The Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Friday, announced that 166 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Maldives while 89 recovered from the disease.
According to the agency, of the new cases, 91 were detected from the Greater Male' Region, 52 were identified in inhabited islands, 11 from operational resorts, 11 from liveaboards and one from an industrial island.
After a long period of recording low numbers towards the end of 2020, Maldives is now experiencing its third wave of the pandemic, with the introduction of the United Kingdom’s highly contagious virus variant.
Currently, the island nation records a total of 23,403 virus cases of which 2,712 are active cases, in addition to 20,618 recoveries and 66 deaths.
To tackle the rising case numbers, HPA introduced a curfew, which prohibits civilians from roads and public spaces between 2300 to 0430 hrs.
The restrictions are implemented across capital Male', its suburbs Vilimale' and Hulhumale', airport island Hulhule', industrial island Gulhifalhu and landfill island Thilafushi.
On March 12, 2020, WHO classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. To date, the new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 126 million people and claimed over 2.77 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 101.9 million people have recovered.