–– Sri Lanka has ordered all schools be closed from Monday (5) following confirmation that the newest COVID-19 diagnosis was from the community, in the Gampaha district.
Authorities already closed Schools and tuition classes in the Gampaha district effective Sunday (4), as the COVID-19 Prevention Task Force began “actively” tracing the contacts of the woman garment worker who tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Saturday (3) night. The spokesman for the National Operations Centre for the Prevention of COVID-19 (NOCPOC), Colonel Army Media Vijitha Hettiarachchi, said the decision to close schools was approved by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
A quarantine curfew is now imposed on the Minuwangoda and Divulapitiya Police areas in the Gampaha district and authorities have warned people who have travelled through Minuwangoda and Divulapitiya, to be extra cautious, as it is not certain whether the patient was infected by a local person.
The patient had been admitted to hospital with fever on September 30 and was tested for COVID-19 before she was to be discharged Saturday night, Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva said
In a media statement issued on Sunday, Silva said the family members of the patient had been taken to a military-run quarantine centre and other associates were in the process of being taken to quarantine.
The patient, a garment factory worker, had travelled to the factory in Minuwangoda town from her home in Divulapitiya in a company-run bus. Her fellow passengers have also quarantined.
The 39-year-old mother of three works as a unit supervisor at the Brandix factory in Minuwangoda, and “all 40 workers in her production line have been quarantined,” the spokesman said.
Hettiarachchi also said contact tracing is going ahead apace, as her husband is a three-wheeler driver and one of the children attends a local school.
In a statement released earlier in the day Brandix said the rigorous protocol implemented across the company “and the immediate response and support received from the PHI and relevant health authorities of Sri Lanka enabled the early detection of the patient, ensuring her timely transfer to IDH for immediate treatment and mitigation of any further spread of the virus.”
“We continue to assist the relevant authorities, seeking their counsel and extending our utmost co-operation throughout the process. All necessary measures to ensure complete containment of the virus have been implemented with immediate effect, including the rigorous disinfection of the affected worksite”, it added
-economynext.com