ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has confirmed 633 Coronavirus patients on October 30, official data showed, with active cases reaching towards 6,000 amid rising concerns and authorities dropped institutionalized quarantine and fast-tracked discharges as buildings were converted to treatment centres.
Of the total, 264 were confirmed from Gampaha, with 48 from Pitipana and 162 from Colombo with 29 from Nawagamuwa and 75 from Colombo 1 to 18 Sri Lanka’s anti-Coronavirus task force said.
“There are several hundred patients being reported each day,” Chief Epidemiologist Sudath Samaraweera told reporters.
“It is also spreading fast. It is now in practically all districts.”
He urged people to limit movements.
Sri Lanka has avoided a nation-wide lockdown and has tried targeted curfews. This week Sri Lanka also dropped institutionalized quarantine.
Deputy Director of Health Hemanthe Herath said operating procedures were being revised to speed up discharges.
Sri Lanka had 5,760 in institutionalized quarantine, down from around 8,500 a week earlier. Another 508 would be discharged on October 31, the anti-Covid task force said.
Under Pressure
With resources being increasingly strained local television is carrying reports of persons on whom PCR tests being done sent home and confirmed patients waiting for admission.
Sri Lanka has 43 hospitals with 7 second tier treatment facilities for largely asymptomatic patients, and another one will come on Herath told reporters on October 30.
There were 5,413 patients in hospitals by October 30, he said. In the 24 hours ending October 31, 633 were confirmed at the anti-Covid task force said 140 were discharged.
Another 444 suspected cases were hospitalized.
After ending institutionalized quarantine, Sri Lanka is converting former quarantine facilities to treatment centres.
Sri Lanka’s Health Promotion Bureau said 11,560 tests were carried out on October 30, the highest daily total so far, up from 11,080 a day earlier and 8,680 a week earlier.
“We are conducting more tests daily despite one of the PCR machines at the IDH being out of order,” Herath told reporters.
“We expect to repair it over the weekend.”
Related
China techies in Sri Lanka to fix Coronavirus PCR machines as Covid-19 spreads
The Chinese embassy in Colombo said technicians had arrived in Colombo to repair the machine and also carry out maintenance on other machines.
Contact Tracing Delayed
The Colombo Municipality is carrying out large numbers of tests, and is finding more patients. On October 29, 37 patients were confirmed in Kotahena, 32 in Mattakkuliya and 20 in Dematagoda.
But there are warnings that testing is limited in other areas.
“In Kurunegala in Wayamba there were only 50 swabs given to carry out PCR tests in the community,” Haritha Aluthge from the Government Medical Officer’s Association told reporters.
The GMOA says there is a backlog of 20,000 swabs to be tested and generally there is a 2.5 percent rate of confirmation.
“In some cases results have been delayed by a week,” Aluthge said. “This is an unfortunate situation. In some area no swabs have been given for community testing.”
Researchers in Vietnam, one of the most successful countries in controlling Covid say there is in general 6-day window for tracers to isolate contacts before it spreads to the next level.
Coronavirus has an incubation period of between 2 to 14 days.
From level to level the spread is exponential. A lockdown and home quarantine, slows the spread, whle countries that completely kill outbreaks use institutionalized quarantine of F1 contacts, with quick testing to work within the 6-day window.
Over the week Sri Lanka also dropped institutionalized quarantine and resorted to home quarantine as numbers grew.
Under home quarantine, contacts who are going through the incubation period tends to infects other family members, parents and grandparents as they develop the disease at home, increasing the number of positive cases, not counting leaks, observers familiar with East Asia say.
Korea which has home quarantine has a steady trickle of deaths (464 deaths up to October 30) compared to 35 for Vietnam which has institutionalized quarantine.
Aluthge said based on information reaching the GMOA, results of about 3,000 tests are awaited in Matara and in some areas 5 to 6 days delays are being seen.
Movement Control
Sri Lanka has now locked down the entire Gampaha district, after initially putting curfews in areas close to Minuwangoda.
At the time authorities insisted that all contacts including those who were turning up in hospital independently without being traced had some link to the Minuwangoda cluster.
The fish market cluster was then discovered around October 20, and large numbers of persons were found in North Colombo. Officials then said cross infections may have taken place.
Sri Lanka has now also locked down parts of the capital Colombo which are densely populated.
So far only the Killinochchi district has had no infections.
However Aluthge said with weak testing of the community, there could be more infections in the country than is seen.
On Saturday reports said a woman patient had turned up positive in a hospital in the South from Galle.
Since symptomatic patients are only a small proportion of the total, such patients points to the existence of another sub-cluster, observers say..
But in many districts the disease is spreading though public health officials are actively chasing contacts.
In Karandeniya area more patients linked to a fish vendor were found.
Public Health Inspector Rohana Thennakoon asked anyone who had bought fish from the vendors in the past few days to report to them.
“There is a high risk of anyone who had bought fish from catching the disease,” he said.
Spreading from Multiple Clusters
In some provinces patients from multiple sub-clusters in Colombo were being found.
On October 30, reports said 08 contacts were found in Eheliyagoda with public health officials saying four were linked to the Pelliyagoda to the fish market and four Colombo Dockyard clusters.
Deputy Inspector General Ajith Rohana said so far about 60 police officers had got infected and 300 are under quarantine.
The first infected persons had first got the disease from purchasing fish for police canteens, he said.
Meanwhile officials said in Colombo’s lower income flats, the disease was spreading despite the curfews.