a part of the mtv/mbc network to pay tribute to the people of the country to rise up again by showing resilience against the covid-19 pandemic. impact elections on 19 march 2020, election commissioner mahinda deshapriya revealed that the 2020 sri lankan parliamentary election would be postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic. the sri lankan government initially insisted that the election would proceed as planned on 25 april despite the pandemic, and the authorities banned election rallies and meetings. on 3 april sri lanka's election commission wrote to rajapaksa to seek court opinion on a delay of the elections, stating that they would not be complete before 1 june per the president's gazette notification. p. b. jayasundera, secretary to the president, wrote that the commission failed to act in provision of section 24 of the parliamentary elections act of sri lanka, and asked them to hold the elections, which created a debate between the office of the president and the elections commission. on 19 april, rajapaksa announced that the elections commission had no authority to postpone general elections without providing an alternate date. the day after, the commission met in colombo and announced 20 june as the new date despite increasing covid-19 cases on the island. almost all opposition parties raised concerns over how to hold campaigns with the ongoing curfew. rajapaksa refused to recall the old parliament. on 10 june, deshapriya confirmed that the parliamentary elections would be held on 5 august 2020 with strict health measures and guidelines, joining countries such as poland, south korea, singapore, syria, and serbia that have held elections during the covid-19 pandemic. tourism the coronavirus outbreak affected the decline of the country's tourism sector, which was recovering slowly from the impact of the 2019 easter bombings. the tourism sector was directly affected by the decrease in chinese tourists. the sri lankan government also suspended flights to mainland china and pilgrimages to india. environment the air quality index showed a drastic improvement in air quality in highly dense areas such as colombo since curfews were enforced. education the government ordered schools to close for five weeks from 12 march to 20 april, which marked the end of the first term and also cancelled exams for the term. private tutoring, including the institute of bankers of sri lanka, was also closed from 26 march. on 11 april, the government announced that the new school year was delayed until 11 may 2020. the sri lankan government announced that it would reopen the schools from 29 june 2020 in four stages. schools would be open to teachers to make arrangements that followed health guidelines from 29 june onwards, while students could return on 7 july. the gce a/l examinations were postponed to 7 september and the scholarship exam 13 september. on 6 july, grades 5, 11, and 13 at government schools resumed academic activities. however, on 12 july, due to a covid-19 outbreak in kandakadu, the government closed schools again from 13 to 17 july. government examinations following the identification of a covid-19 case from gampaha, the ministry of education sri lanka announced on 5 october that all schools on the island would be closed indefinitely. the commissioner general of examinations announced that there is no change in the schedules of the grade 5 and gce advanced level examination to be held in october. the department made arrangements to conduct the examinations on the dates notified in advance. exam held on 10 october to 6 november. education minister g.l peiris said that the examinations would be held while obeying health guidelines. on 10 october, sri lanka railways published a special train timetable for providing transportation facilities to students sitting the advanced level and grade five scholarship examinations. entertainment the sri lankan government imposed a ban on public gatherings for two weeks amid covid-19 fears, and mandated that permission should be received from police. film theatres, national parks, zoological gardens and botanical gardens throughout the country were closed indefinitely. the sri lanka planetarium shut down on 17 march. economy the colombo stock exchange closed at a new eight-year low. stock market activity stopped for at least 30 minutes on 13 march. on 5 march 2020, the central bank of sri lanka (cbsl) released a monetary policy review, and the monetary authority decided to keep policy interest rates unchanged despite the covid-19 outbreak (sdfr fixed at 6.5% and the slfr fixed at 7.5%). on 16 march 2020, they revised the monetary policy review and cut policy rates by 25 basis points, and the statutory reserve ratio by 1 basis point due to the pandemic. the cbsl continued its expansionary monetary policy to enrich the economy. the cbsl governor, w. d. lakshman, asked financial institutions to not panic. on 18 march, the securities and exchange commission announced that the colombo stock exchange would be closed until 19 march. the colombo stock exchange reopened on 11 may. the cbsl asked the banking sector to allow banking activities for at least two hours on 23 march, and the banks encouraged the general public to utilise electronic transactions instead of physical cash. experts revealed that the country is likely to mark a record-low negative growth rate for the first time since 2001 due to the economic pressures caused by the pandemic. the commercial bank of ceylon stated that it would help customers who were severely affected by the pandemic. fishermen are one of the most severely affected groups, as the export prices of the fish mainly to the european union have drastically reduced; they have been unable to sell 400 tonnes of newly-caught fish due to restrictions imposed by authorities. in october 2021, the world bank estimated that 500,000 people had fallen below the poverty line since the pandemic started. inflation reached a record high of 11.1% in november 2021. as of 27 march 2020, the domestic sri lankan rupee depreciated against the us dollar to 191.99. as of 8 april, the domestic sri lankan rupee further depreciated against the us dollar to 200.47. several mega companies in sri lanka, ranked as top companies in the island, announced that they would reduce their employees' salaries to 5% from 35%, including john keells holdings, sri lankan airlines, and brandix lanka. on 21 april, the government ordered liquor stores to close down. despite quarantine measures relaxing on 11 may, liquor shops remained closed. sri lanka's gross domestic product rate was predicted to fall to -6.7% by the end of 2020. monthly export performance 2018-2020 in the second quarter of 2020, the sri lankan trade deficit decreased to us$3.8 billion from us$4.8 billion in 2019. industrial exports shrank 10.2% (mostly garment goods), and the sri lanka rupee depreciated to 0.3% at the end of august. sri lanka's official reserves fell to us$6.6 billion in september 2020, with most reserve assets based on foreign currency reserves. the drop was attributed to the middle east migrant workers' crisis. on 23 october, the colombo stock market closed 0.05% lower than the previous day. religious services on 15 march 2020, the roman catholic archdiocese of colombo, malcolm ranjith, held a televised church service to combat the pandemic. the archbishop announced that church service and holy masses in colombo and chilaw would not be conducted until 31 march 2020. the all ceylon jamiyyathul ulama (acju) also asked that the friday jummah prayers in mosques be suspended. isolated incidents of mosques ignoring the curfew to hold gatherings and prayers were reported. in one incident in horowpathana, 18 were arrested while several dozen fled the police. as a result, the acju suspended the board of trustees of the mosque in question, issued a statement praising the government, and requested action against those spreading hate speech due to the incidents. sunday mass services were cancelled for two weeks as of 14 april. sri lankan buddhist monks started pirith chanting, a type of prayer to combat covid-19 island-wide temples on a weekly basis. sports main article: impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on sports the england and wales cricket board (ecb) suggested english cricketers should not follow the tradition of handshaking during the two-match test series tour to sri lanka, which was scheduled to commence on 19 march 2020. the players were advised to bump fists as a precaution. the ecb also told english players to not take selfies or sign autographs with the crowd, and forbade them from interacting with fans. on 13 march, the cricket tour was called off, the first-class match in progress was immediately abandoned as a draw, and arrangements were made for the players to return to the uk. both cricket boards planned to reschedule the matches. in december 2020, the ecb confirmed the dates for the tour, with both test matches played in galle. domestic cricket matches were postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic. sri lanka cricket (slc) originally planned to conduct the matches until 16 march. on 20 april, the cricket boards of sri lanka and south africa confirmed that the south african cricket tour to sri lanka had been postponed due to the pandemic. the three-match test series between sri lanka and bangladesh, which was originally scheduled for july and august 2020, was postponed to october 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic. in september 2020, sri lanka cricket initially recommended a one-week quarantine period for touring bangladeshi players. however, slc extended the quarantine period to 14 days, with the bcb disagreeing to the length of time their players should be quarantined and the lack of preparation time ahead of the first test match. in response, slc suggested that the quarantine could be split into two phases: seven days in bangladesh, and the remaining seven days in sri lanka. on 28 september 2020, the tour was postponed indefinitely as both boards could not decide on quarantine requirements for the series. indian women were scheduled to tour sri lanka in late november to play in five women's one day international and three women's twenty20 international matches. the dates for the series have not been confirmed due to pending quarantine guidelines for the indian women's cricket team. the inaugural edition of the lanka premier league was initially scheduled to be held in august 2020, and was later postponed to 14 november. however, the start of the tournament was delayed by one week (21 november) due to the compulsory 14-day quarantine process for foreign players as part of the health guidelines and precautions recommended by the health officials. the auction styled player draft of the 2020 lanka premier league, which was scheduled to take place on 9 october, was rescheduled to 19 october 2020 by the sri lanka cricket due to a surge in cases. vaccination program a sri lankan woman is vaccinated in 2021 as part of the covax initiative main article: covid-19 vaccination in sri lanka a shipment of 500,000 doses of the oxford–astrazeneca covid-19 vaccine, donated to sri lanka by the indian government, arrived in the country on 28 january 2021. in february, rajapaksa instructed health authorities to vaccinate members of the general public in the western province with the vaccine. members of parliament were vaccinated starting 16 february. sri lanka received 600,000 donated doses of the sinopharm bibp vaccine from china in march, and later purchased 3 million doses in may. as of may 2021, sri lanka carried out its vaccination program with the oxford–astrazeneca, sinopharm bibp and sputnik v vaccines. the nation ordered 5 million doses of the pfizer–biontech vaccine, becoming the first south asian nation to approve and order it. george floyd protests on 9 june 2020, black lives matter protests were staged by activists, followers, and supporters of the frontline socialist party in response to the murder of george floyd in front of the us embassy in kollupitiya, colombo. the protests became violent when police arrested approximately 20 people for violating health and quarantine regulations. statistics confirmed new cases per day total confirmed cases, active cases, recoveries and deaths active cases (14.77%) recoveries (85.23%) deaths (0.74%) covid-19 situation report total confirmed cases 167,172 active cases 25,997 daily new cases 1,808 recovered 141,175 deaths 1,243 total number of pcr tests 3,017,567 (tbc) test per million 138,401 (tbc) number of covid-19 deaths by age as of 31 december 2020 by region covid-19 district wise summary (3 february 2022) region total per million provinces districts