Army Commander says origin of latest COVID-19 cluster could be of foreign origin

Army commander Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva yesterday told the media in Colombo that they had made some discoveries about the origin of the latest COVID-19 wave but won’t reveal them until the investigations were complete.

“The origin of the latest wave of COVID-19 surely came from a foreign country. That is for sure. We are working on finding out what really happened and we will reveal once investigations are complete,” he said.

The Army Commander added that there had been no social transmission of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka since August and that the last case in Colombo had been found in late April.

“However, a large number of people who had COVID-19 arrived in Sri Lanka. Even on Saturday, six seafarers were found to have COVID-19. There were also a number of positive cases among Sri Lankans who had returned from abroad,” he said.

Meanwhile, the health authorities identified 22 new COVID-19 cases, all associates of the Minuwangoda cluster, by 4 pm yesterday.

With this, 2,036 cases had been detected from the Minuwangoda cluster.