COVID-19: HPA announces 27th death in Maldives

Health Protection Agency (HPA) on Monday announced the 27th COVID-19-related death in Maldives.

The deceased was a 79-year-old Maldivian male, who was receiving emergency treatment at Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).

He passed away at 0258 hrs and is the 21st local to have succumbed to the virus. The remaining fatalities are five Bangladeshi nationals and a Filipino citizen.

With this development, Maldives now records total 6,779 confirmed and 2,530 active COVID-19 cases, along with 4,222 recoveries and 27 deaths.

In addition to the Greater Male' region, active virus cases are present in 22 inhabited islands throughout 11 atolls in the archipelago.

Furthermore, HPA noted that active cases are present in 12 resorts across the archipelago.

After recording significantly low numbers in the months of May and June, the island nation recorded a significant rise in the number of COVID-19 cases per capita, indicating an alarming community spread in the country.

With the increasing number of infections, the number of recoveries has also risen in the past couple of weeks, after the recent spike reduced the total amount of recovered patients from the peak 86 to the lowest 53 percent. This value currently stands at 62 percent.

The number of COVID-19 cases skyrocketed after the state initiated efforts to steer the country towards a 'new normal' with the phased easing of lockdown restrictions across the Greater Male' Region. As one of the most densely populated cities in the world, Maldives' capital Malé continues to record a significant number of COVID-19 cases, similar to the first weeks following the first confirmed local transmission on April 15.

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 23.5 million people and claimed over 812,600 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 16 million people have recovered.