Covid-19: daily cases continue to drop in Maldives

Maldives confirmed the lowest daily increase in Covid-19 cases in days, on Saturday.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed 16 new infections by 6pm Saturday, including 13 Maldivians and three foreigners.

Maldives Covid-19 tally has been pushed to 11,659 with this development.

13 of the new cases were discovered in the greater Malé region whereas the remaining three were detected in residential islands.

Saturday’s cases were confirmed out of the 1,204 samples tested from 6pm Friday to 6pm Saturday.

With 35 additional recoveries from the coronavirus, Maldives has observed a total of 10,814 recoveries thus far, since the pandemic surfaced in the island nation on March 7.

According to the public health authority, Maldives currently has 800 active cases of the virus, out of which 251 patients are seeking treatment at isolation facilities.

Speaking to press on Saturday night, Spokesperson at the Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC), Dr. Nazla Rafeeq revealed that 55 patients are currently hospitalized for treatment out of which 53 patients are admitted at wards and two in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

As such, there are two patients admitted at the ward of the 16th floor of Dharumavantha Hospital, 45 patients in the ward of Hulhumalé Medical Facility and two in ICU. The remaining six patients are admitted at the ward in the Covid Facility in Eydhafushi island of Baa atoll.

Nazla revealed that there are no patients receiving treatment on ventilator support.

Out of the 28 active coronavirus cases across 18 residential islands, 16 are Maldivians and 12 are foreigners. There are active cases in 27 resorts, including 35 tourists and 81 resort workers. This means that seven resort workers who contracted the virus, have recovered over the past 24 hours.

The ongoing pandemic has claimed 38 lives in the island nation thus far.

While monitoring measures are currently in place in Kandima Maldives, a 60-year-old Maldivian man who was working at the resort had passed away on Friday night. Authorities revealed that this was the 38th death from Covid-19 in the island nation. Dr. Nazla told press that samples were collected from the deceased as he had shown symptoms of the virus, and that his test results came back positive on Saturday.

More samples have been collected from the island resort following this.

Although the past week started of with an increase in daily cases, the numbers began gradually decreasing and authorities reported no more than 35 cases within the week, after the 84 cases reported on Sunday. Saturday’s cases were the lowest to have been reported in days.

Statistics by the public health authorities go on to reveal that 63 percent of the Covid-19 tally are local cases, with the remaining 37 percent being foreign cases.