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COVID-19: Daily cases spike to 47, wedding party cluster grows

Shahudha Mohamed
30 December 2020, MVT 22:44
Health Protection Agency (HPA)'s Medical Officer and Health Emergency Operation Centre's (HEOC)'s Spokesperson Dr Nazla Rafeeq speaking at a press briefing by HEOC. PHOTO: HEOC
Shahudha Mohamed
30 December 2020, MVT 22:44

The Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Wednesday, announced that a further 47 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 while 16 persons were reported as recovered.

According to the agency, 30 of the cases were identified from the Greater Male' Region, 15 were found in operational resorts, and the remaining two were identified in inhabited islands.

Although daily cases fell below 20 during the most part of December, infections spiked again, due to a COVID-19 cluster identified from a wedding ceremony held at Society for Health Education (SHE) building on December 20.

Speaking at the press briefing held by the Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) on Wednesday night, the centre's Spokesperson and HPA's Medical Officer Dr Nazla Rafeeq stated that eight of the 47 total cases identified on Wednesday also belong to the wedding ceremony cluster.

Since the first case from the cluster was identified on December 24, it has grown to 68 cases with 229 contacts, including 71 high-risk contacts. Dr Nazla added that 262 samples were collected from individuals linked to the cluster.

At present, Maldives records a total of 13,735 virus cases of which 558 are active cases, in addition to 13,125 recoveries and 48 deaths.

During August, authorities tightened the safety measures implemented in the Greater Male' region, following an alarming upsurge of COVID-19 cases after the state initiated efforts to steer the country towards a 'new normal' with the phased easing of lockdown restrictions.

After a long period of recording over 100 daily cases, the numbers fell to two-digits during the most part of September. Throughout October the numbers had slipped further down below 50, with a few spikes on rare occasions, including the recent spikes as a result of four new virus clusters.

Within this same period, the number of recoveries saw a significant increase, bringing the number of recovered cases to over 94 percent.

HPA recently eased several safety measures imposed to control the spread of COVID-19. These leniencies include the cancellation of the city-wide curfew over the greater Male’ region, the reduction of quarantine periods to 10 days as well as cancelling mandatory quarantine for locals returning to Maldives and for locals travelling to resorts.

Despite the sustained decrease in virus cases, the agency has renewed calls for citizens to adhere to protective measures to contain the spread of the virus, cautioning against a public sentiment that the outbreak has been “controlled”.

On March 12, WHO classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. To date, the new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 82.6 million people and claimed over 1.8 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 58.5 million people have recovered.

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