Maldives continues to see drop in new Covid-19 cases

The Maldives continues to see a decline in new Covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

A total of 78 new cases were confirmed on Sunday, according to the data updated by the Health Protection Centre (HPA). This is the third consecutive day where reported daily cases have been below 100.

While the new cases pushes the country’s Covid-19 case count to 75,071, they include 28 cases from capital Male’, 34 from residential islands and 16 cases from operational resorts.

Further, with the 231 recoveries reported on Sunday, a total of 72,349 persons have recovered. An additional death to Covid-19 was reported on Sunday as well, bringing the country’s death tally to 214; while three deaths have been reported thus far in July, 50 were reported in June and 88 in May.

With these developments, the island nation’s active coronavirus cases dropped to 2,496 from the previous day’s 2,650. Hospitalizations dropped to 18.

While the government began easing Covid-19 restrictions last year following a decline in cases, the spike of over 1,000 daily cases seen from April was confirmed as a "fourth wave" and forced authorities to strengthen the restrictions especially in the capital.

These measures have been eased thrice since as the country’s Covid-19 situation continued to improve, including lifting of the curfew in the capital.

Other eases effective from July 8 include allowing fully vaccinated individuals to travel to islands not under monitoring without the need to quarantine as well as reducing quarantine period of inbound travelers, with a negative PCR test. All businesses have also been allowed to resume at their full capacity, with authorities even allowing restaurants and cafés to provide dine-in services until 11:30pm.

The country remains in a state of public health emergency since 12 March 2020 which was last extended to expire on 2 August.