The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) yesterday said that the risk of the COVID-19 virus spreading in the Colombo District has risen again with the detection of the new COVID-19 variant.
Speaking to the media, GMOA Editor Dr. Haritha Aluthge said that the number of Coronavirus patients reported from the Colombo district had been reduced to 40 percent during past two weeks and with the detection of the highly contagious new variant of the Coronavirus found in the UK, the number of daily positive cases in the Colombo district has again risen to 60 percent.
He further said that the number of new cases reported outside the Colombo Municipal Council area has increased. The country is now recording over 800 COVID-19 cases on a daily basis with 238 of new cases reported on Sunday from Colombo with 108 of them from the Colombo suburbs. The risk of the virus spread in Maharagama has increased and 18 new cases were reported on Sunday.
“The positive test percentage of the country which was reduced to 6-7 percent has again reduced to five percent. This is a good trend. The country is now conducts over 15,000 PCR tests daily,” Dr. Aluthge added.
The total number of COVID-19 positive cases reported so far in February is around 11,463 and there is a slight increase of new cases when compared to January this year. He further said that the World Health Organization has announced that the confirmed number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has seen a 17 percent increase. But, there is no change in the number of deaths. It will take around two weeks to see a change in the number of deaths recorded.
Dr. Aluthge predicted that it will take a few more months to see a reduction in the number of new cases in Sri Lanka since there is a four month gap between the country’s pandemic situation and global pandemic situation.
“Therefore, we have to wait till the beginning of April to see a positive change in the country’s pandemic situation,” he said.