Medical experts have sounded the alarm over the government's decision to allow 200 tourists from Ukraine to arrive at the Mattala International Airport as a pilot project to restart tourism in Sri Lanka.

They claim that Ukraine has an abysmal trackrecord with regard to COVID19 management and the decision to open up the country for Ukrainian tourists could expose Sri Lanka to the new strain of coronavirus spreading in the United Kingdom.

"Tourist industry and the government are gambling with lives and our economy by letting in tourists with relaxed quarantine arrangements exactly at a time when other countries are tightening their restrictions," Dr. Ravi Rannan Eliya, a prominent medical researcher, said.

COVID-19 incidence is 10-20 times higher in Ukraine than in Sri Lanka. Ukraine's testing rates are abysmal (TCR=3), it doesn't quarantine international arrivals, and it does very little genomic sequencing of new cases. So, the spread of the new variant of the virus to Ukraine very likely," he further added.

Medical experts analyzing the latest statistics claim that nearly 10% of the population of Ukraine could be infected with the virus. The country has reported over 18,000 deaths related to COVID19 thus far.

"PCR tests are not 100% sensitive. Even repeat tests will let infected cases through," Dr. Rannan Eliya tweeted.

However, the government has remained stoically silent about the risk factor involved in their decision to allow tourists from Ukraine to visit Sri Lanka.