The true measure of strength

The Government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa marked 18 months in office on 17 May. After sweeping to power on a national security platform, the former Defence Secretary’s administration confronted a very different type of crisis three months into its tenure. 

It is true that the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented in nature and scope. The disease is highly contagious, transmissible through asymptomatic carriers, mutates at warp-speed, and causes severe respiratory illness and death. In a single year, the virus has wiped out more than three million people across the world. 

But it is also true that in the past year or so that the world has lived through this pandemic, we have learned much more about the disease. Governments that tackled the virus effectively put protocols in place early, imposed strict lockdowns, watched vaccine development closely and got in line quickly to order enough doses to inoculate their populations. 

Government bluster about how well it has tackled the virus notwithstanding, Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 story is distinctly different. The saying goes that generals are always fighting the last war. In a heavily-militarised administration, public health officials, with decades of experience tackling infectious disease epidemics and vaccination drives, were cast aside in favour of generals and foot-soldiers with no background in medicine or community health. 

With the country on a war-footing against the coronavirus, the Rajapaksa Government, which built a political foundation on winning the war against the LTTE in 2009, was impatient to declare victory over this new enemy. By doing so prematurely against COVID-19 which was still ravaging populations across the world, they sent signals of complacency to the public, convincing them that normalcy had returned. 

This was forgivable, if the Rajapaksa administration had used the intervening months to take stock, build capacity, listen to medical experts and – crucially – get cracking on ordering sufficient doses of the COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they became available. In fact the pandemic provided the best opportunity for Gotabaya Rajapaksa to showcase his skills as a clinical, efficient, technocrat. 

But the Government had other, more pressing, priorities. At first, it was the Parliamentary Election that diverted attention from the initial wave of COVID-19 in April-May 2020. By the time the second wave hit in October 2020, the Government was too deeply mired in its battle to plough through with the 20th Amendment to pay attention to pandemic response or planning. 

For 18 months, the Government has concerned itself with exacting petty political revenge, absolving party members of past crimes and sowing the seeds of ethnic and religious division. In January 2021, the airport reopened, and life went back to normal. The rest as they say, is history. 

Today, all over the country, hospitals are sending distress signals. Medical facilities are reaching capacity, oxygen is running out, ICU beds are scarce. Private citizens are mounting funding initiatives to meet the needs, while the Itukama Fund, purportedly established for pandemic response, remains nearly untouched. 

Every day, Sri Lanka inches closer to the grim milestone of 1,000 COVID-19 deaths. Experts warn current infection rates will bring more tragedy and death over the next few months. Medical experts are unanimous that the new variants dominant in the island will ensure that the current wave will be deadlier than the last two. Sri Lankans see evidence of this daily, as death rates climb and relatives and friends succumb to the deadly disease. 

The spread is acute in the Western Province, but thousands travelled over the April New Year season, carrying the virus in their bodies to far-flung villages across the island. Epidemiological mapping shows the entire country is on the cusp of becoming a coronavirus red zone. Mismanagement and mixed messages have eroded public confidence. As Sri Lanka grapples with its worst public health crisis in living memory, the Government rules in absentia.

JVP Leader Anura Dissanayake warned citizens recently that their best hope was to look out for themselves, because the Government had abandoned its responsibility to protect its citizens. “You’re on your own,” Dissanayake told a press conference last week. 

A Government that likes to project strong leadership must understand, even now, as its citizens are dying, that true strength lies in acknowledging mistakes, changing course, and resolving to do better. Honesty about where we really stand in the battle against the COVID-19 will go a long way towards rebuilding public trust and give us a fighting chance.