President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih says discussions are currently ongoing to further strengthen the measures taken by relevant authorities against the COVID-19 pandemic in the Maldives.

His comments came as the Maldives recorded its highest daily COVID-19 numbers yesterday after Health Protection Agency HPA reported more than 500 new cases of the pandemic across the country on Sunday.

In a tweet, President Solih expressed concern regarding the recent surge of new cases in the country. He urged all to abide by the current measures in place to deter the spread of the illness in the country.

The President mentioned that discussions were now ongoing about further strengthening the measures taken against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yesterday, Health Protection Agency HPA had announced that it would ban non-essential traveling between the islands starting tomorrow.

This was prompted after a high number of cases were reported from the islands in the past few days.

HPA had reported 508 new cases yesterday and said that the new cases include a staggering 276 new cases from the Greater Male' Area and another 185 new cases from inhabited islands.

HPA also reported 12 new cases from operational resorts while it said that 32 new cases were confirmed from industrial/islands used for other purposes and 3 cases from safaris.

The new cases have taken the total number of cases reported in the Maldives to 30,745.

With the recent surge in new cases, the active cases in the country have also surged to 5,594 and the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has now dramatically risen to 172 with 25,068 recoveries.

The global pandemic has killed 74 people in the Maldives since April 2020 and this includes 65 locals and 9 foreigners.