri Lanka and West Indies’.

The maximum crowd capacity of the Galle Stadium is 18,000. As pictures of the event show, half the spectator stands were empty with the other half packed with fans, some of them without masks. So, was granting approval for 9,000 spectators to throng the ground and occupy fifty percent of the stands while the rest lay bare, not a COVID risk?

Why were crowds at school’s big matches banned during this same period? For instance, when the 142 Battle of the Blues, the annual Royal-Thomian grand cricketing finale, was finally played in the last week of October at the SSC, it could only be played behind closed gates with fans banned from entry.

What of the open invite officially issued to the Lankan public to come and see the ‘miracle of South Asia, the Colombo Port City the day after its grand inauguration on Sunday January 9 this year?

Thousands accepted the invite and thronged to glimpse the Chinese built enclave, which will be occupied by the Chinese for the next 99 years. The official headcount of those who grabbed the opportunity to savour a little piece of Sino heaven totalled 89,540 for the week. The highest number recorded was on 16 Sunday which totalled 25,580 people. On 14 Thai Pongal day it was 19,717, on 17 Poya it was 21,665. Charges have been made that health rules were widely ignored.

Health chiefs may blame the police for allowing the crowds to ignore heath guidelines in the mass throng. It is like the Squire blaming the stable lad later for the horses bolting when it had been the Squire himself who had unlocked the bolt and left the door and field open for the horses to dash. And as for blaming the public that their behaviour has threatened to create a new Port City cluster, shouldn’t the authorities have known in advance the problem such an influx would create before they issued a carte blanche warrant permitting the unsupervised sightseeing tour?

Was it advisable for health authorities, who pontificate to us each day of the dangers of social mixing, to allow vast crowds to converge at central spots even if they are all doubly jabbed with booster to boot, when medical research now find that they, too, are susceptible to fall prey to COVID? Though doctors say the omicron is mild, ‘mildness is a matter of degree to the person infected and can, as it has, result in death.

Was it also advisable for the COVID Czars in the health service to have allowed the Port City throng, while they themselves were branding the last two weeks as a crucial fortnight to determine the November, December COVID fallout? And twirling the COVID rattle to warn of the outbreak and the need to avoid social mixing.

Could not the showcasing by the Chinese and Lankan Government of their miracle, for an entertainment starved Lankan public to behold in wonder and amazement, have waited? Was it wise to have risked a Port City cluster for the sake of a Sino-Lanka boast? Especially at a time when the country is once more in the midst of a full blown COVID pandemic?

It is this kind of decision making which can be included in the category of irresponsible behaviour, that, perhaps, led the AMS President to unintentionally observe as the sort of irresponsible behaviour which ‘not only undermines what we have already achieved but also sends wrong signals to the rest of the general public to follow suit.’ True. When it is seen a rule is selectively applied, the respect for the rule is undermined and the degree of compliance reduced.

In the face of these serious aberrations, when Irrationality guards the fort and Reason has fled the ramparts, it’s best for the public not to be swayed by politically ad hoc warrants, granting the all-clear to attend public gatherings but to follow the universal rule and avoid crowds unless it’s extremely important to do so.

On Monday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that it was dangerous to assume the Omicron variant would herald the end of COVID’s acutest phase.”It’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant and that we are in the end game,” Ghebreyesus declared. “On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.”

With such a dire warning, rather than lurch from panic to neglect, learn from the past. Use your own common sense as your yardstick to gauge the depths of troubled waters. Raise the drawbridge now. And lower it only with the greatest caution. Only when assured the COVID spectre is far beyond the horizon.

Cabraal sings flat to Basil’s new tune CENTRAL BANK CABRAAL: Will not seek IMF assistance Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal continues to remain intransigent in his stance not to seek IMF help even at this eleventh hour. He sees no need for an IMF bailout to salvage the nation from the economic wreck. He pins his hopes on a homegrown fix to solve the perennial dollar crisis which has now turned terminal. Flushed pink over last week’s success in paying off USD 500 million of the sovereign bond debt, he does not pale before the Herculean task of finding a further USD 7 billion to settle the international debt this year. Instead, brimming with confidence, he dismisses calls for debt restructuring with IMF support, and, ruling out the need to restructure the debt with help from foreign third parties, he says: ‘the country’s best brains in the Monetary Policy Consultative Committee are working on it. Policy decisions are shaped and reshaped by experts and 870 qualified professionals working at the Central Bank.’ That may be so. But the people are being asked to take the word of one man alone — Nivard Cabraal’s – that all will be well soon, though all they can presently see is the nation’s lights going out, one by one. FINANCE MINISTER BASIL: Will think of a programme with IMF Can we trust Cabraal’s word, solely rely on Cabraal’s pledge to deliver the goods, in the manner farmers trusted Agriculture Minister Aluthgamage’s promise of a handsome harvest with organic fertiliser, only to end ruined? If their past track record had brought us to this pauperised pass, can we, in blind faith, still wait in prayer for the banking messiah and his brainy band of 870 savants lead us to the promised El Dorado? For no matter the economic jugglery performed by these top brains at Central Bank, the bottom line is that the Treasury must have a surfeit of dollars in its present dimeless coffers – USD 7 billion to honour the nation’s international debt; and more to pay its import bill. So can Cabraal’s secret recipe of home grown ingredients cough up the dough? The Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa does not think so anymore and has now begun to have second thoughts. After being the first of the agnostics not to believe in the saving grace of the IMF, adversity seems to have beckoned his insight to place him on the stoic road to Washington. He seems to have undergone a remarkable transformation of faith when he told the London Financial Times on Wednesday that he is now willing to consider all options, even ‘think about a programme with the IMF.’ That’s far better, and more realistic, than depending on Cabraal and his brainy band to conjure up USD 7 billion from their magical hats So why is Basil still tarrying? Lanka’s economic Doomsday clock ticks ominously and time is of the essence.  Or, as SUNDAY PUNCH said last week, is he waiting for the people to be hurling halfway down the precipice to belatedly shout for IMF help?