By Our Reporter
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a virtual summit of the Non-Aligned Movement held on Monday.
Addressing the Online Summit from Singha Durbar, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said, “Humanity must prevail, not the virus. For this, health must be our top priority.”
Prime Minister Oli further said that Nepal had deployed all political, economic, human and technological resources at the disposal to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
“We can revive economic loss. We can reinvent technology. We can build a prosperous society. But, we cannot revive the loss of precious human life, which is also the loss of human capital, talents, expertise and ideas. So, life comes first of all other considerations,” he said.
Stating that the Nepal government’s focus had been on both the prevention and mitigation of the pandemic, PM Oli maintained that his government had marshalled all resources and state machinery at federal, provincial and local level to manage and respond to the crisis in a coherent way.
“We have pursued combination of measures, such as, testing, contact-tracing, quarantine and social distancing. At the same time, we have enforced temporary measures, such as, nation-wide lockdown, suspension of international flights and restriction in cross-border movement of the people,” he stated.
He further shared that, as of today, there was no death from Covid-19 in the country.
On the worst effect of the pandemic on the country’s economy, Prime Minister Oli said that the whole economy was in standstill; small enterprises, peasants and daily wage earners were the hardest hit; remittances and revenue sources had declined; tourism had shattered and the pace of development would suffer.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, WHO chief and other leaders of NAM had addressed the summit.
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