KATHMANDU- The district administration offices of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur have decided to impose a week-long lockdown in the Kathmandu Valley, prohibiting businesses, services and movement of the people except for essential purposes.
The one-week long lockdown—issued as prohibitory order—will come into effect from Wednesday midnight. This lockdown will be in place until August 26. Following a joint meeting of the Chief District Officers (CDOs) of the three districts, a decision was made to impose the lockdown as part of measures to contain the recent spike in coronavirus cases.
However, they are yet to formally issue the order. According to a source at the District Administration Office, Kathmandu, the notice of prohibitory order will be issued on Wednesday.
The lockdown order will curtail the movement of people as well as ban businesses including public transportation except for essential services. According to the prohibitory order, no government, private or nongovernmental offices will be allowed to operate during the lockdown.
While there were already a number of restrictions put in place, the local administrations of the valley decided to impose a complete lockdown following a sharp rise of Covid-19 cases in recent days.
According to the Ministry of Health and Population, the country registered 1,016 more COVID-19 cases within the past 24 hours, the highest single day spike. Kathmandu Valley also observed new cases with 205 people testing positive for coronavirus infection in a single day. The total number of infected people in Nepal has now reached 28,257.
The lockdown order of the district administration offices in the Kathmandu Valley also follows the cabinet decision on Monday to grant District CDOs of all 77 districts in the country the authority to impose prohibitory order based on their own risk assessment.
Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, the joint meeting of the CDOs of three districts concluded that public health risk was growing due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases.
The pandemic is said to have spread to a community level after the government decided to lift its nearly four-month long nation-wide lockdown on July 20, with some restriction in place.
