The Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Thursday, announced that a further 21 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 while 13 persons were reported as recovered.
According to the agency, 17 of the cases were identified from the Greater Male' Region, while two cases were found in operational resorts and two cases were found in inhabited islands.
At present, Maldives records a total of 13,988 virus cases of which 694 are active cases, in addition to 13,238 recoveries and 49 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, November and December 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 87.9 million people and claimed over 1.8 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 63.3 million people have recovered.
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