93 percent above 18 vaccinated in Nepal
We have a huge news on the vaccination front in Nepal. The government has announced that it has successfully vaccinated 93 percent of the target groups against COVID-19 by Friday, 18thth March 2022. The target group, all citizens above 18, in a total of 18,498,160 people have been given at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Ministry of Health and Population. The number of people who have been fully vaccinated is 16,184,858, which accounts for 81.2 percent of the total target population. Similarly, 3,118,785 (91 percent) people in the age group 12-17 years have been vaccinated in Nepal.
According to the ministry, a total of 39,223,941 vaccines were provided to all age groups till March 18. Of them, 18,695,826 received the first dose, 18,698,595 the second dose, and 1,829,520 have received the booster dose. The Government of Nepal has been providing Vero cell, Covishield, Astra- Zeneca, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. The government had received a total of 47,882,800 doses of vaccine via the grant assistance and procurement process.
The situation gets even better! Additional to the inoculation drives, the COVID cases in Nepal have been decreasing steeply for the past few weeks now and on Sunday Nepal recorded only 37 new cases of coronavirus infection similarly, 409 patients of COVID-19 have recovered in the past 24 hours. On 19th March 2020, Nepal recorded just 8 COVID infections, which has to be the lowest infection in a day since the outbreak of the omicron variant.
With the lowest COVID cases in the country and combined with the successful inoculation drives, Nepal is very safe to travel to. The mountaineering season is also on the way and the spring tourist season has already started in Nepal and hundreds of tourists have already arrived in Nepal. The government has also recently revised the entry provision wherein fully vaccinated international travelers can enter the country by just showing their vaccinated card while travelers who have not been vaccinated or have received only one jab need to produce a negative RT-PCR test valid within 72 hours.
This year’s Phagu Purnima or Holi, the festival of colors, was celebrated with much fanfare in the Capital and other parts of the hilly region on Thursday and in the plains of Nepal on Friday. The festival is generally celebrated by smearing abeer (red vermilion powder) and throwing color and water-filled balloons at each other and with folk songs and dance. Holi revelers gathered at different places of the Capital especially in Basantapur and Thamel to play Holi on Thursday with very good numbers of foreigners joining in the fun. Holi celebrations were also in full swing on the streets of Pokhara in Kaski district, the second-largest tourist city in Nepal. This year around, we witnessed a high number of tourists in Holi celebration around the country, especially in the capital. The tourist here for the Spring season and mountaineering season were amongst the tourist celebrating holi.
With the decreasing number of cases in Nepal and coupled with good results on inoculation drives, Nepal sees itself as one of the safest destinations to travel this year. Additionally, with updated and easy entry provision with seamless visa processes, we hope to see more and more tourist arrivals in Nepal and we believe this is the beginning that we were hoping to have for the last 2 years.