Covid19: Nepal Covid 19 and Flood Response Situation Report No.XXIX, as of 19 October 2020
National Context:
• The districts with COVID-19 active positive cases are 76 out of 77, with 757 deaths. The last one week saw more than 100 COVID-19 related deaths across Nepal (Ministry of Health and Population – MoHP).
• The Government of Nepal (GoN) (date here) has decided to not bear the cost of COVID-19 treatment for other citizens except frontline workers and the helpless ones who do not have anyone to support.
• The GoN has now also asked the people to manage the funeral rites of their family members who die of COVID-19 in home isolation. Amending the ‘Dead Body Management of COVID-19 Cases Guideline’, the GoN has expressed its inability to manage the funerals of the people dying in home isolation.
• The MoHP has directed all the hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley to postpone all non-emergency surgeries for the time being; and instructed to perform regular surgeries only after the COVID-19 infection is under control. The MoHP has also stated that all government hospitals in the valley will be made COVID hospitals, and if hospitals want to run the isolation centres the government will approve them (Media Briefing #203, MoHP).
• According to the news reports, the hospitals are overwhelmed and cases are increasing every day; new patients are deprived of proper care, losing their battle with the COVID-19, in different parts of the country.
• The GoN also announced mandatory face shields for long-route passengers. After widespread criticism of its permission for public vehicles to carry passengers in their full seat capacity even as COVID-19 infections are multiplying across the country, the Department of Transport Management has made it mandatory for passengers to wear face shields during their trip.
• In Kathmandu Valley, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur District Administration Offices have decided to shut all government offices under their jurisdiction from 18 October and the Kathmandu District Office has authorised the head of the concerned government offices to decide whether to shut or to remain open.
• This year’s monsoon officially ended on 16 October, 2020, killing 367 people, 100 missing and 325 injured in the flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall across Nepal (GoN, 12 June - 16 October, 2020, NDRRMA).