Maldives Airports Company Ltd (MACL) revealed that only 16 out of the 43 international flights scheduled for Sunday arrived in Maldives.
Although air traffic is usually the heaviest on Sundays, MACL saw a large decrease in flight operations as various flights were cancelled.
Along with the decrease in international flights, the total number of domestic flights within Maldives on Sunday stood at 25.
Travel between countries have severely been restricted due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in temporary suspensions of flights by many airlines.
Due to the pandemic, MACL is taking safety measures such as disinfecting different areas of the airport.
Maldives has also restricted flights from a list of countries seriously affected by the virus. China, Italy, South Korea, Japan and Spain, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Sri Lanka has been placed under a travel ban along with some areas of Germany and France.
To prevent the spread of the virus within the community, authorities are placing every Maldivian returning from foreign countries in a 14-day quarantine.
Maldives currently has 13 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 10 active cases. The country recorded its first two recoveries on Friday, and the third this Saturday.
No Maldivians have tested positive for the virus as of yet. So far, only tourists and resort employees have confirmed infections with no local transmissions.
The World Health Organization has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus has infected more than 341,560 and claimed over 14,748 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 99,040 have recovered.
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