COVID-19 cases: 318,775, Recoveries: 284,524, Deaths: 4,727

As per the statistics of the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health, a total of 318,775 COVID-19 cases have been reported by Wednesday and 29,586 infected patients are being treated at hospitals, while 284,524 patients have fully recovered and been discharged from hospitals.

A total of 10,616,683 people have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 2,646,082 have received the second dose. Meanwhile, the Deputy Director-General of Health Services Dr. Hemantha Herath said that all hospitals have been prepared to tackle any crisis situation such as a sudden increase of patients.

The Karapitiya Teaching Hospital and Ratnapura General Hospital on Wednesday declared a state of emergency due to a sudden increase in the number of COVID-19 patients.

Commenting on this, Dr. Herath said that it was normal for a hospital to declare a state of emergency due to a crisis situation and hospital staff has been very well trained to face such a situation.

He urged the public to strictly follow the COVID-19 health guidelines in order to ensure that the spread of Covid does not reach a crisis situation.

“If the capacity of the country’s health system is exceeded, we cannot do anything since the capacity cannot be increased within a day or two. We cannot make any predictions on when the capacity of a country’s health system reaches its maximum. Therefore, the only thing we can do is to take all necessary precautions to prevent the spread of the virus,” he said.