Education Ministry: Masks no longer mandatory, but recommended for high-risk students

Education Ministry has announced that with the decision of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) to scrap the nation-wide mask mandate, students will no longer be required to wear masks when they attend school in islands with a COVID-19 positivity rate lower than 20 percent. 

In a statement on Sunday evening, the Education Ministry said that while masks are no longer mandatory, high-risk students are recommended to continue to wear masks when they attend school. 

Students may also continue to wear masks if they wish for their own safety, said the Education Ministry. 

Education Ministry said that schools will continue to check temperature and encourage frequent hand washing as a safety measure. 

Maldives lifted the state of public health emergency invoked in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on Sunday, and scrapped a number of measures, including the mask mandate, PCR testing for inbound travelers, and travel quarantine.