A patient in Jaffna has tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, after he reportedly spent time with a pastor who delivered a service at a church in the district. 

Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that the island wide curfew he put in place this weekend, would be extended across the Northern Province, as security forces arrested hundreds of people for breaking strict curfew conditions.

Australia’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, met with the war crimes accused head of the Sri Lankan army to discuss coronavirus prevention strategies this week, as a military enforced curfew is in place across much of the island.

Authorities in Jaffna have urged worshippers who attended a service at the Philadelphia Missionary Church to immediately self-quarantine, after it was reported that the senior pastor has tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus infection.

Governor of the Northern Province P S M Charles told EconomyNext that around 150 people are thought to have attended the service, at the church in Ariyali, Jaffna.

At least one person has been killed and several others injured after Sri Lankan guards opened fire at inmates during a protest at the Anuradhapura prison earlier today.

By calling on a military accused of egregious rights abuses to lead a public health operation, the Sri Lankan government risks “exacerbating existing ethnic divides, endangering human rights and civil liberties even further, and furthering the violent militarization of the island,” wrote Tamil Guardian's editor-in-chief Thusiyan Nandakumar in the Polis Project this week.

Troops from Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force (STF) launched “inspections” of homes of recent foreign arrivals in Sri Lanka this week, as the head to the army warned that some 800 people had avoided quarantine procedures.

The head of Sri Lanka’s army has called on all foreigners on the island to “curtail their movements” as he confirmed that over 2,000 people had been detained in quarantine centres across the island.

The Sri Lankan air force announced that it had set up more of the state’s controversial coronavirus “quarantine centres” in Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu this morning.

The Sri Lankan government confirmed that at least 70 patients have tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, as it announced a curfew would be in place over the weekend.

A reported 18 of the confirmed cases are from Gampaha, 17 are from Colombo and 12 are from Puttalam. Three cases have been reported in Batticaloa and 1 in Vavuniya, with other districts in the North-East unaffected, as of yet.