Covid Task Force urges public not to relax guard against the virus
COLOMBO –Authorities on Saturday (19) warned the public not to relax their guard against the novel coronavirus virus, saying the risk of infection remains even though there is no evidence of community transmission of the infection.
The five new cases of COVID diagnosed in the past 24-hours are all foreign returnees to Sri Lanka, but the authorities still cautioned against the holding of public events without adherence to guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.
The National Operational Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO) said in a statement that officials had discussed several up-coming public events on Friday (18), where Army Chief Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva had warned organizers to be alert to strict health guidelines although they have obtained permission to hold them.
Lt. Gen. Silva is the head of NOCPCO, and Friday’s meeting chaired by him, “assessed the status quo, re-visited the updates, possible new clusters and looked at the overall picture of the epidemic in the country,” the statement said.
He was quoted as saying “It is true that we don’t have any infected cases in society but we must remember that there are infected persons still in hospitals after they were confirmed positive by PCR tests while in quarantine.”
He had also added that there was a risk of the virus still being transmitted from those in hospital.
“So keep those health precautions intact and help eradicate the threat,” he had urged.
The session, which was attended by the Acting Director-General of Health Services Dr. S. Shridharan and other experts, and held at the Rajagiriya headquarters, had discussed two specific events that are likely to attract large crowds.
The first is the annual book-fair, which usually has tens of thousands of shoppers crowded together looking for bargains, and the other is the proposed tour of Sri Lanka by the Bangladeshi Cricket team.
The meeting decided to lay down precautions to be taken at the book-fair to avoid risks, the statement said.
It also said the Task Force had decided to have another meeting with Sri Lanka Cricket to finalize arrangements for the Bangladeshi tour and the Premier League Cricket tournament, and also discussed the status of the process of repatriating Sri Lankans overseas who wish to return, seeing to find ways to “decrease unwanted costs and benefits, being levied by brokers from passengers.”
Further, a tourism promotion strategy with the onset of the winter season in Russia was also discussed, the statement elaborated, adding that the experts had stressed the importance of subjecting tourists to repeated PCR tests on arrival, when they were in mandatory quarantine and when they were undergoing 14-day self-quarantine.
The meeting had also discussed strategies to evaluate vaccines that may become available in the future.
-economynext.com/ENCL