Covid-19: Maldives reports 63 new cases, drop in hospitalizations

Maldives reported 63 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday.

The latest figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) show that the cases were detected from over five thousand samples tested within 24 hours. This includes 28 cases from residential islands, 22 from resorts and 13 from the Greater Male’ Region.

This pushes the country’s Covid-19 total to 75,879.

While the additional 154 recoveries reported on Sunday have pushed the country’s total recoveries to 73,226, active cases dropped to 2,425. There have been 216 deaths from Covid-19.

Hospitalizations have also dropped to 12, from the previous day’s 23.

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, just in time for the Eid-al-Adha and Independence Day holidays.

Fully vaccinated individuals are now able to travel between islands without having to quarantine, after providing a negative PCR test result.

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