KATHMANDU, Sept 28: Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali on Monday said the risk of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country is beyond the prediction of the government.  The remarks of Minister Gyawali, who is also the spokesperson of the government, comes as the daily count of new COVID-19 cases is on the sharp rise.

Addressing a press conference organized to publicize cabinet decisions, Minister Gyawali said it is too early to say how long this situation would last as infection rate is escalating at an alarming rate. “At this hour of health crisis, we all should exercise high levels of precaution against this global pandemic,” he said.

Gyawali said that the restriction imposed on various sectors has been eased not because of low risk of this viral disease, but as an attempt to normalize and balance daily life of people. “As major festivals are just around the corner, we need to be more careful to avoid further spread of this disease.”

On the occasion, Minister Gyawali also urged the house owners and business enterprises not to force the tenants and employees to undergo PCR tests to diagnose the COVID-19 disease. This is against the test guidelines formulated by the government, he added.

Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported on January 24, as many as 74,745 cases linked to the virus have been confirmed in Nepal as of Monday afternoon. The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) said a total of 1,351 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours alone. 

Nepal’s federal capital, Kathmandu reported 817 new cases on Monday alone, taking the total case tally to 22,124.

 
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