COVID-19: Maldives records 109 new cases, 84 recoveries

The Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Saturday, announced that 109 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Maldives, while 84 recovered from the disease.

According to the agency, 78 of the new cases were detected from the Greater Male' Region, 11 were identified in inhabited islands, while the remaining 20 were from operational resorts.

After a long period of recording low numbers towards the end of 2020, Maldives is now experiencing its third wave of the pandemic, with the introduction of the United Kingdom’s highly contagious virus variant.

Currently, the island nation records a total of 16,656 virus cases of which 2,039 are active cases, in addition to 14,556 recoveries and 54 deaths.

With the sudden spike in numbers, HPA introduced a new curfew, which prohibits civilians from roads and public spaces between 2300 to 0430 hrs, while vehicle movements are banned between 2030 to 0430 hrs.

The restrictions are implemented across capital Male', its suburbs Vilimale' and Hulhumale', airport island Hulhule', industrial island Gulhifalhu and landfill island Thilafushi.

On March 12, 2020, WHO classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. To date, the new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 1 billion people and claimed over 2.3 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 77.8 million people have recovered.