On 23 May, the Ministry of Health issued guidelines stating that no walk-in or drive-through PCR or Rapid Antigen testing would be permitted, which shut down the drive-through PCR facilities that had been set up by several private hospitals. On 24 and 25 May, Sri Lanka reported only having done 17,159 and 17,263 PCR tests, respectively. In addition to the barring of drive-through testing, the Ministry introduced four other guidelines for the private health sector when conducting PCR tests. “During a pandemic, we cannot discriminate between private health care workers and public health care workers. Despite these issues, Dr. Peiris noted that it firmly stands by the Government’s stance on ensuring that private hospitals only conduct PCR tests within their capacity.

Source: The Nation May 26, 2021 18:56 UTC