(UTV | COLOMBO) – President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday (01) arrived at a number of decisions which will help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country without making any impact on the public lives and the economy.
It has been observed that the government’s initiative to put close contacts of COVID-19 patients into house quarantine, is bringing results, he said.
The President was of the view that this process should be further strengthened and those in house quarantine should be regularly monitored by the Medical Officers of Health, Public Health Inspectors, Police and the Army.
These families under quarantine should be tested for Covid 19 on the tenth day and those who had not contracted the virus should be integrated into society after 14 days, the President said.
The President was speaking at a meeting with the members of Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday.
The President was opined the government succeeded in protecting the people from the deadly virus earlier even though it lacked experience to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
He also stressed the importance of conducting random tests regularly and every effort should be taken to issue the tests results within a very short period of time.
The persons whose samples were taken for PCR test either by the government hospitals or private hospitals should necessarily be quarantined until the test results are out.
“The PCR tests conducted by the private hospitals need to be brought under close supervision of the Health Ministry,”he said.
He said after detecting several positive cases, the relevant area is isolated as a measure to curb the spread of COVID-19. Imposition of curfew is aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19”, he said.
The President issued orders to the Police to ensure that curfew is implemented strictly in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. The President added that the current situation should be brought under control by making use of strategies and methodologies adopted by the government in the previous occasion.
