by Rathindra Kuruwita

Some members of the public acted irresponsibly over the weekend and that such behaviour could soon lead to a spike in COVID-19, Deputy Director General of Health Services, Dr. Hemantha Herath told The Island yesterday.

“We saw how people were behaving over the weekend. They went on trips and are having parties. This is extremely irresponsible and shocking. There are close to 600 cases being reported in the country on a daily basis still. We saw similar irresponsible behaviour a few months back and we had to pay a price,” he said.

Dr. Herath urged the public to act responsibly in the coming holidays. Since the lockdown was lifted people had let their guard down and this might have serious consequences in the coming weeks, he said.

Meanwhile, head of the Public Health Inspectors Union (PHIU), Upul Rohana said that there was reason to believe that asymptomatic cases were on the rise. The successful vaccination drive had strengthened the immunity of healthy people and most of those people were not showing symptoms.

“This is how things start. They can transmit the disease to people who are elderly or not that healthy. Only then do things start going wrong. The government must do random testing around the country to identify the situation at the grassroots and take action before things go bad.  People have lowered their guard and there is a lot of irresponsible behaviour,” he said.

The police have turned back 899 vehicles and over 1,500 people who had attempted to cross provinces without authorization in the past few days.