Ranil calls on authorities to close the country if required

Former Prime Minister and leader of the United National Party (UNP) Ranil Wickremesinghe has called on the authorities to close the country, if it will help save lives.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading rapidly in Sri Lanka, India and Nepal and in addition to the COVID outbreak in India, another fungal disease called ‘Black Fungus’ is also spreading.

“We must protect the people of the country from all these diseases,” he said.

Wickremesinghe said the Colombo office of the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement following discussions with a number of Sri Lankan medical experts recently.

According to this announcement, they have predicted that the COVID-19 virus will spread rapidly in the country in the next few weeks.

“We must remember one more thing. That is, there is a shortage of vaccines in our country. It may be the end of this year or even next year for all the people of Sri Lanka to be vaccinated. Until then the people of the country must be protected,” the former Prime Minister said.

Therefore, he said it is the duty of the Government to take further steps in accordance with medical advice.

“If the doctors advise to close the country, we must do this. After that we can take weekly reports and check the progress of the spread of the virus. I don’t know if there are other options besides that. The continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is a fatal blow to the already weakened economy. Therefore, it is necessary to stop the spread of the diseases and save lives. If that is done, we can minimize the economic damage,” Wickremesinghe said.

Wickremesinghe urged the Government to save the lives of the people of the country adding that while the damage to the economy can be repaired the damage to life cannot be repaired.

He asserted that the duty of the Government is to protect the lives of the people. (Colombo Gazette)