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COVID-19 alert level decreased from Red to Orange!

Lamya Abdulla
13 July 2021, MVT 15:43
Health care worker stopping people to take random samples: COVID positivity rate has been below 2.7 percent in July so far -- Photo: Ahmed Awshan Ilyas/ Mihaaru
Lamya Abdulla
13 July 2021, MVT 15:43

The COVID-19 restrictions alert level has been decreased from red to orange.

Maldives saw a recent surge in COVID-19 cases at the end of April following the Local Council Election. There were days in May where the daily COVID cases were above 2,000. However, following severe restrictions in May, the number of confirmed COVID cases have once again decreased. Health Protection Agency (HPA) said they made the decision to lower the alert level from red to orange because the daily positive cases have been below 100 cases for a number of days.

The daily case update posts HPA posts every evening at 10 pm had been using red posts for a while. To signify the lowered restriction level, the posts have started to use orange since Sunday evening.

the daily COVID-19 statistics by HPA

As per the HPA guidelines, if the COVID is being spread due to travel to a place that has COVID, COVID level would be at the Orange level. Level red is announced was the situation is at it's worst, especially if people contracting the disease are not aware how they contracted it in the first place.

The positivity rate in Maldives for COVID-19 cases had been at 2.7 percent for the whole last week. Except for one day in the month of July, the positivity rate had been below two percent.

So far out of the 64,400 samples have been tested for COVID-19 in July, only 1,364 samples had given a positive result. This is a positivity rate of 2.12 percent.

The dip in COVID positive cases have also resulted in the government loosening several of the restrictions that they announced in May to control the rapid spread. This includes inter-island travel without requiring to quarantine if you have completed two doses of the COVID vaccine. This is only applicable if 14 days have passed since receiving the second dose, and if the island one wants to travel has a positivity rate below five percent. This rule is also not applicable to islands under monitoring.

As the inter island travelling requires to provide a negative PCR result, the amount of people testing for COVID-19 has also increased.

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