Guidelines issued on weddings were revised yesterday, reducing the number of guests to 50, with Government officials saying curfew is a last resort.

At the press briefing held yesterday to announce Cabinet decisions, Co-Cabinet Spokesperson Dr. Ramesh Pathirana said: “The Government is committed to implementing recommendations from health officials on travel restrictions and other factors. This will be decided after they make their recommendations.”

Meanwhile, Cabinet Spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella said: “Curfew will be implemented when absolutely necessary. We cannot rule it out given global trends.”

He added that the Government considered it their last option.

Despite this, healthcare workers have continually urged the Government to enforce strict travel restrictions in order to control the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

At a press briefing held yesterday, the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) stressed that the effects of any measures implemented now will only be apparent in two weeks.

“What we see over the next two weeks is the outcome of the way that we behaved over the last two weeks,” SLMA President Dr. Padma Gunaratne said, adding that the country was at a critical point.

According to Dr. Gunaratne, the SLMA committee on COVID-19 will be meeting to decide on what they will be recommending to the Government. “Up to now we have told them that the only way to control this illness is by imposing mobility restrictions or travel restrictions,” she said.

Sharing her personal opinion about tourist arrivals, the SLMA President said: “We already have almost every type of the infection, so there may not be much that we achieve by restricting people coming in. I just do not know whether people are willing to come in when we have this many infections.”

She added that integrated home-based management of asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic COVID-19 patients would add some relief to hospitals, but said: “The number that needs oxygen in hospitals is unacceptably high.”

With regard to vaccination, the SLMA President stressed that the contribution of the vaccination drive is very much long term, but that there was no reason to criticise the country’s COVID-19 vaccination program. “Because they vaccinated people fairly fast one month ago, now we have a community that has received one vaccination,” Dr. Gunaratne said.

Echoing SLMA views on there being no immediate effect of measures implemented to control COVID-19, Public Health Inspectors’ Union (PHIU) President Upul Rohana said: “If we can implement curfew or lockdown countrywide, we can halve the number of patients in after 14 days.”

He added that as many measures should be implemented to prevent large gatherings and movement.

“If we do not restrict movement to some extent and the public does not act responsibly in the coming days, the number of fatalities will exceed 100 or 150 on a daily basis and a large number of patients will be detected,” Upul Rohana added.

2,922 persons test positive for COVID-19

Daily COVID-19 vaccination rate nears 500,000