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A study from Bahrain suggesting the Sinopharm vaccine may be less effective than three other Covid-19 vaccines was shared to a Sri Lankan audience on social media yesterday (26) by renowned immunologist Sri Jayewardenepura University Head of Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine Prof. Neelika Malavige.

Prof. Malavige had shared the study on her official Twitter handle and subsequently stated: “Sinopharm appears to be less effective than Pfizer in older individuals, based on data from the study from Bahrain.”

When contacted by The Morning for elaboration, Prof. Malavige said that it was important to note that the study was conducted in Bahrain, not in Sri Lanka, while noting that inoculation with any of the vaccines is still an effective method of preventing deaths.

“When so many people are dying, it is very wrong for people to misquote or misinterpret information to discourage people from taking vaccines. All vaccines are effective in preventing deaths. That’s why you should take your vaccine today if you haven’t done so already,” she said.

The four vaccines considered in the study were the Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, Covishield/Oxford-AstraZeneca, and Sputnik V vaccines. The study, which awaits peer review, is titled “Morbidity and mortality from Covid-19 post-vaccination breakthrough infections in association with vaccines and the emergence of variants in Bahrain”. It compared unvaccinated persons with the vaccinated, and found that the percentage of deaths reported were comparatively higher among those that had received the Sinopharm vaccine, versus those that had received the other four vaccines.

The study had shown considerably higher rates of survival in those over the age of 50 among those that had taken the Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sputnik V vaccines, compared to those that had taken the Sinopharm vaccine, as no deaths had been recorded among those inoculated with the former three vaccine types. Sinopharm had fared better among those below the age of 50, although here too, the other three vaccines proved more effective, according to the study.

The report on the study stated: “Despite the overall effectiveness of all four vaccines in decreasing risk of Covid-19-related hospitalisations, intensive care unit admissions, and deaths when compared to unvaccinated individuals, our initial analysis showed that there was a higher risk of Covid-19 infection and clinical escalation among recipients of the Sinopharm vaccine compared to other vaccine recipients.”

“After censoring early vaccine recipients of Sinopharm vaccine, compared to Pfizer/BioNTech recipients, individuals vaccinated with Sinopharm had a higher risk of post-vaccination infections, hospitalisations, ICU admissions, and deaths, especially in those over 50 years old.”

The authors of the study had however concluded that all four vaccines were effective in reducing infections, hospitalisations, ICU admissions, and deaths in vaccinated individuals, compared to the unvaccinated, prior to and during the period when the Delta variant became dominant in Bahrain.

They had noted: “Our overall findings support the value of vaccination in preventing Covid-19-related events even with the advent of the Delta variant. These data support the urgent need to expand vaccination access around the world, and may serve to guide the choice of vaccines in the context of the Delta variant.”

The International Federation of journalists (IFJ) and its Sri Lankan affiliates, the Free Media Movement (FMM), the Federation of Media Employees Trade Union (FMETU) and the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA) urge the authorities to immediately release Keerthi Ratnayake, a journalist affiliated with Lanka e News.

Ratnayake was arrested on August 14 by Sri Lanka’s government and accused of providing intelligence information to the Indian embassy in Sri Lanka. He was charged under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

Police from the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) handcuffed Keerthi Ratnayake on August 14. Following his arrest, Ratnayake was asked to lead police to his home. The CCD team then raided his home, seized his personal laptop, mobile phone and other devices. He was not allowed to talk with family members or consult with lawyers.

Ratnayake was then taken to the CCD headquarters in Dematagoda, where he was kept until August 19 and handed over to the Colombo Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for investigation, extending his detention order to 90 days. Further, the CID police is reported to have raided the house of a friend of Ratnayake and their some of their computers.

Keerthi Ratnayake, who had predicted the assassination of drug kingpin Makandure Madush just few days before he was killed, informed authorities that the Indian Embassy in Colombo was at risk of attack from Taliban extremists working with the Chinese government in Sri Lanka.

Similarly, in similar incident of attack on journalists, Tamil journalist, Punniyamoorthy Sasikaran, was interrogated on August 23 by the Batticaloa police. Police also summoned the journalist, Punniyamoorthy Sasikaran, on terrorism charges July 4, 2021 and raided the house of social media activist Thushara Wanniarachchi.

The Media Organizations Collective, which includes the IFJ’s three affiliate unions in Sri Lanka, the Free Media Movement (FMM), the Federation of Media Employees Trade Union (FMETU) and the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA) strongly condemn the incident and urged the government to guarantee law and order during detention while ensuring the safety of journalists in custody.

In a letter written to the Inspector General of Police, Chandana D. Wickramaratne, the Media Organizations Collective said, “We urge that the investigations be done under the proper regulations, as his editors have informed us that the Police are currently questioning him about unrelated details – those about the news website. We would like to remind that journalists have a responsibility to not reveal their sources, and only reveal what is necessary for legal proceedings.”

“The IFJ notes that the Sri Lankan government is employing different means to harass journalists, invoking dubious terrorism charges under the problematic PTA. We urge the Sri Lankan government to stop using the PTA as a means to silence the voice of journalists and ensure that those taken into custody are released safely. Keerthi Ratnayake must be released immediately,” the IFJ said.

Sri Lanka’s central bank has ordered a 5.0 percent ceiling on foreign currency deposits in a bid to reduce a gap between rupee yields and dollar yields, an order under the country’s banking law shows.

Sri Lanka last week raised the policy rate at which overnight money is printed to 6.0 percent from 5.50 percent and also a 12-month de facto rate through which large volumes of money is printed to keep gilt yields down by 55 basis points to 5.93 percent, which is still below the overnight rate.

Dollar yields had moved up to around 7 percent.

“The maximum interest rates that may be offered or paid by a licensed commercial bank and the National Savings Bank on all foreign currency deposits shall not exceed an Annual effective Rate of up to 5 percent,” the order said.

In the case of special deposit accounts, introduced recently, a higher rate could be paid.

Low rupee rates and expectations of a devaluation had led exporters and others to hold on to dollars an and borrow rupees.

Borrowing rupees to hold dollars should in normal circumstances led to a reduction in credit for other activities and therefore imports, squeezing the current account, but with the central bank printing new money, the correction does not happen.

Sri Lanka is also planning to borrow dollars abroad through various credit lines, pushing up long term indebtedness and widening the short term current account deficit further.

Domestic dollar yields began to rise rupee yields from late 2020 as money printing (stimulus) and an inconsistent flexible exchange rate (now you give convertibility to the note issue, now you don’t) and a widening budget deficit triggered three rate cuts in less than a year.

The downgrade pushed up bonds on sovereign bond yields and also led to a trimming of limits on cross-border lending by counterparty banks, creating a severe dollar liquidity crunch in domestic credit markets.

State run banks were also funding a massive dollar position in state-run Bank of Ceylon, built up in years when money printing (call money rate targeting, output gap targeting and MMT), created forex shortages.

Banks also had to repay loans taken to buy domestic law dollar bonds (Sri Lanka Development Bonds) where yield also went up.

Sri Lanka’s monetary policy had deteriorated sharply over the last five years, with unusually discretionary policy involving a ‘flexible’ exchange rate (discretionary external anchor) and ‘flexible’ inflation targeting (discretionary domestic anchor) worsening years of monetary anchor conflicts.

The central bank instead of shifting to a consistent policy framework started to control bond auctions through so-called ‘Stage III’ method, and also imposed lending rate controls and deposits rates controlled.

Razeen Sally, a classical economist had warned Sri Lanka against a steady shift away from markets and back to a controlled or centrally planned economy.

“Underlying all this is a misguided world view,” Sally said delivering a lecture marking 69 years of Sri Lanka’s central bank in 2019, after two currency crises in rapid succession triggered import controls.

“It is a world view Lord (John Maynard) Keynes and his Bloomsbury circle had shared. And (Friedrich) Hayek accused Keynes and his ilk of suffering from a fatal conceit, for that very reason,”

“Why is the world view misguided?

“It is as if you could get a committee of really good super qualified, intelligent people, together. Who are platonic guardians as it were, who only have the public interest in mind. They are the best committee to sort out the complex problems of the world because they know best.

“They also assume they have the requisite knowledge to intervene here, there and everywhere as superior to the market, in particular situations.”

“Let me choose a generic example. And this happens around the world, sometimes also here in Sri Lanka.

“The generic example is, say, the monetary board of a central bank that actually tells market actors beginning with commercial banks what interest rates they should charge, to whom they should lend and under what conditions.

“And when these market actors don’t behave accordingly, they are ticked off like naughty school children and sometimes threatened with punitive action.”

“In a market economy that is not appropriate and I think it is a fundamental mis-understanding of what a market economy is about.

“Not least because it assumes that a certain committee of good men, have better interests and knowledge,” he said.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed an Advisory Board to make recommendations and advise the President on the investigation, release, granting of bail and future action related to the persons imprisoned over terrorist activities and detained under detention orders.

The Director-General of Legal Affairs of the Presidential Secretariat Attorney-at-Law Harigupta Rohanadeera said the Advisory Board was appointed as per the Section 13 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, No.48 of 1979.

The Chairman of the Advisory Board is retired Chief Justice Asoka de Silva and retired high Court Judge A.A.R. Heiyanthuduwa and retired Solicitor General Suhada Gamalath have been appointed as the other members.

The Advisory Board is expected to make recommendations and advise the President on the investigation, release, granting of bail and future action related to the persons imprisoned over terrorist activities and detained under detention orders.

“Hitherto, the persons who have been imprisoned had no opportunity to make representations on their rights since an Advisory Board has not been established for a long time,” the Presidential Media Division (PMD) said.

Mr. Harigupta Rohanadeera further said that the prisoners will be given the opportunity to submit their issues with the appointment of the Advisory Board.

Sri Lanka Wednesday reported that 198 deaths due to COVID-19 confirmed for Tuesday, August 24, 2021.

The Director General of Health Services has confirmed 198 deaths due to the COVID-19 for Tuesday, August 24.

Among the Tuesday’s deaths, 119 are of males and 79 of females. The majority of the deaths numbering 146 are of elderly people in the 60 years and above age group. A male below 30 years of age also succumbed to the disease.

According to the data reported by the Government Information Department, the total deaths due to Covid-19 since the pandemic began has now risen to 7,948 including Tuesday’s deaths.

Sri Lankan media organizations have called on police authorities to guarantee that all investigations against journalists are conducted within legal provisions at all times.

They expressed particular concern for the safety of Keerthi Ratnayake, a defense and political analyst at Lanka e-News, who has been arrested and detained for 90 days.

The journalist consistently reported on the presence of Chinese troops in the island nation and had warned that the Indian embassy in Colombo was at risk of attack from Taliban extremists working in league with the Chinese government.

Seetha Ranjanee, convener of the Free Media Movement (FMM), said they met the inspector general of police on Aug. 24 and demanded that the arrested journalist be investigated under the prescribed legal provisions and his life protected against all harm.

Ranjanee said the Lanka e-News editorial board was concerned that the life of their journalist could be in danger.

“We request that accurate information pertaining to Ratnayake’s arrest be publicized. We also call on you to ensure that specific reasons for the arrest of journalists be made public at all times,” FMM said in a letter to police authorities.

What the government should do is arrest the masterminds behind the Easter bombings, not harass those who stand for justice like Gamage

The letter was also signed by the Federation of Media Employees Trade Union, Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association, Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, Tamil Media Alliance and Sri Lanka Young Journalists’ Association.

The media organizations pointed out that intimidation and threats to journalists hamper their freedom and restrict their professional work.

Thushara Wanniarachchi, a social media activist, said police officers had searched her house recently while unidentified people claiming to be from the criminal investigation department had tried to enter the residence of R. Sivarajah, the editor of Thamilan newspaper.

Punyamoorthy Sasikaran, a Tamil journalist in the Eastern Province, has been harassed for over two months. He was summoned to a special criminal investigation unit in Batticaloa on Aug. 23. The police had also recorded the personal details of his family members and warned them to be careful, he said.

Source:UCA News