Covid-19: Nepal halves entry points with India, suspends flights till Sept

Nepal has decided to halve the number of designated entry points for Indian nationals to 10 from the existing 20 and extended the suspension of domestic and international flights until August 31 due to the spike in coronavirus cases in the country.

A Cabinet meeting held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Baluwatar on Monday evening made the decisions on the recommendations made by the Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre (CCMC).

The government had partially lifted the lockdown 120 days after it was first enforced on March 24 to contain the spread of Covid-19. The government had then announced its plans to resume long-distance public transportation services, domestic and international flights from August 17.

The Cabinet meeting also decided to reduce the designated entry points for people entering Nepal from India to 10 from existing 20 in view of the spread of Covid-19 due to unchecked cross-border movement.

Security has been stepped up in the border area to check unauthorised movement of people, officials said.

Nepal on Tuesday recorded 638 new coronavirus cases, taking the national tally to 23,948.

The Kathmandu Valley witnessed the highest single-day spike of 134 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said. Four more Covid-19 related deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, taking the country's coronavirus death toll to 83. According to the Health Ministry, there are currently 7,201 active cases of coronavirus in the country.

At a media briefing, Jageshwar Gautam, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population said that 10,562 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were conducted at various laboratories across the country in the past 24 hours.

The total number of PCR tests conducted in the country so far is 462,698.

He informed that 171 persons who earlier tested positive for Covid-19 were discharged after recovery in the past 24 hours. "With this, 16,664 persons have recovered from coronavirus as of Tuesday," he said.