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Praveen Kumar Yadav and Xian Yaolong

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What Nepal can learn from China

Published On: April 5, 2020 08:32 AM NPT By: Praveen Kumar Yadav and Xian Yaolong

On Weibo, a Twitter-like platform in China, netizens are criticizing the countries with increasing cases of coronavirus for not following China’s containment strategy. Although Beijing was blamed for its cover-up two months ago, the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases in China has fallen dramatically and even zero cases have been reported for many days. People in most parts of China are getting back to their normal life while the rest of the world, including Nepal, is experiencing the opposite trend as the coronavirus spreads. As of now, Nepal has reported six confirmed positive cases. All the infected are the Nepalis who returned from foreign countries: China, France, UAE, and Belgium. To contain the spread of the virus, Nepal has imposed nationwide lockdown (now in its second week). Though China was widely criticized in the beginning, now Chinese efforts in bringing the pandemic under control have been widely appreciated. Can China’s model be replicable for Nepal?