The Maldives: The antibodies of paradise

• Author: JANE MEDVED
• Date: 29 December 2020
• Published date: 29 December 2020

In fact, a second floor with a business lounge and shops has been added, and an enormous new international terminal is under construction.

We have just come from Tel Aviv via Dubai on Emirates Airlines. What used to be an arduous trek from Israel is now two short hops of three hours each. On the plane, flight attendants hand out red sealed boxes of the new travel necessities: anti-bacterial wipes, Alco-gel and a mask. The Maldives, after closing its borders for five months, has reopened and the tourists are coming back.

I am a terrible traveler. I always over-pack, worried that I'll bring the wrong shoes or bathing suit. My suitcase is overweight and impossible to close. I get to the airport early and then fret, checking my passport and tickets, imaging every possible thing that could go wrong.

Now there's a whole new gauntlet of tests, health forms and government documents for me to obsess over. Social distancing doesn't work very well on escalators, airport shuttles or on planes, for that matter. Oh, and did I mention there's a cyclone hitting Sri Lanka, the edges of the storm heading to the Maldives? At this point, I want to turn to my husband and say, "I could be at home watching Netflix. Why are we doing this? "

Soon the answer is right outside my window. We are en route to the Thaa Atoll, 170 kilometers from Male. By some combination of luck and timing, we are the only ones aboard a 15-passenger seaplane. With the storm kicking up behind us, we fly through billowing cloud formations, but the real attraction is down below: a succession of aquamarine lagoons, circled with coral reefs, glittering like open geodes tossed into the ocean's lap.

The Republic of the Maldives is a 754-km. (469-mile) string of 26 atolls, groupings of small islands left over from an ancient volcanic chain. There are over 1,000 tiny islands, none of them more than two kilometers across. But only 200 are inhabited, with more than half of those occupied by resorts. The capital island is Male, which takes the brunt of the population: 150,000 people packed into 1.6 kilometers, making it the smallest capital in the world and congested beyond belief.

The rest of the Maldives, however, seem to have been designed for pandemic travel, since there is only one hotel per island. We are headed to the COMO Maalifushi, the only resort in this remote southern atoll. Founded and run by Singapore entrepreneur Christina Ong and her daughter Melissa Ong, (hence the acronym) COMO is a collection of luxury hotels and retreats that specialize in privacy, tranquility, health and what they loosely refer to as "guest well-being."

It's not too difficult for one's being to feel well here, with an array of 65 suites and villas, each with a private pool and sitting area. They range from cozy hideaways on the beach, to the most popular lodgings: over-water villas...