Government claims Covid-19 risk is beyond prediction

 Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali – who is also the spokesperson of the government – while addressing a regular press briefing today – said that the risk of novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the country is beyond the prediction of the government.

Since the daily count of new Covid-19 cases is on the sharp rise in the recent week, he said that it is too early to say how long this situation would last as infection rate is escalating at an alarming rate. “At this hour of health crisis, we all should exercise high levels of precaution against this global pandemic,” he said, adding that the restriction imposed on various sectors has been eased not because of low risk of this viral disease, but as an attempt to normalise and balance daily life of people. “As major festivals are just around the corner, we need to be more careful to avoid further spread of this disease.”

The country has seen 120 days lockdown from March 24, and again prohibitory order for another three weeks, bleeding the economy.

Urging the house owners and business enterprises not to force the tenants and employees to undergo PCR tests to diagnose the Covid-19 disease, Gyawali said that it is against the test guidelines formulated by the government.

By today, as many as 74,745 cases linked to the coronavirus have been confirmed in Nepal since the first case was reported on January 24. According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), a total of 1,351 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours alone. The ministry has recommended the government to impose lockdown if the active coronavirus cases increases beyond 25,000. As of today there are some 20,000 active cases. Kathmandu alone reported some 817 new cases in the past 24 hours alone, taking the total case tally to 22,124.