Authorities have placed the popular local tourism destination Maafushi under monitoring today.
Speaking to ‘The Press’, Health Emergency Operations Center HEOC said that the island was placed under monitoring after a tourist on the island tested positive for COVID-19 today.
With this unauthorized exit and entry to the island is currently banned while the HEOC said that the island would remain under monitoring status as authorities conduct the contact tracing for the positive case. HEOC also said that it would inform the relevant authorities once the island is given the all-clear.
This came after the island’s Health Center announced yesterday that all five tourists who had tested positive for COVID-19 from the island previously had since recovered from the illness and that there were no active cases of the pandemic on the popular destination.
The five tourists tested positive for COVID-19 on the 12th of this month.
Guesthouses across the Maldives were shut down back in March when the pandemic first hit the island nation with many local businesses collapsing due to the lack of customers amid the border closure.
The government had allowed guest houses across the country except for those operating in the Greater Male’ Area to resume operations last October and for some business has been booming since.
Yesterday, Tourism Minister Dr. Abdullah Mausoom had beseeched that the tourist facilities in the Greater Male’ Area can only be allowed to reopen once the COVID-19 numbers reported from the area dropdown.
