Sri Lanka welcomed its first foreign tourists in nine months Monday even as a new deadlier strain of the coronavirus gripped the island.A charter flight carrying 185 passengers from Ukraine landed at a little-used airport south of the capital, which has been stricken by a surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths.Also Read | Urgency to fix India’s bankruptcy codeIn less than three months, the official number of coronavirus fatalities has risen from 13 to 191, while the number of infections has gone from 3,300 to more than 41,000.Still, authorities hope the Ukrainian arrivals will be the first of thousands of foreigners to visit -- easing pressure on the tourism-reliant economy that was shut down in March.The visitors, who had to produce.