The Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Saturday, announced that 209 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Maldives, while 149 recovered from the disease.

According to the agency, 101 of the new cases were detected from the Greater Male' Region, 15 were identified in inhabited islands, six were from operational resorts and 14 were found on liveaboards.

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 17,716 virus cases of which 2,360 are active cases, in addition to 15,291 recoveries and 58 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 1800 to 0600 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 108 million people and claimed over 2.3 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 81 million people have recovered.