Prime Minister K P Oli has tested negative for the COVID-19. Sources close to Prime Minister Oli said the COVID-19 test turned out to be negative. The prime minister had undergone COVID-19 test after his advisors and staff working at his personal secretariat tested positive for the virus earlier on Saturday. There were concerns about the health condition of Oli after his chief advisor Bishnu Rimal, Press Advisor Surya Thapa and Foreign Affairs Advisor Rajan Bhattarai announced on their social media accounts on Saturday that they had tested positive for COVID-19. 

Three key advisors of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday. In RT-PCR tests conducted yesterday [Friday], PM Oli’s Chief Advisor Bishnu Rimal, Press Advisor Surya Thapa, and Foreign Affairs Advisor Rajan Bhattarai tested positive for COVID-9. Posting on their social media accounts, the advisors announced that they had tested positive for the virus during recent PCR tests. “I have tested positive for COVID-19. In a PCR testing conducted yesterday, I have tested positive for the virus,” Rimal wrote on Twitter. He has also requested those who came in his contact to be cautious.

 As many as 74 security personnel working at Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s official residence in Baluwatar were diagnosed with novel coronavirus disease on Saturday. According to highly-placed security sources, those tested positive for the COVID-19 include 28 Nepal Army (NA) personnel, 21 Nepal Police personnel and 3 from the National Investigation Department. Sources said COVID-19 test reports of 45 other security personnel deployed at the PMO are still awaited. 

Nepal recorded 2,120 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the national COVID-19 tally to 84,570. Nepal also witnessed eight more COVID-19 related deaths on Saturday. With this, Nepal’s COVID-19 death toll has jumped to 528. According to Dr Jageshwar Gautam, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), 2,120 new cases were detected on Saturday through 12,978 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests conducted across the nation.Likewise, as many as 2,044 people who had earlier tested positive for the virus have recovered. As of Saturday afternoon, 62,740 COVID-19 patients have recovered which accounts for 74.19 percent of the total cases.

The COVID-19 case tally of Kathmandu Metropolis has reached almost 10,000. As of Saturday, the metropolis alone has recorded 9,825 cases. Of the COVID-19 cases detected in the Valley, ward 15 has recorded the highest 871 cases, followed by ward 3, 11, 13 and 16 with more than 500 cases each, according to Hari Kuwar, chief of the Metropolitan Public Health Division. Likewise, some 990 COVID-19 patients are undergoing treatment in home isolation while 572 are in hospitals and 583 in institutional isolation centers. So far, as many as 509 people who had earlier tested positive have recovered and returned home while 80 people have succumbed to COVID-19.

Police have arrested Badri Sahani, one of the accused of the Rautahat mass killing in 2008, from the Indian side of the Nepal-India border on Saturday. A team of police from the Province 2 Police Office, Janakpurdham, arrested Sahani, 44, a permanent resident of Simraungadh Municipality-4, on the charge of killing and injuring nearly two dozen people in 2008. Police arrested Sahani with the help of the Indian Police.  “Acting on a special tip-off, we arrested Sahani from the border region,” confirmed Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Dhiraj Pratap Singh, who is the chief of the Province Police Office. In 2008, a massive blast occurred in Rautahat district, leaving 14 dead and eight injured. The dead and blast-injured were later thrown into a nearby brick kiln to destroy evidence. It was later learnt that Nepali Congress leader Mohammad Aftab Alam carried out the bomb attack to create terror in the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections for securing win.   

Nepali Congress (NC) Central Working Committee members Arjun Narasingh KC, Gagan Kumar Thapa, Kalpana Chaudhary, and Shambhu Lal Shrestha have tested positive for the COVID-19.

According to party sources, they are among more than 60 people tested positive for the COVID-19 during the COVID-19 test conducted recently. Swabs were collected from 240 people at NC Headquarters in Sanepa a few days ago. Sources said those tested positive for the COVID-19 include personal secretary and security personnel deployed for the security of NC leaders. 

Taking to the social media on Saturday evening, NC CWC member and lawmaker Thapa said that he was tested positive for the virus. He has also urged all those who have come to this contact in the past few days to take necessary precautions. 

 While COVID-19 cases are spiking daily at an alarming rate, the campaign of distributing the gurjo (giloy) plant in the Kathmandu Valley has paced up in recent days. Gurjo water is very much useful in combating COVID-19 as it helps in boosting the immune system of the consumer. The campaigners have been distributing seedlings, gurjo powder, stems and tea free of cost as per the demand in the Valley. According to Kamal Bahadur Rajlavat, chief officer at the Inland Revenue Office, Lahan, the campaign has been successful in distributing gurjo across the country without any cost. The campaign has distributed more than 90,000 gurjo seedlings till date.

 
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