Maldives reports 33 new cases from resorts incl. 27 from Oblu Sangeli

33 out of the 59 new Covid-19 cases announced in the Maldives on Wednesday are from operational resorts.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said that the new cases were confirmed from over 3,300 samples tested within 24 hours and that 17 of the cases are from the greater Male’ region while the remaining nine are from islands.

The 59 cases push the country’s Covid-19 total to 14,277.

HPA said that 27 of the 33 cases from resorts are from Oblu Select at Sangeli resort where a total of 32 coronavirus infections have been confirmed. While all 27 are staff members at the resort, the first Covid-19 case was detected at the tourist establishment on January 3; a foreign employee tested positive for Covid-19 after sending in samples obtain the PCR report required to travel abroad.

While eight people were identified as contacts and quarantined, four employees that were tested following symptoms were positive for the virus on January 11, however, they are not contacts of the first case.

98 random samples were taken from the resort for testing on the 12th of January, and 19 came back positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, as well as that of an additional eight tested after exhibiting symptoms.

Further, a total of 13,438 patients have recovered from the virus thus far in the Maldives with 36 additional recoveries reported on Wednesday. While an additional Covid-19 death was confirmed last week, there have been a total of 49 deaths from the virus.

The new developments push the country’s active case count to 783, from the previous day’s 760.

55 patients are receiving treatment at hospital, two more than the previous day.

While Maldives’ first Covid-19 cases were discovered from resorts in early March last year, a community transmission was confirmed in the congested capital on April 15 leading to a full lockdown in the city.

Male’ became the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, over 470 of the current active cases are in the region, which also meant an extension on the ban on travel between the city and other islands.

While those that travel from the capital to other regions are still required to quarantine, there have recently been a spike in cases reported from other areas. As such, 20 of the 59 cases announced on Tuesday were from residential islands while 28 of the 50 cases announced on Monday were from resorts.