The government, on Monday, established guidelines imposing fines of up to MVR 100,000 for violating safety guidelines set by the Director General of Public Health.
As per the new regulation published on the national gazette, the fines are applicable to citizens as well as legal entities such as companies and organisations.
The highest fines are imposed on legal entities in the event that they repeatedly violate guidelines.
- First offence: MVR 1,000
- Second offence: MVR 3,500
- Third offence: MVR 7,500
- Fourth offence: MVR 10,000
- First offence: MVR 5,000
- Second offence: MVR 25,000
- Third offence: MVR 50,000
- Fourth offence: MVR 75,000
- All subsequent offences: MVR 100,000
The Director General of Public Health has the authority to impose the highest fine amount noted under the new regulation in the following situations:
- Violation of quarantine by an individual confirmed or suspected to have a dangerous illness
- Travelling to and from an island which is under monitoring
- Purposefully hiding the information about an individual with the virus or suspected to have the virus
- Enabling or assisting an individual with a dangerous illness to enter Maldives
The regulation will remain in effect until 60 days following the nullification of the state of public health emergency declared over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maldives Police Service will be responsible for enforcing the new regulation for the duration of the aforementioned period.
The Health Protection Agency (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.
At present, Maldives records a total of 13,501 virus cases of which 517 are active cases, in addition to 12,929 recoveries and 48 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 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.
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 77.7 million people and claimed over 1.7 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 54.5 million people have recovered.
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