President Gotabaya Rajapaksa urged officials to explore the possibility of re-opening the schools as soon as possible.
President Rajapaksa made this directive at the virtual meeting of the Special Committee on COVID-19 Control chaired by the President.
Accordingly, a technical committee of health and education sector officials was entrusted to make an expeditious recommendation on the reopening of schools first. The first to be opened will be smaller schools with less than 100 students. Over 3,000 schools with less than 100 students each are situated in rural areas.
The impact on nearly 700,000 children due to not receiving their primary education as a result of the school closures in the years 2020 and 2021, and the impact on a similar number of children who lost their early childhood education, was discussed in detail at the meeting. It was also pointed out that the impending vaccination of schoolchildren will help expedite the re-opening of schools.
At this meeting, the Government decided to extend the existing Quarantine Curfew until 4 a.m. on September 21.
The discussion focused on the progress of the vaccination drive and the future course of actions. Dr. Prasanna Gunasena, a member of the COVID Committee, said that the required 120,000 doses of the Sputnik vaccine to administer as the second dose will be received within the next week.
Health officials point out that a high percentage of covid-19 related deaths are reported among the people over 60 years of age, and most of them had not been vaccinated.
Therefore, the President emphasized the need to continue the implementation of the mobile vaccination programme in order to provide vaccines to those over 60 years of age who are unable to come to a vaccination centre and for those who are suffering from various diseases. The President said that those who are reluctant to get the vaccine should be encouraged to get the vaccine.
Vegetable farmers have been severely affected due to the inability to release their produce to the market on a daily basis. Due to this reason, it was decided to keep all the economic centres open.
