The Prosecutor General's (PG) Office on Monday, pressed charges against an individual who travelled to JA Manafaru Maldives Resort, breaking the travel ban currently implemented amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic.
PG Office charged the individual with violating the regulations set during State of Public Health Emergency and obstruction of justice, under Section 553 of the Penal Code.
The aforementioned case was filed at Kelaa Magistrate Court in Haa Alif Atoll.
Health Protection Agency (HPA) banned all travel between resorts and inhabited islands on March 15 in an attempt to control the spread of virus within the community. The ban was implemented under the state of public health emergency declared in Maldives on March 12, on the order of Director General of Public Health Maimoona Aboobakuru.
Since then, police have arrested several individuals who traveled between resorts and inhabited islands, stepped off from liveaboards and made threats to leave their resorts, for violating the instructions of the Director General of Public Health.
Maldives, like many other countries, has moved to quarantine a number of areas with suspected cases, isolating suspected and confirmed cases alike. On March 14, the Maldivian government banned any and all movement between resorts and inhabited islands, for a 14-day period, as one of the first preventive measures against COVID-19. The travel ban was extended to liveaboards and safaris on March 21.
The country now records 17 confirmed and four active cases of COVID-19, with a total of 13 recoveries. While there are two confirmed cases of Maldivians, no local to local transmissions are recorded.
The World Health Organization has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus has infected over 740,235 people and claimed over 35,035 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 156,588 people have recovered.
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