News that is bittersweet, most virus patients asymptomatic!

In a press conference held tonight. National Emergency Operations Center medical officer, Dr. Ibrahim Afzal announced news that is bittersweet for the country as the number of COVID-19 cases keeps increasing.

Dr. Afzal stated that 41 percent of the people that test positive for the virus are asymptomatic, meaning that they do not exhibit any symptoms of the virus and are affected only mildly.

The remaining 59 percent of the people were symptomatic, said the doctor. He described the figures as both good and bad news due to the fact that many were only affected mildly.

“When they are infected mildly, they are not affected much, and make recoveries without exhibiting any symptoms of the virus.” Said the doctor who added that there were two sides to the news. One was that such cases may inadvertently infect others more.

“In one way, this is both good and bad news,” said Dr. Afzal. He stated that due to the high number of mild cases, it could be presumed that a mild strand of the virus was spreading in the country, meaning that a large number of the population could become immune to the virus without becoming severe cases after infections.

If there are more severe symptomatic cases, then it could become extremely strenuous on the authorities.

Maldives has so far confirmed 481 cases of COVID-19 and reported one death. 17 people have so far made recoveries from the virus.