There may be more than 30,000 people infected with COVID19 in the city of Colombo, said Ruwan Wijemuni, Colombo's Chief Medical Officer of Health.

Dr. Wijemuni told a daily Sinhala newspaper that 5% of the 300 people in the city had been randomly selected for a PCR test and that 5% of the 600,000 people in Colombo were suspected to be infected.

He said that 80% of the infected do not show any symptoms but they are carriers of the disease and only 5% of the infected show symptoms.

Wijemuni pointed out that only 0.4% of the people who show these symptoms die due to the seriousness of the disease. Dr. Wijemuni said that the current statistics of patients is like the tip of an iceberg in the ocean and it should not be forgotten that the real situation could be far more serious.