Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC), on Thursday, revealed that the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the country was due to four additional outbreak clusters.
According to HEOC, the clusters identified include one in a developing resort, one from a yacht near the Greater Male' Region, a Velana International Airport construction site and on the Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL)'s Cargo Bay.
HEOC Spokesperson and Health Protection Agency (HPA)'s Medical Officer Dr Nazla Rafeeq said a total of 134 individuals were quarantined from the resort cluster, from which 53 were positive for COVID-19. Further, she noted that 76 close contacts were identified from the 57 individuals that rested positive for the virus.
She also said the MACL cluster occurred at a location that exposed various groups of individuals from private companies and MACL staff.
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.
Within this same period, the number of recoveries saw a significant increase, bringing the number of recovered cases to over 90 percent.
Despite the sustained decrease in virus cases, HPA 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 57.2 million people and claimed over 1.6 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 39.5 million people have recovered.
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