Speaker of the People’s Majlis and Former President Mohamed Nasheed has stated that if the government closes its borders once again, it could lead to the citizens going bankrupt and in turn, trigger worse damages and losses.

He made these remarks in a Twitter post on Wednesday, stressing that the Maldives needs to find ways to live with the Covid-19 pandemic.

As such, the speaker noted that closure of borders will not prove to be the most beneficiary to the citizens.

This comes a day after Maldives reported a whipping 137 cases of the infection on Tuesday. Cases reported have spiked since the government began implementing the lockdown ease plan on May 29, months after the government declared a lockdown across the Greater Malé Region on April 15 after a community transmission was detected.

Further, Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s Maldives Reform Movement (MRM) has also called on the government to implement stringent measures at a time cases have been surging.

Maldives closed down its borders for international travel on March 27 and reopened it on July 15.

Maldives is currently in the third phase of lockdown easing, and since the government institutions and state offices were reopened on July 5, cases are surging on a daily basis.

The country has seen a total of 3,506 infections and 2,544 recoveries from the virus thus far.

There are 932 active cases currently and 64 have been hospitalized for treatment.

The country’s death toll to Covid-19 sits at 15.