<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79739c7e80680e064704jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1152" height="864"/><figcaption>Historical sites like Kathmandu Darbar Square looked deserted as Nepalis chose to stay indoors amidst COVID-19 pandemic scare. Photo: ALISHA SIJAPATI</figcaption></figure>“It just doesn’t make sense!” You might have heard this phrase more than once lately in the context of Nepal and COVID-19: next to the epicentre in Wuhan and host to a large number of Chinese tourists and residents, this country has still only recorded one case of the coronavirus, and the person recovered. How can that be?You might also have heard, and scoffed, at the rumour that Nepalis have superior immune systems. ‘Nepali people have a stronger immunity power’ was one reason given <a href="https://english.khabarhub.com/2020/13/81620/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://english.khabarhub.com/2020/13/81620/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584943003593000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFc1KpV0IZPmrgxEFmxs8qmB0EFIQ">in this article</a> for why COVID-19 has not hit the country yet. As time goes on and the number of cases remains at just one, could there actually be something to the claim?<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79769c7e80680e064705jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="960">“The whole world is raising the question of Nepal because of the lack of COVID-19 cases and especially after the country recorded only three deaths from two previous virus outbreaks originating in China — SARS in 2002 and the 2009 H1N1,” says Baburam Marasini, former director of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division of the Department of Health Services.“I believe that more cases of COVID-19 would have been detected by now if there was an active surveillance system in place,” added Marasini who says he has advised health officials to test people already hospitalised for pneumonia or with major breathing difficulties. “If you compare the number of those people with the number from last year you will see they have increased and have indirect proof that the virus is here.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b797a9c7e80680e064706jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="960">Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584943003593000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGvsYFUHfFB29Dfd_gj9XfxzoCYYg">Sameer Dixit of the Centre for Molecular Dynamics</a> says he has done that comparison and in the past four months there has been no increase in reports of flu-like illnesses to the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division compared to previous years. Across the country 20-25 government, private and community hospitals report to the division via the Early Warning and Response System.Yet based on experiences in other countries to date, 10-15% of those infected with COVID-19 should become seriously ill. Asks Dixit: “The limited testing to date could be a major factor, but don’t you think that there should be huge spikes everywhere of severe illness among the elderly population? It’s not happening. At night I lie in bed wondering why, and it’s bothering the hell out of me.”Dixit, who has postgraduate degrees in immunology and biotechnology, believes that people are not getting seriously ill because Nepal is experiencing a less severe strain of the virus, and/or Nepalis do have stronger immune systems."While lack of testing is also a big cause for missing cases, I believe that immunity may be a major player in developing countries. I know this sounds far-fetched, and people will laugh when they hear it, but there is a ‘hygiene hypothesis’." The theory suggests that people who grow up in less hygienic surroundings develop strong immunity to external health threats. Dixit notes that the hypothesis has not been tested for virus outbreaks. But to support the hygiene hypothesis he notes figures from previous outbreaks:  2009 Influenza A H1N1 pandemic: Global infected 700 million -1.4 billion, Global deaths 150,000-600,000, Nepal: Infected 173, Deaths 3.2003 SARS Corona outbreak: Global infected ~8,000, Global deaths ~770, Nepal: Infected 0, Deaths 0.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b797d9c7e80680e064707jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="960"><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584943003593000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEHbM3RH59Ci_1YI8koW6JWamgnKw">Buddha Basnyat, a physician at Patan Hospital,</a> downright rejects the notion of ‘Nepali immunity’. He says: “I think it is foolhardy to think that we are somehow immune – there is no scientific basis for this. I think it is a silly, wild conjecture.”He adds: “I hope it does not happen here, I hope all of these theories about immunity are true, but this is not a one-off virus, I think. Our health system is in a shambles, I think we should just make plans for a disaster.”Dixit, however, is not convinced that wider testing is necessary. “Developing countries like Nepal have a limited number of tests. It is very hard to justify testing among the 80-85% of people who could develop mild symptoms — how would we find them anyway? You’d basically have to go door-to-door and how practical is that … we basically need to save lives. Screw the detective work.”Instead, Dixit counsels trying to identify the 10-15% of the population most at risk, suggesting that people might have been hospitalised and mistakenly diagnosed with Influenza A when they actually have COVID-19.

Marty Logan

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Covid-19, Nepal and the hygiene hypothesis

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b796d9c7e80680e064701jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="712" height="429"/><figcaption>Patan Darbar Square Photograph taken by Bourne and Sheperd in 1870. Photo: The British Library</figcaption></figure>Kathmandu in the 1880s was a small place, about 1.5 km across and with 50,000 people living in its dense core area. In-migration after 1768 and new Rana palaces after 1846 had started expanding the city. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/toilet-trained/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sanitation</a> was poor, and conditions in Kathmandu were ripe for another disease outbreak.The doctor at the British Residency in Lainchaur, G H Gimlette, did not pull punches in describing Kathmandu's poor hygenic conditions: ‘The filth of the city is indescribable; along each side of the narrow lanes and streets run deep gutters, a foot to eighteen inches wide, filled with a stagnant mass of black stinking mud, into which fecal matter and every sort of refuse find their way. The stench of the thoroughfares is at all times bad enough, but, on a warm morning in the rains, it becomes sickening. (The houses) are generally overcrowded and ill-ventilated.’<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/%20jajarkot-open-defecation-free,2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cholera</a> had struck before -- in 1823, 1831, 1843, 1856, 1862, 1867, 1872, 1874, and 1875. The 1856 and 1872 outbreaks killed large numbers. In 1872, 200 to 250 people perished each day.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-mosquito-that-changed-nepals-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The insect that changed Nepal's history</a>, Tom RobertsonThe dreaded disease which brought on dysentery and vomiting killed half of those who got it. People were just beginning to understand how to contain outbreaks. Health knowledge was needed, but also smart, concerted government action. Kathmandu had little of either.The city strained to feed itself. ‘Every scrap of available ground in the valley of Nepal is cultivated to exhaustion,’ an 1880s visitor noted, ‘to yield its utmost to support a population already too large for its limited area.’The most common ailments at the time were <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-shot-in-the-arm-for-vaccines-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">typhoid fever</a>  chronic dyspepsia, goitre, and syphilis. With syphilis, the chronicler noted, it was ‘rather the rule than the exception for a man to be infected at some period of his life’.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/how-chitwan-was-opened,4159" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How Chitwan was opened</a>, Tom RobertsonGimlette also worried about Nepali superstitions about cholera. One early outbreak had been blamed, he wrote, on the position of Saturn in the sky, another on the unluckiness of the king's 18th birthday coming in the Nepali year 1888.He had a point, but was also displaying some colonial self-congratulation. It had not been many years since John Snow had identified dirty water taps as the source of London's cholera outbreak in 1849. Before this, and afterwards, many westerners advanced their own quirky, unscientific explanations for disease.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b796f9c7e80680e064702jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="258"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In 1885 Nepal had seen lots of rain and extremely hot weather. The city's ‘sultry and oppressive’ air, Gimlette noted, ‘was undisturbed by the slightest breeze’.The first ugly symptoms of cholera manifested themselves in mid May. Soon, five or six people were dying each day. By the end of May 10-12 people were dying. The British doctor tried to spur the palace into action, making ‘frequent and urgent’ calls for temporary clinics to treat the sick. But his pleas went ‘entirely disregarded’ by the Rana rulers at the time.Read also: <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/land-reform-in-cold-war-Nepal,4192" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Land reform in cold war Nepal</a>, Tom Robertson<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/60-years-after-1954-devastating-flood-same-failings-of-government-today-post-quake,2433" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Disaster geopolitics</a>, Tom RobertsonEventually the government gave a space for a small dispensary, but that fell far short of the what Gimlette really wanted -- a ‘place into which patients could be admitted and treated continuously’.Another poor decision added fuel to the fire. Over 15,000 troops were gathered in Kathmandu for a possible deployment in India. Some soldiers got sick, and others were not dispatched home immediately. Only after a colorful parade two weeks later on 1 June 1885 were soldiers sent home. But it was too late.The disease followed them around the country. Kathmandu saw ‘a sudden increase’ in cases, the death rate now topping 50 per day. Cases appeared in Patan and then Bhaktapur. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Cholera-in-the-time-of-peacekeeping,1152" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cholera</a> spread into the mountains.Meanwhile, the troops at the British Residency remained healthy, despite cases nearby. Gimlette credited good hygiene and a limited quarantine -- soldiers were not allowed into the city, then a slight distance away.By 14 June, cholera had invaded the palace. Of the over 300 people who lived there, 25 were dead by evening, chiefly slave-girls and servants.‘A panic ensued, and the Durbar was quickly emptied,’ Gimlette wrote. The dying were rushed to Pashupati. Others fled to the palaces of Patan and Bhaktapur which themselves soon grew into ‘fresh centres of the disease’.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/african-americans-in-cold-war-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African Americans in Cold War Nepal</a>, Tom RobertsonOn June 29th, after alternating days of heavy rain and high temperatures, the daily death toll climbed over 100, its highest yet, and stayed there for several days. Gimlette made house calls, and visited the ghats daily. He observed a society struggling to maintain its humanity.He described the cremation ghats as ‘crowded with sick, dying, and dead. Many unfortunate wretches were simply, when attacked, brought to the edge of stream and there abandoned’.The scene was gruesome. The better off could afford to burn their dead, but ‘the bodies of the poor and low castes were thrown into the middle of the shallow stream by hundreds, to be pulled again piecemeal to the banks by the dogs, jackals, and vultures, who feasted on them’.Read also: <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-is-a-microcosm-of-all-of-the-changes-in-world-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Nepal is a microcosm of all of the change in world health"</a>Cooler temperatures in July gave the city a short respite. But the disease soon roared back ‘as bad as ever’. This time it devastated the city's lower quarters. Only in August did the death rate significantly drop, the outbreak finally coming to an end in early September.Over 9,000 people in Kathmandu Valley had died, the Darbar announced. Gimlette thought this estimate high, but agreed that the loss of life ‘must have been very great’. The city's population, before the outbreak, was approximately 50,000.G H Gimlette worried that poor hygiene and government indifference would yield yet more killer epidemics. ‘The disgustingly insanitary condition of Katmandu and other towns,’ he wrote, ‘is quite certain to breed epidemics in future. No efforts to remedy it are in the least likely to be made by the Durbar, nor would anything much short of burning the city to the ground suffice. The foundations are saturated with filth, and the air is almost thick with stenches.’Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/01/12/katmandu-was-a-ruin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Kathmandu was a ruin"</a>, Tom Robertson<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/how-chitwan-was-opened,4159" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/how-chitwan-was-opened,4159&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584929397121000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFROKZdUkgWyGDkD4S_PwKhlbYe5w">Tom Robertson</a>, PhD, is researching the environmental history of the Kathmandu Valley.

Kathmandu in the time of cholera

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101140/636b75e79c7e80680e062412jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4032" height="3024"/><figcaption>Fewa lake in Pokhara. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>Earlier this month, Nepal declared what every country wishes it could say with confidence: ‘Nepal is coronavirus free’. It first came from the Prime Minister, who said the virus had entered Nepal but had since “gone away”.Then, Tourism Minister Yogesh Bhattarai took it one step further. He declared Nepal a ‘Coronavirus Free Zone’, adding that would be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/long-road-back-to-shangrila/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit Nepal Year 2020’s promotion</a> pitch to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/chinese-tourist-influx-to-nepal-in-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attract Chinese tourists</a> to salvage the spring tourist season.Within a week of that announcement, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-climate-connection-to-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19 has gone global</a>. The Oxford Journal of Travel Medicine predicts Nepal is now one of the top 15 destinations where the next outbreak is predicted. Nothing could make that a self-fulfilling prophecy happen than opening Nepal’s doors wide for tourists from Asia and Europe.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-climate-connection-to-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The climate connection to Covid-19</a>, Rastraraj Bhandari<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why Nepal must watch coronavirus, but not panic</a>, Sameer M DixitTo cap off a ‘corona free month’ the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) on 26 February published an upbeat notice declaring Nepal safe from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19</a> and urged visitors not to cancel their visits.It may be more prudent for the government to terminate the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/love-it-or-hate-it-its-abominable/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">controversial VNY2020 campaign</a> and revert to its evergreen <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/selling-sex-tourism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">#VisitNepal</a>. This way, it can focus on strict health surveillance at the airport, improve infrastructure, clean up the cities and promote domestic tourism.The Tourism Minister and NTB have shown a dangerous lack of understanding of what the coronavirus epidemic can mean. It also shows an approach in which the interest in assuring outsiders will be safe in Nepal is greater than ensuring Nepalis remain safe from outsiders.The top ten countries from where Nepal gets tourists are on high alert. India is screening passengers arriving from Kathmandu. Most countries have issued travel advisories for people traveling to and from China. Thailand’s health minister discourages travel abroad, saying 'It could be your last holiday.' South Korea is in complete crisis mode due to the rapidly growing outbreak. There are 100,000 Nepalis working there.Japan is considering cancelling the 2020 Olympics. Saudi Arabia has suspended foreign pilgrimages into the country for the Hajj. America has told citizens to plan for potential closing of schools and businesses. Countries are racing to take extraordinary steps to limit any unnecessary risks.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101140/636b75ec9c7e80680e062413jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="344" height="399">Why is Nepal insisting on the opposite? If Nepal is Covid-19 infection free, it is out of pure luck. Continuing with<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-nepal-brand/?preview_nonce=76ffe3ead4" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> VNY2020</a> effort would test that luck to a dangerous extreme. The Italian outbreak that is spreading across Europe at a faster rate than in China began with just one Italian man.While all of China’s provinces have reported infections, more than 16,000 Chinese tourists have entered Nepal through Tribhuvan International Airport since January, of which more than 3,000 arrived in the first three weeks of February.The two sick Chinese nationals in Pokhara who were asked to stay under surveillance this month went into hiding and could not be traced. A Saudi Arabian tourist who arrived in Nepal via China also ran away from a Kathmandu Hospital where he was being monitored. Pokhara, is a top destination for Chinese tourists, and tens of thousands of Nepalis will converge there in April for the Nepali New Year holiday.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/from-hubei-to-kharipati/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">From Hubei to Kharipati</a>, Shristi KarkiIt can take as long as 24 days for symptoms of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/from-hubei-to-kharipati/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19</a> to appear. Tourists spend an average of 12 to 14 days in Nepal, most visit a shared list of sites. They converge in Thamel, the capital’s tourist hub located near Kathmandu’s ‘Chinatown.’Hotels and airlines in Nepal have seen cancellations after the outbreak. Spring mountaineering expeditions are in doubt, and the trekking season is at risk. Experts warn that even if the outbreak weakens due to warmer weather, it could resurface later in the year. An outbreak in Nepal this spring could kill not only the fall season, it could even risk tourism in 2021.Some have argued this is just another flu variant with low fatality rate so far, and there’s a good chance it will just be in most people’s systems for the foreseeable future, implying there is not anything to be scared of as such. Nepal’s poor responses to outbreaks in the past and its weak public health care system gives all the more reason to keep the virus away.Now that the ITB Berlin Travel Trade Show, the biggest in the tourism industry to be held in March <a href="https://www.itb-berlin.com/Extrapages/HealthInfo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has been cancelled due to coronavirus outbreak</a>, Nepal government should formally drop VNY2020 agenda and focus simply on promoting ‘Visit Nepal’.The Covid-19 outbreak is having serious impact on the world economy. The United States stock markets are seeing historic lows not seen since the 2008 recession. China’s economic growth is looking shaky. The chain reaction of a global economic slowdown does not bode well for Nepal’s tourism, and could also affect outbound Nepali tourism. The remittance-based economy could take a serious hit if this becomes a pandemic.The VNY2020 campaign has been criticised for sloppy promotion abroad, and even before this outbreak, few believed the 2 million target could be met. The Covid-19 outbreak provides just the right justification to terminate this ill-planned campaign.  This would buy Nepal’s planners time to prepare better with promotion and upgrading infrastructure for a more meaningful campaign.

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Let’s call off Visit Nepal Year 2020

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b75679c7e80680e0623e9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="811"/><figcaption>The Nepal Airlines Airbus 330 at Wuhan airport on 16 February to bring back 175 Nepali students. All photos: ABIHINAV SHRESTHA</figcaption></figure>When Abhinav Shrestha, 23, saw the Nepal Airlines Airbus 330 jet finally land at Wuhan Airport last week, flying the proud sun and moon flag of his country on its tail, his heart swelled with pride. Only later, after boarding, did it sink in that he would soon be going home after three weeks alone in his dorm room in Jingzhou in China’s Hubei province.Shrestha was halfway into his one year MBBS internship at the Jingzhou No. 1 People’s Hospital, when news came of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan</a>  three hours drive away. Doctors at the hospital advised all students to remain in self-quarantine for two weeks.Read also: <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/a-nepali-in-beijing-during-coronavirus-scare/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Nepali in Beijing during coronavirus scare</a>, Rastraraj Bhandari<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-both-danger-and-opportunity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19: Both danger and opportunity</a>, Marcia ChenAlthough the uncertainty was harrowing, being the son of a physician back in Nepal and a medical student himself Shrestha knew that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-panic-goes-viral/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the virus had a low fatality rate</a>  He was in constant touch with his father, who reassured him, advising him to take necessary precautions and urging him not to worry.“I knew the elderly were most vulnerable, and was aware of what to do to protect myself from the virus, but there was nothing to protect me from the boredom and loneliness of those three weeks,” Shrestha told Nepali Times over the phone on the fifth day of his quarantine at Kharipati near Kathmandu.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b756a9c7e80680e0623eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Of the 182 students in Hubei province who signed in to be flown back to Nepal, six had fever and were returned to hospital from Wuhan airport. Shrestha says that among their Chinese peers it was a matter of great pride for the Nepali students that their government had sent a plane specially to take them home. Many African students and those from other Asian countries are still in lockdown in various cities in Hubei.“It was surreal seeing the big Nepal airlines jet taxiing in to the empty terminal in the snow,” Shrestha says. “Whenever I travelled between Nepal and China, it had always been in a Chinese airline.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-panic-goes-viral/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">When panic goes viral</a>, EditorialShrestha had been back to Nepal just twice during his six years in China, and it was finding himself at the epicentre of the epidemic that brought him back home for the third time. After completing his studies at Yangtze University in Jingzhou, he was interning at the Gastroeterology Department at No. 1 People’s Hospital when he first heard about the coronavirus outbreak.Shrestha and other students had their temperatures checked five times during the three hour bus ride to Wuhan airport, where they had a through medical exam one more time before boarding.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b756d9c7e80680e0623ebjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2320" height="3088"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After the five hour flight to Kathmandu, Shrestha and his fellow passengers were taken to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-from-hubei-quarantined-in-bhaktapur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">quarantine at a converted NEA training facility at Kharipati</a>  where he shares a room with two other Nepali students.“It was great relief to be back home, and although our movement is restricted we feel much freer here than during lockdown in China,” Shrestha says. “It is like being in a college hostel again, and the food is superb.”The evacuees have been spending time hanging out with friends sunning themselves on the terrace and using the free SIM cards provided by the government. They play sports and watch movies.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-media-feels-chinas-wrath-in-coronavirus-fallout/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal media feels China's wrath in coronavirus fallout</a>, Kunda DixitShrestha has also been studying at night, in case he can go back to complete his internship and the exams at the end of it. However, there is uncertainty about when his university is going to reopen.Shrestha and other students say they also miss China, which has become a second home to them. Many of them speak Mandarin, which has allowed them to make Chinese friends that they left behind.“I really miss China,” says Shrestha, who is trying to see if it is possible to complete his internship in a hospital in Nepal.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101140/636b75709c7e80680e0623ecjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1080" height="1440"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>His experience has strengthened Shrestha’s conviction in his choice of profession. He witnessed firsthand how patients had to be sent back home in the early days of the outbreak despite Chinese health officials’ best efforts, because there simply wasn’t enough space to treat everyone. But he saw that the patients did not lose hope.“They would wait outside the hospital all night,” he remembers. “My father is a doctor, so I had always wanted to be one too, but in those moments I realised how much people expect from doctors.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/coronavirus-outbreak-may-curb-wildlife-trafficking/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19 outbreak may curb wildlife trafficking</a>, Sonia AwalePreliminary test results of all 175 students evacuated from Hubei have come back negative for COVID-19. The evacuees will undergo another round of testing after the 2-week quarantine period is over before being given the all-clear.Shrestha cannot wait to see his family. He points out that since the news from China was mostly focused on the deaths from the virus and not the recoveries, his family had been really concerned. He adds: “The joy I will feel when I see them after the quarantine is over will be very different to the joy I felt when I previously came back home from China.”

Shristi Karki

From Hubei to Kharipati

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b74ef9c7e80680e0623bejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="910" height="607"/>Today is my 23rd day of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/a-nepali-in-beijing-during-coronavirus-scare/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">isolation in my apartment</a> in Shanghai, my 23rd day of living in solitude and not going outdoors, not speaking with anyone in person. This has been the longest silence of my life.When <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the coronavirus</a> first struck China, I entered a deep panic, as did next to everyone I knew. After some days of cloistered existence, however, the crisis started to show us its instructive side. In Chinese, the word for ‘crisis’, 危机, is composed of two characters, one representing danger and the other representing opportunity. Like the union of Yin and Yang, everything has two sides: there is opportunity behind every crisis, but it takes courage and wisdom to see it.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/a-nepali-in-beijing-during-coronavirus-scare/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Nepali in Beijing during coronavirus scare</a>, Rastraraj BhandariOpportunity #1: To slow downChina has been on hyper mode for many years. GDP growth seems to be the single measure of success here and the country operates like a machine set at maximum speed. As an individual I am a part of that machine. I know it’s important to slow down to review and reflect, but I don’t have the courage to pull the brakes when the system around me is spinning crazily. This winter, the brakes of the system itself were pulled suddenly, by the coronavirus.The whole country ground to a halt. We had the longest holiday in history. Putting away anxieties about GDP growth and about climbing the social ladder, people stopped being cogs in a machine and returned to being human beings.My own experience has been that I have been able to ask myself what is truly important to me. I have started to read books not about productivity and how to get to the next level in my career, but about humanity and the meaning of life. No longer on autopilot, I have been able to step out of my programming and to live more consciously, to make more deliberate choices.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why Nepal must watch Coronavirus, but not panic</a>, Sameer M DixitOpportunity #2: To bond with familyIn the busy modern lives we live here in urban China, each of us always has our own agenda to follow, our own bucket list of things to do, our own personal ambitions to fulfill. Spending time with our elders perhaps does not even make it into the top five of our priorities. But the coronavirus cleared that obstacle for us. It brought us the unexpected gift of precious time with our families, time that many of us had not realized we had been missing.The voice of one friend of mine trembled as she shared with me her feelings after getting to spend two weeks with her parents. My friend is 55 and her parents are in their nineties. “It’s the first time in my life that I have been with them like this and I had never before this imagined myself connecting with them so deeply,” she said, “No rushes, no agenda, no to-do list, just spending time with them, listening to them, teaching them to meditate, sharing my world with them, and understanding their fears and joys. It felt like a life gift.”For a younger friend the shut-down was an opportunity to get to know his grandparents. “Like most Chinese families, my parents moved out of their hometown to a big city when I was four years old. I haven’t been back for years, but this year I got to spend extra time with them, hearing their stories from when they were young. For the first time, I got to know their full names and came to see them as human beings and not simply as a ‘grandma’ abstraction.”For another young friend, the virus scare recalibrated her relationship with her parents. “I have been very independent since college and enjoy the freedom of being on my own after years of restrictions. I used to call my parents only once a month. But because of the coronavirus I could not go home to celebrate Chinese New Year with them, and I also worried for their safety. The coronavirus made me reflect on my relationship with my family. I realised that I wanted to be in touch and to know more about what is happening in my parents’ lives.”Many others have shared with me such stories of “first times” with their families. When things slowed down, we came to recognize our human need to connect and to share with the ones we love. The virus shed light on the things that we take for granted and reminded us of how precious they are.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/coronavirus-outbreak-may-curb-wildlife-trafficking/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19 outbreak may curb wildlife trafficking</a>, Sonia AwaleOpportunity #3: CommunityModern life has trained us to live in isolation: to compete rather than collaborate, to be independent rather than interdependent, individualistic rather than community-minded. The crisis has taught us the opposite. Instead of thinking about personal achievement, in this moment of shared difficulty we have thought about how we can connect with others and make things happen together.Though most people are keeping indoors, online communities have been more active than ever. Numerous WeChat groups were created overnight, offering free online coaching, counseling, meditation, and all manner of nurturing support. Various organisations provided recordings of talks aimed at helping people relieve anxiety. Some groups offered simple online fireside sharing, which was healing for people and helped them stay connected.Once again, the crisis reminded us that we were human beings, not robots. And that human beings have a deep longing for love, belonging and connection, that these things matter more to us than career advancement or material gain.The evolution of personal awareness and consciousness, as we have seen happen in many ways during the coronavirus scare, leads to our being able to contribute to creating a better world. This is why I see the crisis as having a huge silver lining. May it be instructive and teach us to start the new decade in a reflective, fresh, and new way. Stay strong, China.I would like to share a poem written this week by a friend:In the days I was kept indoorsI saw myself startTo smell the scents of a flower To feel the rhythm of rain dropsTo see the light of sunriseTo see beauty in every small thing in lifeAlso, I reminded myself to start To see the truth as it itTo grow myself inwardsTo make a difference with my presenceTo speak to my heartTo love,  truly and authentically.Marcia Chen is a business professional based in Shanghai.

Covid-19: Both danger and opportunity

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b74e99c7e80680e0623bcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3600" height="2400"/><figcaption>Nepali students on their way to the quarantine centre in Bhaktapur after landing in Kathmandu Airport on Sunday morning. Photo: RSS</figcaption></figure>The global public health crisis caused by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/">the 2019 novel coronavirus </a>has  hospitalised tens of thousands and killed hundreds of people, wrecked tourism in the Asia-Pacific region, impacted civil aviation and slowed down the world economy.An <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-chinese-rage-death-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang">attempt by the Chinese authorities to suppress</a> first reports from Wuhan is blamed for the initial rise in case load, and its dissemination across China and the world. But it is also China’s willingness to quarantine a whole province that is stopping its spread.The epidemic has also exposed the challenges to containment in <a href="v">the age of social media</a>. Rumours and conspiracy theories resulting in stigmatisation and xenophobia have become the norm in a global village interconnected instantaneously by internet-based apps.The media’s habit of magnifying the negative is now exacerbated by the split-second reach of individual posts, click-baits, fake news, and the chain-reaction through shares and likes over web platforms.Till Wednesday, 2,012 people had died from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/a-nepali-in-beijing-during-coronavirus-scare/">the Wuhan virus</a>, and 75,227 are hospitalised. These statistics are constantly updated in the media, with countries where it has spread shaded ominously on a world map – giving the impression that it has spread globally.Yet there are very few mentions anywhere that nearly 15,000 infected people have made full recovery, or that the fatality rate for the virus is a low 2%. Even though no one has yet died in the United States from this virus strain, there is saturation coverage in the media that likens the epidemic to the one in the Hollywood thriller Contagion. Few compare Covid-19 to the common flu that killed nearly 35,000 people in the United States last winter.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b74eb9c7e80680e0623bdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1291"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The psychology of terror, irrationality of panic, and fear of diseases without cure are not new. What is new this time is mobile communication which allows panic about the virus to go viral.In Nepal, too, the media was obsessed with the plight of 182 students trapped in Hubei province. The issue was politicised by those opposed to Prime Minister Oli’s government – both within his NCP and without. Media gave prominence to tearful parents, highlighted a letter to the prime minister about his callousness and disregard. Under pressure already for non-performance, the government found <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-from-hubei-quarantined-in-bhaktapur/">the evacuation of the students to a quarantine camp</a> in Bhaktapur a convenient way to show-case action.If only the government reacted with similar efficiency to other, much more serious, national emergencies like Nepal’s unacceptably high maternal mortality rate. Although there has been a steep drop in the number of women who die in childbirth from 900 per 100,000 in 1990 to 239 today, Nepal has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/federalism-leaves-nepals-medical-sector-ailing/">missed the target</a> of reducing that number to 125 this year. It does not look like we will hit the SDG goal of 75 by 2030, either.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/who-will-save-nepals-poor-new-mothers/">More than 1,200 women die</a> in child birth every year in Nepal, that is three every day. Most of these are easily preventable either by ensuring proper nutrition, enforcing the ban on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/">child marriage</a>, ensuring access to ultrasound machines to detect complications in time, and encouraging institutional delivery.As Buddha Basnyat of the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) comments, it is only political will that is stopping Nepal from adopting the game-changer drug Tranexamic acid (TXA) in the treatment of post-partum haemorrhage, (PPH) the most common cause of maternal death. There is a huge 44% <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-far-from-hitting-contraceptive-target/">unmet need for contraceptives</a>, which is leading to unwanted pregnancies and preventing a further drop in Nepal’s total fertility rate.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/">Tuberculosis</a> kills 6,000 people in Nepal every year, and every other Nepali is a carrier of the bacillus, which means half the population should actually be quarantined. Yet the health system is supremely unconcerned, and the public is not aware of the risk.There were 2,736 fatalities in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-deadly-roads-take-their-toll/">road traffic accidents</a> in Nepal last year. Yet, even though the coronavirus has not killed anyone and there has been only one suspected case, Nepalis are hoarding supplies of masks and hand sanitisers. Meanwhile, vehicles continued to be driven recklessly over precarious roads. Where is the outrage?<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/air-pollution-is-more-dangerous-than-smoking/">Air pollution</a> in Kathmandu Valley, Chitwan and the Tarai is so bad that it is making many people die prematurely, reducing our lifespans by 3.5 years. Where is the peoples’ anger at having their lives cut short? It is ironic that residents of Kharipati are more worried about Nepali students from Wuhan being quarantined in their neighbourhood, than about the toxic fumes emitted by dozens of brick kilns nearby.To be sure, we cannot afford to be complacent when it comes to new epidemics like <a href="v">Covid-19</a>. However, it is the neglect of easily preventable diseases that kills more people in Nepal -- most often poor people in rural communities. We need a robust health system that prioritises primary health care, trains medical professionals, and builds a well-equipped infrastructure to handle future epidemics.But that does not make it into the news.Sonia Awale