State Minister of Primary Healthcare, Epidemics and Covid Disease Control SudarshiniFernandopulle told the Daily Mirror yesterday that the public cannot choose which Corona virus vaccine they take. She said they must take what is given to them.
This is a rich statement coming from SudarshiniFernandopulle. Meaning she is talking through her hat!
Why? Because before a person takes the vaccine for Covid– 19 s/he has to sign a form giving their consent to it. Either Ms. Fernandopulle is ignorant of this or she knows about it and made the statement to mislead the public. Not that this should surprise the people of this country given that she is a politician.
So, what does Ms. Fernandopulle’s statement mean practically?
That the government is going to force the people of this country to take the vaccine? Can the people hold the government accountable if things go wrong after they have taken the vaccine? Or, can the people refuse to take the vaccine?
The government has shut the stable doors after the horse has bolted once again and the people are having to pay for it. The government walked the country into another Covid wave, and the predictions are that this time it can engulf the country like it has in India.
A peoples’ expectation of their government is that it looks after them. No, not a nanny state but to work in the best interests of the people. Ok, if the threshold is too high, let’s say we leave out the ‘best’ and say that it at least worksin the interests of the people. Ms.Fernandopulle and her band of merry men and women who are running the country must be reminded or told, in case they never knew, that it is the people who put them where they are now. They must also be reminded in earnest that they are being kept by the public purse. They must also be reminded that they cannot act carte blanche.
Let’s look at another of Ms. Fernandopulle’srecent statements. On the 28th of April 2021Lankasara reported that Ms. Fernandopulle said the ‘economy has to be prioritized’.
Sure, the people will be happy to have a healthy economy. They will be happier if its benefits gush down to them instead of merely trickling through after the peoples’ representatives havealready drunk from the base of the fountain.
What Ms. Fernandopulle must understand is that its’ the people who drive this economy and for this the people have to be well.
The people and the economy would have been well if:
Ms. Fernandopulle and her band of merry men and women had the foresight to negotiate with vaccine producers in advance to get supplies for this now forsaken country instead of prioritizing on winning an election and exporting a dubious local concoction which should have been reserved exclusively for themselves;
Ms. Fernandopulle and her band of merry men and women had the foresight to manage the stock of vaccines the country received and reserved it for frontline workers and the most vulnerable instead of allowing themselves to beprioritized;
Ms. Fernandopulle and her band of merry men and women had not stopped PCR testing when the vaccination program started and prioritized research to spot emerging variants of the virus;
Ms. Fernandopulle and her band of merry men and women prioritized a lock down of the country for a couple of days during the Sinhala and Hindu New Year period and sacrificed a few days of merry making for months of misery.
Yes Ms. Fernandopulle, there are a lot of things you should have prioritized before you think of prioritizing the economy. Or is it that you and your band of merry men and women want to prioritize turning Sri Lanka into a ghost country to have your very own island in the sun?
Ms. Fernandopulle, you and your band of merry men and women should be booted into oblivion.Because, that is where you belong.
