Sri Lanka online public meeting: Build workers’ action committees to win health workers’ rights! As COVID-19 rapidly spreads throughout Sri Lanka, health workers are in an increasingly vulnerable situation. Hundreds of health workers are now in quarantine because of the deadly and highly infectious disease. On January 8, Ratnapura General Hospital reported that Shantha Stephen had died from COVID-19. He was the first Sri Lankan health worker to die from the virus. More than one hundred employees—doctors, nurses and attendants—from Peradeniya Teaching Hospital have been sent into quarantine. Balapitiya hospital health workers picketing in June 2020 (WSWS Media) In line with the government’s policies, health authorities have compelled health staff to keep working and have refused to shut down the affected wards. This dangerously indifferent response is subjecting health workers to severe mental and physical stress and the immediate threat that they become victims of the pandemic.