Colombo, Oct 15 (PTI) Sri Lanka on Friday announced to strictly enforce the inter-provincial travel ban which is in place since the nationwide lockdown was implemented in August.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has instructed authorities to check traffic at provincial borders in view of the public holidays that fall on October 19 and 20, and the resultant long weekend, the President's office said in a statement.

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Sri Lanka lifted its nationwide lockdown two weeks ago as the authorities claimed that the number of deaths and infections subsided after the country suffered a surge in its deadly third wave of the coronavirus.

The number of deaths which was under 1,000 by the end of April has now crossed over 13,400.

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After weeks of resistance, the government gave into the pleas of the health authorities by imposing a lockdown on August 20.

In late August, the death toll hit 3,000 per day on certain days which the health authorities said was down to just 21 on Thursday.

Director General of Health Services Dr Asela Gunawardane said that the number of COVID-19 patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has come down by 50 per cent.

Commenting on the lifting of the lockdown two weeks ago, he said: “it has to be said that people's behaviour in the last couple of days was not satisfactory”.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)