National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) – the multi-agency Centre formed for the task of combating COVID-19 pandemic in the Maldives- has stated that the person-to-person contacts of the people who recently tested positive for the disease have declined significantly.
In the NEOC's daily news brief held on Saturday night, epidemiologist Dr Nazla Rafeeq said compared to the first cases of local transmission, the number of contact of positive patients have decreased. She further stated that although the virus is spreading rapidly, the newly infected people have fewer contacts and attributed the improvement to the lockdown imposed on the capital Male'. Dr Nazla added that the number of positive cases are increasing at this time as more tests are being conducted.
The doctor revealed that 66 people tested positive for COVID-19 from April 15 to 22, and had a total of 1868 contacts. While 191 were tested positive from April 23 to 29, they had 1972 contact. 341 people tested positive from 30 April to May 6 and had 1267 contacts, whereas 337 people tested positive from May 7 to 13 and had 914 contacts.
The Maldives has recorded 1078 cases of COVID-19 thus far.
