The govt cannot wash its hands of its obligation to provide health care and other help to the people when they most need it

Seemingly, a PCR test fatigue has set in, with the government asking the people to pay for it and treatment of the coronavirus. Following the government decision on Sunday, it went into immediate effect at all government and non-government hospitals and laboratories across the country. The government will continue to provide free tests only to those who are poor, frontline health workers and security personnel. The government’s decision could result in an escalation of coronavirus cases in society, putting everyone at risk because both those who are infected and those who are unsure if they have the virus might not come forward for a test. The government decision not to pay for the PCR tests is a serious challenge to the Supreme Court’s order to conduct the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests free of cost to anyone wanting to undergo such a test. As COVID-19 is an infectious disease, legally everyone is entitled to not only free diagnosis but also free treatment.

The spiralling cases of the coronavirus in recent weeks following the easing of the months-long lockdown has been alarming, with daily new infections anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 depending upon the number of tests carried out. The country has been carrying out about 11,000-12,000 tests per day on average, although it did go up to even 19,000 tests on one day. But to unearth all coronavirus cases, the country would need to carry out many times more tests as countries with a similar population have been doing. At this rate of new infections, we could be seeing a doubling of cases every few weeks.

Nepal’s COVID-19 caseload is close to 135,000, and although the recovery rate is about 70 per cent, there are about 40,000 active cases, half of them in the Kathmandu Valley alone.

The way the government has been behaving in recent weeks — from easing the lockdown and allowing airplanes and public vehicles to carry passengers to full capacity to doing away with week-long mandatory quarantines in Nepal for tourists — it looks as if it has surrendered to the virus and is letting the pandemic to take its own course. What’s more, the government has also asked family members to take responsibility of managing the bodies of those who die of COVID-19, something that was being aided by the security personnel.

The question is, can the people, especially the poor who have little resources, afford to take extra caution to safely cremate or bury their dead? Compared to the number of new infections daily, the number of deaths is not high. It would thus be prudent for the government to provide all assistance to the people to take care of the dead to minimise the risk of infection. The government cannot wash its hands of its obligation to provide affordable health care and other assistance to the people when they most need it. If the people must fend for themselves in this time of grave crisis, what is the role of the government, given that it has failed on all fronts, from creating jobs and relief to controlling black marketing. If the government keeps unburdening itself of its responsibilities to the people, all efforts made so far to control the virus, including the harsh lockdown, will have gone to waste.

Promoting tourism

At a time when the government is clueless about ways to revive tourism amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and state-owned Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) have reached an agreement to promote the hospitality industry in the country. The tourism industry, which is a major source of employment and income for both the government and private sector, has suffered a serious setback following the outbreak of the pandemic.

The pact envisages launching joint promotional work, introductory visits, branding of each other’s organisation and hosting international level tourism events in Nepal. In order to promote tourism activities in Nepal, NTB and NAC should give a message to the world community that trekking and mountaineering activities are safe even as the COV- ID-19 cases are rising in the cities. Both of them should also be able to convince hoteliers on major tourist routes that foreigners do not pose any health risk to them as they are allowed to enter the country only after producing a negative PCR test report conducted in their countries before they board a flight.

However, it will take a long time to bring the tourism business to the pre-COVID-19 level as people look askance at foreigners.