The President’s Office has made the decision to make wearing face masks in public spaces, mandatory.

The announcement was made via a Twitter post on Thursday evening, where the office revealed that the decision was reached in order to help authorities’ control and contain the spread of the virus.

As such, the public has been urged to limit movements and contacts as well as work from home unless essential, and to practice social distancing.

The decision was reached following a National Taskforce Meeting regarding the global Covid-19 pandemic, after the case numbers in the capital region began rising within the past two weeks.

The office went on to stress that avoiding a second lockdown is “in everyone’s interest”.

This comes at a time the Minister of Health, stated that authorities were deliberating on enforcing the use of face masks within public spaces, in an appearance on RaajjeTV’s Fala Surukhee programme on Wednesday night.

Maldives has confirmed a total of 3,568 cases of the infection thus far, having observed 16 deaths to the virus.

The latest death was reported on Thursday evening, when a 71-year-old local woman succumbed to the deadly infection.