President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih says the government plans to ease the restrictive measures put in place to fight the Covid-19 crisis once the current lockdown period expires at the end of the month.
Addressing the nation earlier tonight, President Solih said these plans encompass gradually easing the lockdown in the Greater Male’ Region; allowing businesses to resume normal operations; reopening schools; and resuming communal prayer in islands where there are no COVID-19 cases.
President said these plans would be implemented in phases and that the government would be sharing details on these phases in the coming days.
President Solih also said that the country could open its borders as early as July.
He also said that the government was working to arrange quarantine facilities for some 1800 individuals who traveled from the Islands to Male’ but have been stranded amid the month-long lockdown of the capital city.
In his remarks the president also expressed his deepest gratitude towards frontline workers, including medical professionals, the Maldives Police Service; the Maldivian National Defence Forces; and volunteers from organizations such as the Red Crescent, for their tireless efforts to help contain the virus and keep households provisioned.
The country’s capital city has been under lockdown since the 15th of April and the current lockdown is expected to expire on the 28th of May.
The Lockdown was imposed after the discovery of the first community case of Covid-19 last month but the number of positive cases in the Maldives has skyrocketed to 1186 in the past month or so.
91 people have recovered from the global pandemic here in the Maldives while four people have died of the highly contagious illness.
