15,278 patients in home isolation, 19384 active cases, 70,000 recoveries in the Valley
By Our Reporter
Against the expectation of the government authorities, COVID-19 cases crossed 200,000 marks in Nepal this week. The authorities who had claimed that the COVID-19 cases could be limit in 15,000 have not taken any concrete measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, neither had the government increased the health facilities at par the rise in infections. Instead, the government seems busy taking one wrong decision after another and correcting them after the court intervention.
The powerful communist government led by KP Sharma Oli has completely failed to control the virus. Instead of diverting all resources in the fight against the virus, the government seems using its strength the intra-party dispute and to misuse the resources. It is evident from the fact that the Prime Minister and leaders of the ruling party have been holding one meeting after another to resolve the lengthy intra-party feud totally ignoring the pandemic which had killed nearly 1200 people.
Moreover, the government that had decided not to bear the cost of test and treatment of the COVID-19 patients had to correct the anti-constitutional decision after the Supreme Court thwarted its appeal charge fees and drew public criticism. A Cabinet meeting on Monday reportedly withdrew the controversial decision, which came as a setback for the government.
In fact, going by the news about the prolonged dispute between the Prime Minister Oli and other leaders of the ruling party, one could realise how the government and the ruling party are indifferent to the pandemic. Nepali people had never had such an irresponsible government in its known history. The COVID-19 patients are dying in lack of ICUs and ventilators, people are dying hungry in lack of a job, but the government has been wasting time in dispute within the party and the Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City prohibiting individuals and organisations from feeding the people free of cost.
When the cases are steadily rising across the country, with Kathmandu becoming epicentre, the government has taken no measure to contain the spread. Instead, it discouraged people from testing by charging testing fees, as a result, the daily tests dropped to around 10,000 from nearly 20,000 before Dashain. On Monday, 11,177 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests were conducted across the country. When there are fewer tests, the cases look fewer, but the reality may be otherwise. More infected people in the community spreading the diseases.
On Monday 2,751 new cases of COVID-19 and 18 deaths were confirmed across the country.
Of the new cases, 1,428 patients were recorded in the three districts of the Kathmandu Valley, which means the valley’s figures account for over 55 per cent of the national caseload of Monday.
The three districts’ total caseload reached 90,155 with 19,000 active cases as of Monday. Majority of the patients are staying in home isolation with Kathmandu having the highest number of patients, 11,651, living in home isolation. Of the three districts of the valley, Kathmandu continues to witness more cases as well as deaths. As of Monday, Kathmandu has 73,203 cases, including 15,982 active cases, 56,946 recoveries and 275 deaths.
Likewise, Lalitpur has 10,356 cases with 68 deaths and Bhaktapur 6,598 cases with 72 deaths.
According to the MoHP Situation Report on Monday, Nepal’s caseload has jumped to 197,024 with 1,126 fatalities, and the number of active cases has reached 36,174. Of them 29,836 were on home isolation, 411 in the intensive care units (ICU) of hospitals and 83 were receiving treatment with ventilator support.
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