However, she said that a notable factor was that the majority of those testing positive are persons from quarantine centres. The Minister said that even in developed countries such as the US the main focus economy and not the health of the people.

However, the Sri Lankan Government took a firm decision to focus on the health and wellbeing of the people first and thereafter focus on rebuilding the economy. Had the government not taken this decision, there would have been many citizens who would have died on the streets due to the Covid-19, she said.

“It was due to this commitment of the President and the Prime Minister to focus first on the wellbeing of the people that we were able to stop the Coronavirus from spreading in society and contain it to the quarantine centres. Therefore, its around a month since curfew was imposed and the people were safeguarded, at a huge economic cost. But, we cannot keep the country under lockdown forever.

I feel that it is now time to gradually lift the curfew and get back to normalcy. Hence, I believe that we would be able to release the country from its state of curfew and recommence our economic activities and get back on our feet now that we have successfully contained the spread of the Coronavirus,” Minister Wanniarachchi said during the daily media briefing of the National Operation Centre for the prevention of the Covid-19