30 October 2020 12:02 pm
The United National Party (UNP) today expressed its grave concern that the Government delayed its response
in combatting the fresh outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.
Despite repeated warnings of a pending second wave from the World Health Organisation, the Government chose to propagate the idea that they had defeated the virus, without taking adequate steps to protect the citizens of the country from a resurgence,
The government failed to enact relevant legislation which would have benefited the anti-COVID efforts. The
lack of proper laws has resulted in the breakdown of the prevention methods as was seen last evening (29)
when the citizens of Colombo left the city in large numbers ahead of the pending lockdown.
The inability of the government to curb the movement of citizens from the Western Province has now
endangered the citizens of the other Provinces in the country, UNP media unit said today.
In April this year, the Leader of the UNP, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and TNA MP, M.A. Sumanthiran, drafted
a Public Health Emergency Bill which was presented to the government. It has failed to act on this
legislation, which has rendered them ineffective; the statement said.
The recent breakdown of a coronavirus mass testing machine will severely impact the government’s
efforts to control the spread of the virus. Currently, it takes over 5 days for the government PCR tests to
return the results, this delay has an impact on both the health and safety of the public as well as the
economic activities of the country. The unavailability of a testing machine will only serve to further delay the
results of the PCR tests being conducted in the country.
It was the responsibility of this government to have ensured adequate testing facilities were installed
around the country to prevent delays. There is also a concern regarding a pending shortage of hospital
beds and ventilators. The government must make all efforts to increase the capacity at the hospitals to
accommodate patients from this second wave “the statement added.
The UNP urged the government to give full priority to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, and uphold its duty
of ensuring the health and safety of the citizens of the country.