By P.R. Pradhan
The government has prolonged yet another week of lockdown. According to the previous announcement, the lockdown was going to be ended by 7 April. The new announcement has extended the lockdown period till 15 April. The general public open heartedly supported the lockdown and stayed inside their houses contributing to the efforts of the government to save the country from the globally hit coronavirus pandemic. The people, so far, are suffering a lot due to the scarcity of supplies of essential items and services. More seriously, those labour class people who were managing two-time meals by working on a daily basis, are suffering a lot. Their families are compelled to stay without food, although, in some cities, some social workers have started distributing food to such needy people. The government had asked the local bodies to look after and supply food to those working in the informal sector who are seriously suffering from the lockdown, in reality, the local bodies have not given any attention on the government directives.
Astonishingly, the private sector hospitals have virtually stopped their services. Except from some hospitals, with the fear of corona virus outbreak, have stopped their services. Those patients suffering from serious and chronic disease consuming different types of medicines are facing scarcity of medicines.
Farmers growing vegetables are unable to reach their products to the market. Milk farmers are facing the same problem. On the whole, the government’s distribution mechanism has totally failed. Talking about the Kathmandu vegetable market, the vegetable price has increased and the people are rushing to the Kalamati whole sell market but in the name of controlling crowd, the whole sell market stopped retail sales from there. All the supermarkets and marts have remained closed along with the lockdown. People are not allowed to go out in the streets.
Talking about the Chinese experience, lockdown didn’t mean stopping of public transportation and closure of department stores and shopping malls. Furthermore, the government had facilitated home delivery outlets so that people could get goods delivered at their home. The government had asked people to stay at home but members of the family could go out to purchase necessary goods. Even in Wuhan, epicenter of the corona virus outbreak, during the lockdown period, one member from one family was allowed to go to the shopping mall once in 24 hours. The local government had issued special pass for them. Shopping malls were opened but there was a compulsory warning of wearing masks by the consumers. In other parts of China, there was no restriction for the people to travel from one place to another from public transportations. However, those, who travelled from one city to another city, were compelled to stay in self-quarantine at least for two weeks and they were asked to take body temperature in a daily basis and report to the nearby police station.
Talking about the Nepali lockdown, on the one hand, borders are sealed to stop public movement, which is important, but people are entering Nepal illegally via jungles and farmlands in between Nepal-India borders. Thanks to the government, it has suspended all the international flights, so that, it has helped to stop corona virus infected people from foreign countries. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of people have already entered Nepal from India, where corona virus pandemic has already spread and more seriously, the Indian cities bordered with Nepal have also been infected with corona virus and informal and illegal flow of people has not been stopped in the tarai districts.
The government committed serious mistake that once the corona virus outbreak was witnessed in Europe and Gulf countries, it had to suspend international flights immediately. The other mistake or say weakness is that it has not been able to completely stop the flow of people arriving from the Indian side into Nepal. Several hundred Nepali nationals have been halted in the Indian side and the government is facing pressure from human rights organizations and other agencies to allow them to enter their motherland. Morally too, stopping its own citizens from entering their motherland is not a good decision.
Since COVID-19 outbreak in China, this Weekly had continuously alerted the government and suggested it to do necessary homework to prevent from possible outbreak of the deadly virus in Nepal. Firstly, in December, 2019, the corona virus outbreak was witnessed in Wuhan and by second week of January, the coronavirus outbreak had already started to spread from China to foreign countries. It has already been three months since the corona virus started to travel abroad from China. Nepal, the country sharing borders with China, didn’t start homework to fight against the deadly virus. Even today, when nine infected cases have been reported and Nepal has already entered into the second stage of the corona virus outbreak, the country lacks the necessary stock of virus test kits, personal protective equipment, necessary quarantine and isolation spots. Nepal has already wasted important time to fight against the virus outbreak.
Considering the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people from India, Nepal is already in a vulnerable state of the pandemic. Now, it is time for the government to manage the ongoing crisis.
Things to do in such a crisis are:
Declare a state of emergency in the country; import necessary emergency medicines and emergency medical equipment from abroad as early as possible; conduct corona virus tests at mass level; trace suspected people who have arrived from abroad and trace those contacted persons by the infected people; allow those Nepali nationals to come to their motherland who are stuck in Nepal-India borders; keep all of them in quarantine at least for 14 days; manage necessary treatment of those infected people by keeping them in isolation; mobilize local governments and ward committees to identify people newly arrived in their wards and immediately keep them either in self-quarantine or community quarantine; use school buildings for community quarantine by supplying three time meals to people in quarantine, in the meantime, develop hotels as quarantine venues for those who want to stay there by paying lodging and food charges; mobilize local level party workers and also the Nepal Army personnel to trace people and to monitor arrival of people from Nepal-India borders; use government vehicles or manage transportation to carry foods and vegetables from villages to the cities; keep open shopping malls for food supplies; manage necessary and life saving medicines’ smooth supply; mobilize local governments to supply food for labour class people who are unable to go for work and unable to manage their meals.
Please, don’t neglect the above suggestions!
Reproduced from People’s Review
