The Department of Immigration have strengthened Covid-19 health and safety restrictions for travelers entering the Maldives, with travelers from India now required to undergo a 10-day home quarantine.

Effective from 22 April 2021, Maldivian citizens and work visa holders traveling to the Maldives from India will be required to quarantine for a period of 10 days, even if they are fully vaccinated. Tourists are exempt from this quarantine, but can only enter the Maldives with a negative PCR test result.

The move to quarantine travelers from India comes at a time Covid-19 cases have skyrocketed, with over 3.5 new infections reported in the ongoing month of April as a new variant of the infection spreads in densely populated regions of the country. Hospitals in India have become unable to cater to the increased number of Covid-19 patients, as major cities across the country face oxygen shortages. Mortuaries and crematoriums in India are reported to be full as more and more people die from Covid-19.

Earlier this year, India had been logging just 10,000 new Covid-19 cases a day, but the situation has worsened significantly over the past month. Covid-19 clusters have grown out of control in major cities across India in recent weeks, with India reporting twice as many new infections every day as Brazil and America.

The US, Australia, Hong Kong, the UK, Pakistan and New Zealand have already released travel advisories for citizens traveling to or from India amid the worsening global Covid-19 pandemic.