Tag Archives: COVID-19

කොවිඩ්-19 රෝගීන් සොයන පරීක්ෂණ වැඩි කිරිම වඩා ඵලදායී බව පිරිවැය ප්‍රතිලාභ විශ්ලේශණය පෙන්වා දෙයි.

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අගුලු දැමීම (ජාතික ඇඳිරි නීතිය, නිවසේ සිට වැඩ කිරීම, පාසැල් වසා දැමීම) සහ විදේශයන්හි සිට පැමිණෙන්නන් ඇසුරු කල අය සක්‍රියව සොයා යෑම වර්තමාන රෝග ව්‍යාප්තිය පාලනය කිරීමට සාර්ථක විය හැකි අතර දින 10 ක් ඇතුලත නව ආසාදිතයින් බිංදුව දක්වා ගෙන ඒමට හැකි වනු ඇත.නවතම දත්තවල එය සිදුවන බවට ලකුණු තිබේ. 

වෛරසය ව්‍යාප්ත වීම නැවැත්වීමට, සෞඛ්‍ය අමාත්‍යාංශයේ උපාය මාර්ග වලට හැකි වනු ඇත. නමුත්, එය ප්‍රමාණවත් නොවන අතර දිගටම දරාගත නොහැකි විය හැකිය. ආර්ථිකය ඇණ හිට ඇත, විරැකියාව ඉහළ යනු ඇත, ව්‍යාපාර බංකොලොත් වනු ඇත,  ජීවන තත්වයන් පහත වැටෙනු අතර රජයට ආදායම නැතිව යනු ඇත. සාමාන්‍ය ජීවිතය නැවත ආරම්භ කිරීමට සහ ආර්ථිකය ඉදිරියට ගෙන යාමට ව්‍යාපාර සහ පාසල් නැවත විවෘත කිරීමට අප ඉඩ සලසා දිය යුතුය. Continue reading →

Cost benefit analysis supports much more aggressive testing than current MOH strategy

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The lockdown (national curfews, work at home, school closures) plus MOH actively tracing contacts of foreign arrivals should work in controlling the current outbreak and could bring new cases down to zero within ten days. There are signs of that happening in the latest data.

MOH’s strategy will work in stopping the spread of the virus, but it is not sufficient and it cannot be sustained. The economy is at a standstill, unemployment will rise, businesses will go bankrupt, living standards will fall, and the government has no revenue. We need to allow businesses and schools to re-open to restart normal life and to get the economy going. Continue reading →

India may be failing to detect community transmission of Covid-19 because of inadequate testing

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Our graphical vizualisation of the Epidemiology Unit’s data on Covid-19 cases in Sri Lanka attracted attention in India, and I was interviewed by The Hindu, whose article appears here. Continue reading →

Visualization of the source of COVID-19 cases in Sri Lanka

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Sri Lanka has still to start releasing daily details of its Covid-19 cases and the findings of the critically important contact tracing effort, as does Singapore and Hong Kong. See here, here and here for how Singapore’s health ministry keeps Singaporeans informed. This is unfortunate as doing so would help build public confidence and understanding of the difficult measures that are needed, as well as help to combat rumour and fake news. Doubly unfortunate, because greater transparency would probably reflect well on the efforts of the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health.

On the positive side, the Health Promotion Bureau has been innovative in its decision to publish a regularly updated data feed on overall numbers, and in the past few days the Epidemiology Unit has released online details of cases to date. Based on that initial release, which I really hope is updated daily, our team at IHP – Nilmini Wijemunige, Yasodhara Kapuge, Chathurani Sigera and Nishani Gunawardana– generated the graphic below summarising what we know about the first 78 cases (as of 22 March). Continue reading →

இலங்கையில் கோவிட் -19 நோயாளிகளின் எண்ணிக்கை 100 ஐ எட்டுகிறது

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எதிர்பார்த்தபடி, தொற்று உடையவர்களின் தற்போதைய எழுச்சி COVID-19 இன் உறுதிப்படுத்தப்பட்ட மொத்த தொற்று உடையவர்களின் எண்ணிக்கையை 100 ஆக உயர்த்தியுள்ளது. இது சுகாதார அமைச்சின் தொற்றுநோயியல் பிரிவினால் தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. குறைந்தது அடுத்த வாரத்திற்காவது எண்கள் தொடர்ந்து அதிகரிக்கும் என்று தெரிகிறது. ஆனால் இது சில நாட்களில் புதிய தொற்றுகளின் எண்ணிக்கை குறைந்துள்ளது சாதகமான அறிகுறியாகும். மேலும் இந்த போக்கு மற்ற நாடுகளில் காணப்படும் திடீர்பருக்கின் அசுர வளர்ச்சி விகிதத்தைக் காட்டவில்லை.

COVID-19 cases in Sri Lanka reach 100

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As anticipated, the current surge in cases has pushed the tally of total confirmed cases of COVID-19 to 100, as reported by the Epidemiology Unit, MOH. It is likely that numbers will continue increasing for the next week at least, but it’s a positive sign that the number of new cases has dropped on some days and the trend does not show the explosive rate of increase seen in most other countries.

Government needs to urgently increase investment in expanding testing capacity

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We face a long struggle with Covid-19 that will last into 2021. Even if we control the current outbreak, fresh outbreaks will happen unless we completely close our borders for the rest of the year. We must think ahead to how we can maintain air links and continue to function in the face of a continuing threat of imported infections. Vastly increased capacity to test for Covid-19 has to be part of that. It will require a significant investment in equipment, supplies and manpower – billions of rupees, but the economic benefits will outweigh the costs.  Continue reading →

China reports zero local cases of corona virus

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On Thursday 19 March, we reached a significant milestone in the current epidemic which should not go without comment.

China reported reported zero local cases throughout all its provinces including Hubei. The handful of cases it has had in the past few days have all been imported infections in visiting foreigners (mostly Italians) or returning Chinese. China is where the epidemic started three months ago, but it is now on the verge of being able to declare that first wave over and done with.

I wrote an article earlier to explain why the epidemic is no longer a Chinese problem. It was an attempt to alert everyone in Sri Lanka to the need to refocus on the infection threat from other countries, especially Europe. Unfortunately, it took over a week for me to get that published, and during that time the government continue to allow unrestricted arrivals from a range of countries with major and out-of-control outbreaks, such as the UK, France, Spain and Italy. As I wrote a few days ago, it is not therefore surprising that we ended up with the current outbreak with over 50 detected cases and almost certainly over a hundred undetected so far.

Cases to date - China 19/03/20

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covidsl – ஒரு உத்தியோகப்பூர்வமற்ற இலங்கை கொரோனா நோய்க்கிருமி பின்தொடர் (ட்ராக்கர்)

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கியோட்டோ பல்கலைக்கழக ஆராய்ச்சியாளரான இசங்கா விஜரத்னே உருவாக்கிய இலங்கை கோவிட் நிகழ்வுககளின் தொடர்ச்சியாக புதுப்பிக்கப்படும் இந்த பின்தொடரை(ட்ராக்கரை) நாங்கள் கண்டோம்: http://covidsl.com. இது மொத்த நிகழ்வுகளில் தற்போதைய எண்ணிக்கை மற்றும் மாற்றங்கள், செய்யப்பட்ட சோதனைகள் மற்றும் குணமடைந்தோரின் எண்ணிக்கையை தெரிவிக்கிறது.
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covidsl – නිල නොවන ශ්‍රී ලංකා කොරෝනා වයිරස් ට්‍රැකර් ය

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කියෝතෝ විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයේ පර්යේෂකයෙකු වන ඉසංකා විජරත්න විසින් සංවර්ධනය කරන ලද ශ්‍රී ලංකා COVID සිද්ධීන් පිළිබඳ අඛණ්ඩව යාවත්කාලීන කරන ලද ට්‍රැකර් එකක් අපට හමු විය: http://covidsl.com. එය සම්පූර්ණ සිදුවීම්වල වර්තමාන හා වෙනස්වීම්, පරීක්ෂණ සහ සුවය ලැබූ රෝගීන් වාර්තා කරයි. Continue reading →