Bhutan’s capital goes into three-day lockdown amid suspected community transmission

Bhutan’s Health Minister Dechen Wangmo announced a 72 hours-long lockdown in the city after an eight-year-old student of a public school tested positive for the Covid-19. Health authorities, in the meantime, will conduct extensive screening and targeted testing of vulnerable people in different clusters in the city.

The result of the RT-PCR test of the student is still awaited and expected on Monday. However, the contact tracing and testing of potential contacts are going on.

All exits from the city were stopped immediately on Saturday while entry to the city was permitted for Saturday evening.

So far, Bhutan, a country with just 13 specialist doctors, including its own serving prime minister, has remained a unique success story when it comes to the handling of the Covid-19.

Since March last year, the country went into complete lockdown three times as soon as they detected any community transmission.

Prevention remains the key aspect of the country’s mantra in tackling the pandemic which has ravaged some of the world’s most developed countries. Effective communication strategy, scientific, rational, and sophisticated approach have greatly helped the country managing the crisis.

For instance, on Saturday, one of the close contacts of the suspected eight-year-old patient turned out to be an owner of a restaurant in the city. Lotay Tshering, the country’s prime minister, took to Facebook, posting the information related to the restaurant and asked those who had frequented it to get themselves screened.

Over 97 percent of its population have already received the first dose of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine in a record nine-day time. Since the first case emerged in March last year, it reported just one death due to Covid-19.