Former Prime Minister and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday cautioned that if the spread of the Covid virus was not controlled immediately, the country would be plunged into a catastrophe. He appealed to all parties to come together to save lives.

The former Prime Minister requested President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to summon all party leaders in Parliament to inform them of the government’s plan to contain the pandemic.

Issuing a video statement to the media, Wickremesinghe called on the President to summon all party leaders in Parliament and the Prime Minister, Speaker and Health Ministers to discuss a way out of the disaster, in the wake of the World Health Organization’s Sri Lanka office’s warning of a possible 30,000 corona deaths in Sri Lanka by January.

The former Prime Minister said that the death toll could be reduced to 12,000 if proper restrictions were imposed, adding that the government should take immediate action to save 18,000 lives.

Wickremesinghe said that those figures were revealed at the fifth meeting of the team of independent experts of the Sri Lanka Office of the World Health Organization last week.

The former Prime Minister recalled that his party submitted a 21-point proposal to control the spread of the COVID-19 in the country and minimize the deaths and he has asked to set aside a date to discuss the series of proposals in parliament.

He said that although it is not an appropriate time to hold parliamentary sessions as several MPs have also been infected with Covid-19, a serious situation has arisen in the country.

Therefore, he especially requested the President to call all party leaders of the parliament including the Prime Minister, the Speaker, and health ministers to apprise the stakeholders of the government’s measures to control the covid-19 and discuss the proposals forwarded to him by others.

Wickremesinghe said that other party leaders will also submit their views and proposals regarding his proposal.