The government has decided to continue the tourism pilot project to fly down tourists to Sri Lanka under special health guidelines despite six ukrainian tourists who arrived this week testing positive for Covid 19. This was reported by the Sri Lankan English daily ‘The Morning’ newspaper today (31).
The Head of the National Operation Center for Prevention of Covid 19 outbreak (NOCPCO) Army Commander General Shavendra Silva had told the paper that the situation was one anticipated by the officials.
“We had our contingencies so it was a matter of activating our plans – Plan A, or Plan B. It does not mean that we should suspend this project. Of course, if we bring in 100 and find that 90 are positive then it is a different story, but at the moment, we have brought in about 300 and of that, only about 1% have tested positive,” he was quoted as saying.
The Commander went on to say that there are no such plans to halt the project. “We have no intention of stopping. What we want is to ensure that it will not spread to society. We are doing this as a pilot project to see how best we could manage tourism in the future. There are a lot of people suffering without tourism. If the project is not doing well, we will not continue, but as of now, we don’t anticipate a big issue.” he told The Morning.
The tourists who tested positive are currently being treated at facilities set up in hotel premises while their close associates are being isolated and tested, the Ministry of Tourism said.
