Hair salons to open in Sri Lanka as coronavirus lockdown set to lift

With the coronavirus lockdown set to end in Sri Lanka, hair salons can resume businesses from May 11 after adhering to a set of precautionary measures, officials said here on Friday.

Sri Lanka imposed a nation-wide curfew from March 20 to check the spread of the novel coronavirus.

As part of precautionary rules, barbers have been told to not directly touch the hair and use fresh cloth on every customer.

Further, the hair dressers are not allowed to directly face their customers and carry out the snips from the side or behind.

Barbers/dressers should always attend to the customer from behind and sides only and should never encounter face-to-face. Barber should never touch the lips of the customer, the ministry said.

The Lankan government closed all hair salons after a barber was found to have transmitted the virus to about 35 of his customers last month.

The novel coronavirus, which first surfaced in China's Wuhan city in November last, claimed least nine lives with 824 confirmed infections in the island nation. Over 240 people have recovered.