In a bid to boost its capacity to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, the Sri Lankan government aims to increase its daily PCR testing limit to 20,000, reported Daily Mirror. Currently, 15,000 PCR tests are being conducted on daily basis. 

Increasing the testing capacity isn’t an easy task, said Dr. Hemantha Herath, the Deputy Director-General of Health Services. He said it is challenging to make it 20,000 daily but we are still trying. 

“The number of PCR (test) decreased only in December. However, we maintained above 10,000 even during the festive season,” Dr. Herath was quoted as saying by Daily Mirror. Though the country is seeing a downward trend in daily infections, he said, health authorities won’t reduce the number of testing. 

Speaking on the cremation controversy, Dr. Herath said they would take action based on the recommendations of the review committee.

Despite the decrease in daily reported cases, the deputy said they can’t be sure if there are actually reductions in infections. “We try our best to conduct random PCR tests as much as possible, apart from conducting PCR tests on close contacts of the infected persons,” he said.