By Sunil Jayasiri

The reason for the increase in the number of daily COVID patients yesterday was due to the clearance of the backlog of PCR laboratory reports accumulated for a few days, an official said last night.  

Speaking to Daily Mirror, the official said that there had been a delay in submitting laboratory reports for the last few days because of the large number of tests carried out in the country.  

He said that currently the country had the capacity to test around 15,000 samples per day, it had been increased to 20,000 a day on some occasions.   

A total number of 2,659 patients were tested positive yesterday. Sri Lanka has been reporting around 1500 Covid cases on a daily basis over the last few days.