KATHMANDU: The Government of Nepal extended the ongoing nationwide lockdown until May 7 to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
The government has announced nationwide lockdown in a bid to stop the coronavirus from spreading out of control. Nepal has confirmed 52 cases and 16 patients have been discharged after recovery as of Sunday.
The country’s once-busy market places are desolate, almost all shops are shuttered, borders are closed, and people have been asked to stay in their homes except to buy essentials.
Lockdown restrictions in the country will continue for another 10 days as it tackles the coronavirus outbreak, according to a cabinet decision on Sunday.
The government, meanwhile, has extended the shutdown of domestic and international flights until May 15. The shutdown of the flights was to end on April 30.
It should be noted that a task force under the High-Level Coordination Committee on the Prevention and Containment of COVID-19 had on Saturday recommended the government to extend the current lockdown by another one week.
The task force headed by Chief Secretary Lok Darshan Regmi had suggested the extension.
Earlier on Saturday, the committee had assigned the task force to work on the modality of lockdown extension and recommend it to the committee.
In it’s meeting on Saturday afternoon, the committee had reached the conclusion that the lockdown should be strictly enforced as the number of novel coronavirus patients has been increasing and the cases have been reported in several parts of the country.
The meeting also realized that the authorities need to work more on the modality of the lockdown.
It should be noted that after finding the cases of coronavirus particularly from foreign returnees, Nepal is in lockdown since March 24.
Sunday’s extension is the fifth time that the government has extended the lockdown period so far. The lockdown period of the fourth time is expiring on Monday while the fifth extension will end on May 7.
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