Supreme Court of Nepal has delivered a landmark verdict reconfirming the protection of Nepali citizens wherever they are in times of pandemic. This comes at times of rising corruption in government involving the procurement of life-saving personal protection equipment urgently needed for the protection of frontline health workers. Transferring procurement responsibility to Nepal Army does not resolve the crises which emerged from governance failures. This action only reflects the government’s move to deflect public attention and scrutiny away from government inefficiency.

America has lived through many pandemics most of which have had economic and political ramifications. The current COVID- 19 pandemic has had additional psychological dimensions to it. It has evolved to be extremely devastating for America. The public health crisis has surpassed the worst nightmares experienced in recent history since World War II.

NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump has labeled himself a wartime president, and many others around the world are using similar language. It’s a description that raises an obvious question: What does the history and nature of war tell us about fighting a virus?

Every great disaster wrecks humanity to its core but it also makes us aware of our mortality, lays bare our arrogance, prejudice, pride, fear of death and the desire to stand supreme despite the predictable vulnerabilities. This is what has happened since the illness that broke out in early January that has now become the global pandemic.

Over the last three months, humanity has witnessed something unprecedented which is changing the way we live and look at things. Starting from China, then Europe and the Middle East and now all over, including North America, we are trying to cope with this highly contagious Novel Corona Virus. Within a short period of time, it has transformed into a pandemic, infecting more than a million people around the world with the disease we call COVID-19. Before we could realize the magnitude of the problem we are facing, and prepare our health care systems to deal with it, this disease has made a monumental impact on our daily lives whether we are infected with it or not. Leaders around the world, scientists and healthcare professionals are making efforts to help contain or lessen its toll on human lives.

CAMBRIDGE – COVID-19 is confronting humanity with its most severe test since 1918 when an influenza pandemic killed more people than died in World War I. Yet the top leaders of the world’s two largest economies, China and the United States, have failed the first round.

It is not an understatement to say that the COVID-19 virus has changed the world. The whole world is in panic and disorder right now. The fact that we don’t know when this will come to an end is even scarier to contemplate. The majority of the countries across the globe are in lockdown. People are told to stay indoors to minimize the spread of the coronavirus as much as possible. Being in lockdown might seem unsettling for the majority of people right now, but I am used to it. I have been on mental and physical lockdown for the last four and a half years. However, I am still fighting to not let the lockdown lock my life down.

The casualty figures show no sign of stopping anytime soon. With the number of COVID-19 infected and deceased going up by the day, governments across Europe and North America are scrambling to put measures in place. At the same time, talks of how the world will look like after the containment of the virus are slowly starting to emerge. New York Times columnist Thomas Freidman writes that the world will now have a new historical divide, BC—before corona and AC—after corona—while acclaimed author Yuval Noah Harrari feels that in the post COVID world, people might have to forgo their privacy for the sake of their health. Many others have their own arguments.

BEIJING – When he welcomed US President Donald Trump to Beijing’s Forbidden City in 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed to the character “peace” in the names of all three halls of the great complex, emphasizing the Confucian maxim “Peace is prized above all.”

Fourteen days for death to rear its head, 14 days for life, 14 days for a breath of fresh air, 14 days to hide.