The Director General of Public Health has ordered for Covid-19 measures to be strengthened in all inhabited islands across the Maldives.

This order includes prohibiting travel between all inhabited islands, unless essential, and the respective councils are to work with respective authorities to ensure that the residents have the basic necessities.

Even though travel between the islands has been halted, movement within the island has not been banned as of now. Director General Maimoona appealed all the islanders to practice physical distancing if required to go out.

The director general also banned gatherings of any kind, and learning from the measures implemented in the capital, detailed the various forms of gatherings that are prohibited. This includes, parties, events, picnics, swimming in the ocean, sports and any other social gathering.

The order also included a request to those that recently left resorts and other tourist establishment to report the slightest sign of a flu-like symptomts to relevant authorities.

The order is effective from 6pm on Friday, until further notice.

The decision to strengthen measures across the country comes a little over a day after the first documented case of a community spread of Covid-19 was confirmed on Wednesday, where a resident of capital Malé City tested positive despite no recent travel history.

While the city was placed under a 24-hour lockdown - which has since been extended to another 24 hours- two direct contacts of the woman have since tested positive as well, including her child.

242 contacts of these three patients are being tested currently, 207 of them are contacts of Patients 21 and 22 (mother and child) while the remaining had come into contact with Patient 23. 82 of them are high-risk contacts, while 71 are medium-risk and 83 are low-risk contacts. Further, 22 households across the country have been placed under monitoring, after authorities determined that its residents had come into contact with the woman.

With the three cases in the capital, the total number of cases in the country reached 23.