Sustenance and Austerity

We can’t believe our ears.

 

The well fed spokesman for politicians is actually telling the ordinary citizens to tighten their belts and reduce their fictional three meals to two meals a day. In fact, many are already at one, and belts can’t get much tighter. 

 

Aerial shots from security drones show queues winding like mazes around the large grocery stores, as people line up for what they hope will sustain them.

 

Store cupboards are not full in this land. Despite so many consecutive disasters, people do not plan ahead. Or perhaps it’s because of the many things that go wrong, all the time, that derail the plans to provide for whatever could happen, to shore up the cracks, and seal the apertures, to hope to survive this more or less upright, and intact.

 

I think people are resorting to the snacks they used to have as children: comfort food to sustain their hope, and nourish whatever joy has remained for each of them.

 

Those with the simplest needs will not only survive, but thrive. And those of us who are generously drawn with ample curvature will sigh with regret, but positively bloom as a result of the mandated reductions, as our hoarded stores get utilized at last.

Life Support

 Image Credit: Pixar Films

The unfolding pandemic has made us all re-evaluate our thoughts and actions. For many of us, it feels like we are living in a transforming world: one in which our focus on ourselves, and the economic survival and fulfillment of our own families, has been challenged. We cannot read or listen to the news without realizing that the pandemic is affecting the global community differentially. 

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed social class differences: in terms of access to PCR tests, preferred vaccines and 24 hour health care. The economically disadvantaged are more vulnerable, have no safety net, and no back up resources. This is where community organizations with their infrastructure and relationships built over many years can positively intervene, in life changing and life supporting ways. 

Some of the most vulnerable members of our community are the elderly. As in many societies around the world, Sri Lanka’s traditional social structures are changing, as industrialization and a more materialistic value system challenges the family-based focus of the past, where our elders were respected, honored and cared for as they became physically less robust and more frail. 

A mindset which values wealth creation, and honors only those individuals whose work creates net worth and property portfolios, inevitably creates disrespect for retirees, who are of course no longer gainfully employed in the private or public sectors. Measuring a person solely by their income will result in our undervaluing those citizens who are perceived as no longer having anything to contribute, and who need to be supported at this stage of their life. 

In Sri Lanka, respect for our elders is ingrained, as one of the most important aspects of our culture, and thus it is a natural outcome that good work is being done by community organizations to support our senior citizens. This work often goes unrecognized, and is therefore not sufficiently supported.

In the past two decades, the traditional extended family structure has been disrupted, by internal and external migration, as the younger generation leave their homes in search of better job prospects. Those who remain behind often do not have the skill, patience or time to care for their elders. 

It is important that this shortfall should be addressed at this juncture, as our elderly citizens are among the most vulnerable in our community, both financially and in terms of their physical age and diminished health conditions, which make them especially vulnerable in this pandemic. 

The HelpAge Sri Lanka (HASL) Organisation operates through grass roots Senior Citizen Committees to raise awareness of older people’s specific rights and needs. These include access to ID cards and pensions, and access to shelter and food, necessary for survival, and to medical care, as many elderly citizens are home bound or less mobile, and need home care services which are administered by volunteers. 

Sri Lanka has one of the largest ageing populations in the world, and HASL is the only charity organization working in the country which has been created solely to address the needs of our elderly citizens. Fundamental to their vision is the upholding of human dignity, and an awareness of the ways age and infirmity result in increased vulnerability and dependency in the elderly. 

To be able to support vulnerable people without disrespecting their dignity, requires sensitivity training, dedication and commitment. The training of the staff is crucial to this service and support, and fulfil an essential humanitarian role in this sphere. HASL trains staff to offer everyday home care to elderly citizens, within their family environment. 

‘There needs to be more acceptance and better management of people in their old age’, said a colleague of mine, recently. ‘When you get older, you can't expect your kids to look after you - it's not fair by them. This is a very South Asian attitude. Putting your parent in a well tended elders home is better than living dysfunctionally with each other. Also many old people suffer from conditions like Dementia and Alzheimers, and you need professional care for that. 

Also people with mental illness cannot live on their own - they need constant supervision by a trained professional. You cannot expect your children to do that.’

The HASL organisation provides support for vision challenged elders through a dedicated Eye Hospital in Wellawatte, providing medical assistance for those who cannot afford cataract surgery and the associated expenses of purchasing lenses. They have also created a Mobile Medical Unit: a clinic-on-wheels which is equipped to offer medical diagnosis and treatment to elders in remote or inaccessible places in the country, free of charge. 

HASL has also prepared for the ongoing future recognition and upholding of the rights and dignities of the elderly, by implementing Youth Education  Programmes, to create awareness in the younger generation of the community responsibilities we must face and take on as we all deal with the inevitable ageing process. Empathy, compassion and kindness are values which can effectively remedy the estrangement and objectification many elderly citizens are met with, in an increasingly materialistic global society. 

Elderly citizens, due to their lack of mobility, also require special assistance during seasonal emergencies such as floods, which render many homeless. This is where community based enterprises are most useful, as the staff  are vigilant and aware of the most vulnerable members of each village, and able to assist with essential medical supplies and care where it is most needed. 

With this clear and robust organizational structure, and supported by donations from both corporate investors and private individuals, HASL has been in a good position to assist the elderly during the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 10,000 vulnerable citizens have been assisted by the Give2Asia Project, in the period May to September 2021; with essential PPE and hand washing units being provided, and vaccination awareness programmes being conducted. 

Senior citizens are also provided with access to traditional medicine treatments via the provision of a dedicated Ayurvedha Treatment Centre in Boralesgamuwa, which is affiliated with the Faculty of Ayurvedic Medicine in Colombo University. 

Above all, this organisation focuses on the emotional and psychological well being of our elders, not treating them as people with just physical needs. They are seen as people who have contributed to the community throughout their lives, and so deserve our respect and support in their later years. 

These ongoing supportive activities and acts of commitment are needed in our society. As age takes away our privilege, embodied generosity, and dedicated care and concern as shown in these initiatives, can restore our faith in humanity, especially our own. 

Community Service

‘No man is an island, entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent

A part of the main...

Each man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.’

              - John Donne 

The months of September and October are likely to be the most challenging of the entire pandemic. Now the population are being vaccinated at a rapid rate, with many vaccination centres operating long hours, and reports are coming in of how efficient and stress free the process is, with the younger citizens aged between 18 and 30 being able to book their vaccines through an online portal, and being assured that there are enough vaccines to go around, and no shortages. 

There is now enough data available, 20 months into the pandemic, to make it clear that vaccination is what makes the difference between getting this illness so seriously that you cannot breathe without help; and getting a milder version of it which does not inevitably result in hospitalization and death. It is also clear that all the different kinds of vaccine available are effective in lessening the severity of the impact of the virus on the human body. 

It is important to note that the double dose of every vaccine appears to provide far better protection against hospitalization than one dose alone, and that it is important to wait the optimal length of time after the vaccine is given (3-5 weeks, depending on which vaccine you get), for best results. It is also important that people who have been vaccinated understand the need to continue to practise social distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene protocols, even within their own homes to protect vulnerable family members, whose immunity levels are lower, for many months to come. 

I say September and October are the danger zone because although the current vaccination rates are excellent, it will take that amount of time for immunity to develop in the whole community. The current lockdown, although difficult for many, economically, and socially frustrating for everyone, will definitely help to incrementally decrease the numbers of infected people, in conjunction with the vaccinations. 

By October/November, the terrible news reports will decrease in volume and intensity. By Christmas and New Year, we may be able to meet in small groups, our vaccination cards laminated for ease of use, because no more booster shots will be required. 

The huge burden on our doctors and nurses and health care professionals will ease. They are currently working extremely long hours, and putting themselves at risk every day to assist the community, despite having family and loved ones of their own. This is a battle. This is why where they work is called a front line. 

Our health care heroes, as they are called on social media, are extremely dedicated and skilled. But they are, while dealing with this unprecedented global crisis, like health care professionals all over the world, under resourced and under equipped. 

It’s easy to feel helpless in this crisis situation. But even though we are not medically qualified, we as a community can help our medical professionals in their task, in effective and timely ways, through targeted donations. We can equip them to do their optimal work, in the frontline of this battle against this transmissible disease. 

Community groups like the Rotary Clubs of Sri Lanka have effective organizational infrastructure, and strong relationships across different social sectors which have been developed over collaborations through many years, and their members are therefore in a good position to mobilize and help support the country’s public hospitals. 

A fine example of this embodiment of the Rotary ideals of ‘service above self’ is the dedicated efforts of the Rotary Club of Colombo Regency, who collaborated with the SEALA (South East Asia Leadership Academy) global network, to raise thousands  in US currency to donate much needed and expensive equipment such as Multipara monitors, syringe pumps and pulse oximeters, to Panadura, Kegalle and Diyatalawa Hospitals, as part of their Covid Relief Initiative. This is a humanitarian campaign which is structured in phases. 

This has involved strategic planning and co-operation with multiple local and overseas partners, as well as fund raising. To be an effective donor you must be financially organized enough to be able to give donations to a particular hospital over a period of several months, as the need for medical resources and equipment is very great in the regional areas of the country, and giving must be sustained as well as generous, in order for the hospital facilities to be developed to optimally support incoming patients. 

Other voluntary community service organizations have also raised substantial funds, and have done so using the powerful instrument of social and personal connections, going back to school and college days, in ways that directly reach the people who are in most need of them, with ventilators, oxygen flow regulators and other vital respiratory facilitation equipment. Hospitals serving large numbers of people, have been enabled to build dedicated Covid wards with full facilities, through the auxiliary  assistance of community groups. 

Private individuals and families are responding to the challenges presented by the pandemic by giving large amounts to uplift the local hospitals throughout the country. Outside the hospitals, Good Samaritan projects are raising money to be able to give essential food and basic items to people who are facing hunger due to lack of paid work over the past several months. People with credibility in the community and with a track record of personal integrity are entrusted by their friends and colleagues to collect funds in an accountable and transparent way, and to distribute these essential items to those in need, the most vulnerable. 

Social media has played a significant role in conveying the requests for assistance from hospitals and medical personnel, and via WhatsApp groups and FB posts and Tweets by people with large followings the links between those in need and those with funds to offer are effectively made. Social media’s stated objective, to foster and facilitate community connections and bonds, has come into operation in actual fact. Equipment which saves lives is being sourced, paid for and delivered to the patients within 72 hours. 

Credibility and a reputation not as a do gooder or a virtue signaller, but as a person who is motivated to ease the suffering of others in a time of crisis, anxiety and real physical, economic and social need, is the best currency in this era. Recognition of how inter-connected we all are is vital. These organisations are effective in doing the needful because people all over the world place trust in service organizations like this, who have long term track records in supporting those in need, most often anonymously, which perfectly illustrates the advice of the Lord Buddha: ‘To give generously, give happily, and give in silence’. 

Each human life is valuable. Each human being has dignity. Most especially, let us support, at this time, and incrementally, the dedicated efforts of our health care professionals, and the patients whose lives they work so hard to save. 

Let us not send to ask for whom the bell tolls. Whether we know the names of those suffering and succumbing in this crisis or not, their loss is our loss. 

Link to article - https://ceylontoday.lk/news/community-service?fbclid=IwAR1zwn3ckTp35u3sCkgkWPYk79PsyGHqeD1O1w81x0wQwlHhbl9rl3uuU5g

The Hills Are Alive

Image credit: Hotelier Academy

The worst weeks of the pandemic crisis have now begun: the period before the vaccinations start to take effect, as it  takes 3-5 weeks to create immune response protection in those who are vaccinated; and the aftermath of the holiday season at New Year, in which the highly transmissible Delta strain started making its devastating impact felt. 

Pandemics are relatively easy to understand, if you are good with numbers. The more densely populated an area is, the more closely people live in communal households and inter- generational living arrangements, the more people physically go in to a workplace rather than work from home, the more quickly the illness will spread. 

The safest way to operate if you can is to avoid people. A person to person transmission event cannot take place if one of the persons is not present. 

This also applies to group activities such as holiday getaways of the kind that people locked in their city homes and apartments understandably yearn for. The pandemic has thrived in conditions of communal congeniality - religious functions, festivals to mark auspicious occasions, weddings, funerals, parties, pot luck dinners with shared food platters, and feasts of all kinds, particularly those held in air-conditioned rooms. 

It is understandable that many people cannot change their homes and living arrangements, and can only do their best via partitions and increased social distancing to diminish transmission to those they live with. But what I will never understand is the mania shown by some people to continue to organize group outings to the cool, misty hill country in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century. 

Boutique hotels offering group discounts and ‘two for the price of one’ deals can be seen advertising their high end and high priced rooms on Instagram, with an array of glorious views of green hills and  glistening swimming pools and sumptuous dining platters, accompanied by swim suited or bath robed European models in alluring poses offering many kinds of prompts and provocations to viewers to do what they are doing, and have what they are having. 

These hotels have not been legally permitted to operate during lockdowns, and intermittent inter-provincial travel restrictions have made it difficult for them to attract guests, since last March. They have maintenance and repairs to fund, and staff salaries to pay, and their economic loss must have been significant. 

It’s a volatile situation, as the tourism industry needs to open up, but in a well managed way that minimizes risk to the citizens of the country who have not yet been double vaccinated. This is where vaccine politics comes into play: there may come a time soon, when overseas visitors who can prove they have been double vaccinated, and who test negative for Covid on arrival in Sri Lanka, can readily access express 24 hour quarantine processing, and are permitted to freely go anywhere in the island, while the local population are forced to stay restricted in their homes. 

This is privilege in action, as global access to vaccines has not been equitable, anywhere in the world. 

The so-called local elite, whose sense of being special, blessed and set apart in comparison to the ordinary citizens of this country has been fed by every affirming experience and monetized event in their lives, will not stay locked down long. Those who have acquired the vaccines accepted by the U.K., the U.S., Europe and Australia will seek to gather their cliques together and go and take poses and filtered selfies in every infinity pool in sight, and justify it to themselves as a well-earned break. 

The exhausting task of keeping the kids (the generation in whose hands our future will be placed!) entertained, with online school, and so regrettably few inner resources, will be remedied with cocktails and mocktails and sunrise all-you-can-eat breakfasts by the pool, and evening sunset pre-BBQ bites and delectable snacks, while the dedicated chefs in their pristine, perfect, puffy white hats labour to fulfill these insatiable appetites. Yum Yum. 

I observed with incredulity one of these getaway weekends being arranged via WhatsApp last week. Person after person spoke on the chat about how much they missed meeting up, how they couldn’t breathe in the pollution and dust of the City, and how heavenly it would be to just escape this ongoing nightmare for just a few days. 

People like this don’t think about the impact they have, unless it’s the impact of a new trend in clothing, accessories or winged eyeliner that they have acquired to impress each other. All is vanity. 

The numbers of deaths in the hill country have so far been consistently far fewer statistically than those in the densely populated Western Province. This is despite the large and economically vulnerable community of plantation workers and their families living in crowded conditions in housing built decades ago, and not modernized and upgraded, who have no other home but this region. 

If monied tourists and self indulgent, privileged elites come swarming upcountry like birds of paradise or super models at a location shoot, treating the region as a backdrop for their Instagram Story and reels, complete with beauty spots and quaint locals, these upcountry communities will be sharply, adversely and disproportionally affected. 

The ordinary citizens have no safety net, they have no ability to work from home, they have no insurance cover, they have no financial or health protection. Those working in the plantation sector are still fighting for a wage of 1000 LKR a day, the price of a creaming soda ordered on room service at one of these luxury boutique hotels. 

Can the gratification of the rich be delayed just 6 to 8 weeks? Can they put a limit on their excesses for even that space of time? We cannot appeal to their conscience or sense of what is morally right, because they have long lost the habit of considering the needs of anyone other than themselves. 

‘Life in the fast lane, slowly makes you lose your mind’, as the Eagles sang. And the fast lane looks like it is about to become super crowded with super rich people trying to compensate themselves for lost time.

Constant Vigilance

 We are now in the most dangerous stage of the pandemic. Vaccination is proceeding at one of the fastest rates in the world, and is being efficiently implemented by the armed force and medical personnel. Great effort is being made to reach elderly, disabled, fragile and incapacitated people, with health care workers doing home visits throughout the country. The eligible citizens of the country should be fully vaccinated by October. 

But this momentum is in competition with the increase in transmission, and the Delta strain is showing itself to be faster and more deadly, as well as affecting those of younger ages far more than the original novel coronavirus did in 2020. The threat and the remedy are pitched directly against each other. 

Is it possible in these circumstances for anyone to be ‘safe’? Is it actually realistic to speak of ‘beating the virus’? The virus adapts and changes form expediently, and the variants are more virulent, as we would expect from anything so survivalistic and so opportunistic. 

But human beings are adaptable, too. The numbers of deaths are starting to rise, and amongst these numbers are names of people known to us. If we are reading this, we have held the line in this battle for 18 months, and now we must all consider consciously strengthening our self care practices and increasing our vigilance. 

In exchange for our compliance, these restrictions will ease. This is the new social contract operating in the world in which we live. ‘Democracy and pandemics don’t mix’, a friend of mine told me last week. We were discussing the possibility of fast tracking the quarantine process after vaccination has progressed through the population and the numbers of people getting ill have reduced. The initial processes included a two week stay in mandatory quarantine, including PCR testing at entry and departure, and enforced isolation monitored by security guards. In some countries, people were locked in their rooms in designated quarantine hotels. 

There is a 24 hour quarantine option in Sri Lanka for those who have been double vaccinated, and who have consistently tested negative at all the check points, coming in to the country. ‘Level 1’ hotels in Colombo currently offer a 24 hour stay package including room, PCR test, insurance and transport, for USD 229. These hotels can be booked directly. They need your fully vaccinated status confirmed by vaccine card dated and time stamped, certified negative PCR test results, and visas if you are not a citizen of the country. 

Initially, before the numbers of cases increased, and the hospitals became unable to take more patients, people were sent to quarantine centres. Now as the situation has become more intense, people are being encouraged and incentivized to self monitor their symptoms and stay at home. It is possible to call health care personnel for medical advice via telephone numbers on dedicated lines. We can buy basic medical equipment like blood pressure machines and pulse oximeters to track our condition at home. 

We can order our groceries home delivered from our local supermarket. We can ring through or WhatsApp our chemists and food outlets and make our requests for the items we need, and collect them, delivered to our car door, to minimise transmission via the air conditioning in the store or restaurant. 

Even after double vaccination, with 3-5 weeks between doses, booster shots may be needed. But the most important thing to note is that a multi-layered approach is now necessary on a daily basis. 

Plastic gloves, hand sanitizer, strict hygiene procedures and disinfection of surfaces in the home, wearing masks even within the house, putting on face shields as well as gloves when going out in public. Changing clothes immediately when we come home from outside. Soap and water and Dettol hand wash several times a day. Making sure our household sheets and towels are washed regularly. Making sure we bathe daily to keep our bodies as clean as possible, and less prone to infection. Eating fresh, home made food with high nutritional value. Drinking a lot of clean water every day. Ensuring we have vitamins C, and D daily. Taking immediate action if any health issue arises, however small. Practising personal vigilance. 

Instead of passively waiting to be told when and if lockdown will be brought in, at this juncture people need to proactively protect their families and each other by putting themselves into voluntary isolation, and fully supporting themselves throughout the process without panic or self pity, and in as realistic and sustainable a way as possible. Lockdown as a country is not going to be possible for daily wage earners, who form a large part of the workforce. 

Consistency is the key. What we do every day will save us, and serve us well. Vaccination must be added to. Think vaccine plus hygiene plus social distancing plus avoidance of contact with anyone outside the circle of immunity we create at home. For the next few years, a month at a time, a day or week envisioned at a time, if the prospect of years is too daunting. 

Working online where possible, keeping in touch via telephone, and being able to see each other’s faces via video enabled apps like Messenger and WhatsApp and Skype and Zoom; participating in group discussions via Clubhouse and audio podcasts. Scheduling calls with those dear to us. Encouraging each other. 

This is the turning point. We can either extend our suffering, or take conscious steps to end it, and exit into a cleaner and clearer world. It’s our individual choice. Multiplied by 22 million.

Vaccine 💉 Politics

Public health crises by definition are not going to grant much personal choice to individuals. It’s been 18 months now since the inception of the coronavirus pandemic, and there’s just enough data available to be able to see some clear patterns. Each country deals with the virus and the challenges posed by the variants it is presenting in different ways, based on their specific population numbers, demographics and organizational infrastructure - and the level of education and compliance (or resistance) of their citizens. 

When we were dealing with the less transmissible and less fatal novel coronavirus in its original form, in 2020, many people were hesitant to get vaccinated: the vaccines were still in development, they were rushed through under emergency measures, and not properly tested, and their comparative efficacy was still being measured until recently because not enough of the global population had trialled them for conclusive results to be clear and indisputable. 

Then came the vaccine power plays: wealthy nations had more economic capability to secure large amounts of the most effective vaccines. These were also countries where most people enjoyed a high standard of living, and economic and political stability. This also made them complacent, entitled  and skeptical. Nations without those reserves of wealth had large populations who were particularly at risk: when 80% of a country’s work force are daily wage earners, extended lockdowns cause disproportionate socio-economic devastation to these workers and their families. The educated elite who work in the corporate, media, legal, financial or academic worlds, and who work digitally, are able to increasingly work from home, and this privilege protects them from exposure. 

The pandemic is exposing the flaws and inconsistencies in every system on earth: from administrative blockages, to inequitable distribution of goods and services, to disproportional danger faced by lower economic groups working in service industries like cleaning and catering; and the areas in each individual household and community where processes and support, related to food provision and hygiene protocols and health and safety, need to be improved. 

Vaccine politics can be seen in the way countries like Australia require that anyone seeking to enter the country show proof that they have been vaccinated by specific vaccines which are approved by the Australian government. SinoPharm is not accepted, but Pfizer and Astra Zeneca are, and Moderna has been approved most recently. 

We will need to produce documentary evidence via vaccine certificates that we have been vaccinated, not only to travel internationally, but going forward, probably as a pre requisite for entry to any large public space or venue within any country in which we reside: to prove that we are not a threat to public health. 

Rising numbers of infected people constitute a public health crisis; and justify the taking of measures for public safety such as increased surveillance, checkups, police visits to citizens’ homes and random testing which would be felt to be intrusive under normal conditions. 

Sri Lanka did an excellent job in 2020 of keeping the numbers of infected people and the number of deaths down. But since Sinhala and Tamil New Year this April/ May, and the simultaneous rapid spread of the Delta variant, the hospitals are becoming crowded and the health care personnel are under heavy stress. 

This new situation of crisis has resulted in many more people seeking to be vaccinated, and countries like Japan have contributed thousands of doses of Astra Zeneca and Pfizer. Those seeking the vaccines which are in less plentiful supply must apply to be given them, with reasons for their application, and letters of support. 

Soon our vaccine card will be as essential a document as our NIC card. We had better start keeping the card with its dates, times and updates in a strong protective plastic wrapper, so that the details remain clearly visible, protected against dirt, water and damage. We will be continually asked to produce this card, over the next few years. 

Sri Lanka’s public health system has braced itself for the crisis: many hospitals and health workers are being supported with needed equipment and facilities by private donations from families and community organizations such as Rotary, island wide. 

The Colombo Municipal Council are providing the vulnerable groups of elderly and incapacitated citizens with a home visit service. This enables those  who would not be able to access vaccines at the public vaccine centres in Viharamahadevi Park and other venues in Colombo City where 10,000 people wait in queues, supervised by the armed forces, to be vaccinated with maximum safety and dignity, and a minimum of exposure to transmission, in their own homes. 

This service is a stellar example of public  health care serving the needs of the community, and many of the wealthier and better resourced countries can learn from this humane and well thought out initiative. 

The most vulnerable until recently were clearly those in older age groups. The Delta variant is now showing virulence to those of younger ages, and those in their twenties and thirties need to be vaccinated as well. Sri Lanka’s vaccination effort is rapid, efficiently administered, and on track, and the ongoing compliance of the citizens, who are aware of the current pressures on hospitals and resources, makes it likely that the country can ensure that all eligible people will be vaccinated by October this year. 

Doctors have made themselves available to be consulted via telephone monitoring packages with blood pressure machines and pulse oximeters and basic first aid kits, so that people can self monitor their symptoms and get the support they need from medical professionals while staying safe at home. This is an incentive to encourage people to be more proactive in their own self care, as a supplement to the government protocols. 



MOH workers are travelling to remote areas of the country to ensure that disabled people of all ages are able to be vaccinated, in their homes. Entrepreneurs are offering oxygen equipment to be delivered to people’s homes, hopefully with training offered in how to administer it to family members in a non hospital environment. 

Internal class politics are what are impeding and derailing this national effort: the non daily wage earners, largely urbanized, and with better access to vaccines, those who have been partially vaccinated, or who do not have to go out of their homes to work, and who - as a result - actually consider themselves immune and set apart from the ‘hot struggles of the poor’, have continued to socialize, travel across interprovincial borders, attend weddings and large gatherings, and conduct themselves as if the pandemic was not happening. 

It takes up to 5 weeks for the human body to develop immunity after each vaccine shot. Those who think that getting ‘the jab’ is an immediate passport to a return to their normal social life before March 2020 are fatally mistaken. They still need to continue mask, gloves and shield wearing, washing their hands, avoiding crowds and social distancing, for weeks and months after receiving the double vaccination, until about 80 to 90% of the country has been vaccinated. Public awareness and a sense of civic responsibility are required. 

People who until now have been accustomed throughout their lives to find that their wealth and privilege have bought them exemption from restrictions of all kinds will need to embrace a new and more realistic approach to the way they conduct themselves in public. All are susceptible, and money and status are no shield. 

In the regional areas of the country, the inequitable access to vaccines has been protested in colorful and creative ways, with mannequin parades in areas like Puttulam, making their case for vaccine equity with no possibility of transmitting the virus, or being accused of endangering others or disrupting the peace. 

The threat posed by the pandemic is causing us to evolve. We can beat the numbers which currently horrify us by personalizing our approach. It may not feel like it, but the odds are actually in our favour, if we adapt our ways of thinking and behaving, well within the time frame that we have been given.

Errors of Judgment

I have been for many years now an editor of essays, articles, short stories, novels, poetry, dissertations, theses, memoirs and business textbooks. Working with many writers across these spheres of interest, I have found to my surprise that people are sometimes more concerned with their own image as ‘all-knowing’ and ‘all-perfect’ in the eyes of the public, than with the factual accuracy of their own work. Editors are, in fact, disliked by many writers, because their role is to point out errors in the writer’s work. 

These errors may be factual, or may be stylistic - typographical errors, such as minor spelling errors, or grammatically clumsy expressions, or even an awkwardly placed comma. The factual errors are usually the author’s responsibility to check, and get right before publishing their work in the public domain, as it is the author who loses face, if they profess to be an authority on a subject, and then make inaccurate claims. 

The editor of the publication in which the article appears can then take the decision to publish a retraction in the next issue, with a list of the errata, so that the credibility and reputation of the publication does not suffer as a result. 

The public domain includes printed national or even local/regional newspapers, magazines, and quarterlies. And today, in the age of the internet, it includes blogs and Facebook posts and online articles, which have a huge global public reach, being far more accessible than any print publication could ever be. Most newspapers now have websites, where the contributors’ articles are published online, after they appear in print. 

The responsibilities of sub-editors, therefore, ideally include checking each article which will appear in their publication for these errors. They are also responsible for the layout and presentation of the content: the font used, the wording of the main headlines and the creation of sub headings which sequence and pace the article to make it clearer for readers to understand, the choice and positioning of appropriate visual images to accompany the text, and any caption quotes and the accurate citation of any accreditations for these. 

Some writers get very defensive when errors are pointed out to them. This is because they do not really understand the vital need for factual accuracy, in the service of providing public information. They feel they are losing face or being made to feel small, by the criticism of their work. They may feel that they are being reprimanded, or ‘commanded’, or even ‘scolded’ by the editor, and this is unfortunate because a professional editor will usually be seeking only to improve the writer’s work, by assisting to clear away anything which obscures or obstructs the writer’s contribution to the world, via the written and published word. I have said many writers dislike being reprimanded. When a writer is egotistical, the dislike intensifies, fuelled by self justification and personalized hostility. 

In this sense, editing is a continuing life lesson in human communication. Tact is needed, and so is determination and commitment. The editor may be seen by the writer as a ‘know-it-all’, as rude, provocative or even insulting; or - if they are a younger woman and the writer an older man - the editor may be perceived misogynistically as someone who is unreasonably focusing on ‘trivial’ matters, and this leads (depending on the levels of maturity and self restraint involved) to belittlement, disparagement and low standards of conduct on the part of the writer. 

It is a learning process, on both sides, and it is ultimately worth it, if the quality of the published work significantly improves as a result. 

I also think editing for publication has a moral dimension. What we write and disseminate in the public domain in this age of misinformation either adds to the sum of human knowledge, or detracts from and diminishes it. 

Assessment of a text and judgment of a person are very different things, and should not be conflated. A medical doctor for example does not think badly of a patient who presents with unsightly symptoms of an illness. She identifies, diagnoses, and suggests remedies. Similarly, an editor should be professional, objective, and distanced from the writer, and ‘call it as s/he sees it.’ 

If writers would set aside their egos, and master their own insecurities, it would enable a relationship of trust and respect to develop between editor and writer, which would assist the focus to be kept on the written text, which is where it belongs.