Authorities are to impose fines on individuals caught without face masks in public spaces, from Saturday on.

This was revealed by the Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC)'s Spokesperson, Dr. Nazla Rafeeq during Thursday's press briefing.

Maldives Police Service (MPS) will be active on the streets from Saturday to implement this.

As such, those caught without face masks in public spaces will be slapped with MVR 1,000 fines from Saturday.

Dr. Nazla added that HEOC will publicize guidelines for the enforcing of face masks, very soon.

Earlier on Thursday, the President’s Office 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.

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, Abdulla Ameen 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.

The decision comes at a time cases of the global pandemic have been on the rise, with a record number having been reported within the concluding week, alone.