Monday
18th Nov 2024
Dhivehi Edition
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has announced that the Covid-19 samples taken in the past two days had a positivity rate of 25% and that a huge peak of cases; bigger than the peak of May 2020; may be ahead.
1,594 had tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday, with 1,420 people the day before.
Speaking to RaajjeTV, Dr Ibrahim Afzal, the HPA's epidemiologist, said that protective measures were being taken to prepare for an upcoming spike in positive cases.
Most people who get tested positive in the Maldives are infected with the omicron variant, said Dr Afzal. Although the number of cases that become serious with the omicron variant is fewer, he said that it is spreading very quickly.
"People whose condition becomes serious with the omicron variant are relatively fewer", said Dr Afzal. "However, as the number of people who get infected grows, the number of people whose condition becomes serious will also increase".
He said that even the cases had mainly been in Male, during the last peaks, it was likely that the disease would spread throughout the entire country.
"We have experienced three major peaks of this disease", he said. "This is another peak; we're going to experience a fourth wave. According to our estimates, there is a chance that this fourth wave would be bigger than any of the peaks we've experienced so far".
He said that the positivity rate for Covid-19 was 25% in the past two days, and it was therefore likely that one in every three people was infected with the virus.