President Gotabaya Rajapaksa a short while ago said  there was currently no need for a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. He said the most important thing was to close entry to foreigners in order to avoid the spread of the virus. The President made these comments during a meeting with officials of the National Operations Center for Covid-19. "The coronavirus has not spread greatly within the country. We should be able to contain it." "We have been sending passengers from Italy and South Korea to quarantine centres as preventive steps. We have also decided to quarantine those from Europe and those that arrived from Italy and South Korea beforehand. These individuals have been requested to self quarantine,"Rajapaksa added.