The National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) has revealed that the decrease in confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country is not caused by a decrease in the number of tests carried out for the virus.
Speaking to the press on Saturday night, the task force’s spokesperson, Mohamed Mabrook Aziz stressed that there have been a few reports that authorities are reducing the number of samples collected and tests conducted for the global pandemic in order to lower the number of confirmed cases.
Highlighting that a decrease in Covid-19 cases does not mean that the virus has been eradicated in the Maldives, Mabrook added that they expect a surge in cases in the phase first, when considering the practices of other countries.
During the press, Mabrook detailed the statistics for samples collected from May 30 to June 6:
- May 30: 653 samples, 81 positive cases
- May 31: 557 samples, 101 positive cases
- June 1: 835 samples, 56 positive cases
- June 2: 704 samples, 12 positive cases
- June 3: 618 samples, nine positive cases
- June 4: 685 samples, 22 positive cases
- June 5: 957 samples, 11 positive cases
- June 6: 723 samples, 18 positive cases
Further, Mabrook added that the extraction machine for Covid-19 testing stationed at the laboratory in Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), has been facing technical issues, despite which the testing capacity has not been hindered.
NEOC went on to reveal that authorities are working to resolve this issue and fix the machine.
