COVID-19: 129 new infections, vaccinations exceed 50,000

Health Protection Agency (HPA), has announced 129 additional cases of COVID-19, increasing confirmed cases in the Maldives to 18,082. With the new cases, the Maldives currently has 2,384 active cases.

According to HPA, the new cases include; 120 cases from the greater Male’ region, three cases from residential islands outside Male’, and six cases from operational resorts.

The confirmed new cases are from 5,045 samples collected.

Meanwhile, 73 additional COVID-19 patients were confirmed to have made full recoveries over the last 24 hours, increasing total recoveries to 15,633.

There are 172 patients in hospitals. 

471,366 samples (including repeated samples) have been tested for COVID-19 to date.

Caseload over the week

• February 16: 129 cases
• February 15: 125 cases
• February 14: 120 cases
• February 13: 209 cases
• February 12: 120 cases
• February 11: 186 cases
• February 10: 100 cases

58 patients have died from complications.

VACCINE DRIVE

The Maldives began mass vaccinations against COVID-19 on February 1. HPA stated that 6,230 people were vaccinated in the last 24 hours. 4,020 were from the greater Male’ region, 2,090 were from other atolls. 120 were from resorts.

A total of 50,047 people have now been inoculated under the program; 39,309 from the greater Male’ region and 10,519 from other atolls. 219 have also inoculated from resorts.

The Maldives received a donation of 100,000 doses of the Covishield developed AstraZeneca and Oxford in January and has ordered 700,000 more doses of the same vaccine – which is expected to be received in March.

The Maldives has also received 10,000 doses of Sinopharm, a Chinese developed vaccine as a donation, and China has pledged to donate a further 100,000 doses of the same vaccine in the near future. The Maldives also expects to receive the first shipment of vaccines from World Health Organization (WHO) this February.