Maldives have been excluded in the list of countries in the German government has deemed to have a high risk of COVID-19 in the region.

The issued on Monday by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) included some of the most popular destinations for German tourists such as Turkey, Egypt, Thailand and Morocco, along with several US states including California and New York.This list is now being regularly updated.

German authorities have said that a 14-day quarantine is mandatory for any of their nationals returning from any of the destinations, countries or cities mentioned on the list.

It is considered at-risk if there are more than 50 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in a country within a week. However, even if the infection rate is lower, a country can be declared a problem region if there is a lack of testing capacity or insufficient measures to contain an epidemic.

In total, 139,897 COVID-19 cases and 4,294 deaths due to COVID-19 have been electronically reported to the RKI in Germany with over 100,000 COVID-19 cases with the highest in Bavaria (286), followed by Baden-Wuerttemberg (252), Saarland (233) and Hamburg (226).

While the German government has advised against travel to the destinations on the list, travel has not been completely banned.

Germany is a major tourist market to the Maldives and experts have said that the green light from the German government as a low-risk destination will boost Maldivian tourism when it reopens in July.

While the local tourism is on hold, the Maldivian government aims to bring 400,000 tourists in remainder of the year.