Karnali State government restricts night entry of people

Kathmandu - The Karnali State government has banned the entry of people into the state with effective from August 17, citing increased risk of COVID-19 pandemic. A meeting of the Province Crisis management Centre (PCMC) on Thursday decided to restrict the entry of people coming from foreign countries as well as other parts of the country into the state at night time.

It also decided that those entering the state during the day time should also produce their PCR test report from three days before. The meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi, has decided to keep the Nepali citizens coming from within the country and abroad in separate quarantine facilities.

The citizens returning from neighbouring country India would be kept at quarantine at the transit points on the State's border. The Ministry of Social Development has been directed to make alternative arrangements for using the buildings of the Midwestern University if the quarantines at the border transit points do not have enough space to accommodate the people entering the state.

Likewise, the meeting has issued instructions to the bodies concerned to make provisions for conducting PCR test of employees and people's representatives when they have to travel out from or come in Surkhet for essential official work. It has assigned the responsibility of facilitation to the ministry of Social Development for compulsorily using mask, make provisions for using masks at the community level and for constructing one quarantine or a permanent type isolation facility at each local level.

Similarly, the meeting has decided to make the checking strict at the border transit points of the state. It has also decided to set up additional five intensive care units each at the district hospital in Dailekh, Salyan and Kalikot districts. One ventilator each would be provided to the district hospital of these districts, the Social Development Minister, Dala Rawal, said.

There are altogether 40 ICU and 17 ventilators in the three districts. Two thousand fifty two people have tested positive for coronavirus in Karnali so far. However, the number of so-called active case is 145. Six people have died of COVID-19 while 1,901 people have recovered from the pandemic in the state.