Impact of COVID -19 in Nepal
The persistent drumbeat of positive tests and reported deaths in other countries due to novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has created widespread concerns in Nepal also. Nepal is starting to suffer the most abrupt and widespread cessation of economic activity due to the outbreak of this virus. As per the analysis by the Asian Development Bank, the outbreak of this deadly disease will hit almost every sector of the Nepali economy, shaving up to 0.13 per cent off the gross domestic product and rendering up to 15,880 people jobless.
Impact on Healthcare
The lockdown has affected the health of individuals and disrupted healthcare services, particularly emergency and regular health services. During the lockdown, at the individual level, one of the most notable impacts was on psychological health. Quarantine, social isolation, and travel restrictions had negatively impacted the mental health of people who have COVID-19 and their families.
A few preliminary studies have shown psychological issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia among the general population as well as frontline health workers. A study by Gupta and colleagues conducted among 150 health workers showed that 38 % of the healthcare workers on COVID-19 duty in Nepal suffered anxiety and/or depression. Another online survey conducted among 475 health workers showed that 41.9% of health workers had symptoms of anxiety, 37.5% had depression symptoms and 33.9% had symptoms of insomnia. Incidents of stigmatization and social discrimination of healthcare workers, people who have COVID-19 and their families were also reported in Nepal during the lockdown.
Nepal Police record shows that during the lockdown, the number of suicide cases has increased. Within 74 days of lockdown, a total of 1,227 people committed suicide, which is more than 15 suicidal death per month compared to the previous year. Although reasons for what had caused suicide and suicidal thoughts are still unknown in Nepal, they could be linked to the uncertainty about the pandemic, self-isolation, financial burden, loss of family members, stigma as evident in previous disasters and epidemic. In addition to suicide, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and rape were being perpetrated during the lockdown in Nepal.
The government’s priority to combat COVID-19 and the lockdown adopted to contain its transmission put vulnerable populations such as pregnant women, children, the elderly, and people with non-COVID diseases at risk by impacting their ability to access essential healthcare services. For example, pregnant women faced barriers to accessing regular antenatal care and delivery services and patients with non-communicable diseases faced barriers to access long-term care and medicines during the lockdown periods. Millions of children aged between 6 months and 5 years missed measles and rubella mass immunisation, vitamin A, and deworming tablets because the Government of Nepal postponed these national-level campaigns. Limited ability to access such essential and routine health care services poses an urgent threat to the nation’s health and could reverse some of the achievements in reducing maternal, newborn, and child deaths.
COVID-19 Testing
The testing capacity of the country has not increased due to a shortage of RT-PCR test kits, personal protective equipment, trained workers, and medical supplies. With limited testing capacity, it is challenging to monitor the transmission of the virus in Nepal because the suspected cases continue to transmit the virus while awaiting the COVID-19 test. Some COVID-19 cases remain asymptomatic, so it is difficult to predict the severity of the outbreak. There are only a few health facilities capable of treating and managing the cases with some degree of preparedness and readiness to provide the services. If the number of cases becomes higher than the capacity of these health facilities to cope with the increased demand it would be more challenging to contain the virus.
Impact on Other Sectors
The impact has already started to surface in a number of sectors like tourism, trade and production linkages, supply and health. Especially the entire service industries: tourism, aviation and hospitality sector have been hit hard by the outbreak.
Impact on Tourism
With the launch of visit Nepal 2020 campaign in January, the country was hoping to attract two million visitors, but due the corona pandemic the campaign got cancelled which has shattered the hospitality and tourism related business sector. With this the tourist arrival rate has declined to below 10 percent, from 70 percent before the Covid-19 outbreak. Tourism sector, being one of the largest industries, has been contributing 8 percent to Nepal’ s economy. Likewise, cancellation of all spring mountaineering expeditions, including Everest ascents, has resulted in job loss of around 13,000 tour, trekking and mountain guides. The outbreak has affected people’s lives as well as the private and public sectors. Banks are suffering from loss of their investments in hospitality and aviation due to the coronavirus tourist slump. Not only this, the impact has been also visible in the manufacturing industries. As most raw materials including pharmaceutical chemicals come from China, supply of these raw materials has decreased drastically.
Economic Impact
Foreign employment has not only been addressing Nepal ’s unemployment issues but has also been contributing significantly to the country’s economy in the form of remittance. The money that labour migrants sent back in 2019 contributed 26 percent to the country’s GDP. Increase rate of the virus has impacted remittance inflow and government revenue collection as the majority of the destination countries attractive for the outbound workers have announced a lockdown while the import has also started to decline as of late. In the current situation, the coronavirus’ effect on remittances is disastrous. In these two months the remittance source has contributed less than 1% to the country’s economy. The downturn in remittance has created a severe impact on overall consumption in the country.
Impact on Trade
Nepal has experienced rapid economic growth in recent years mainly driven by exports of cardamom, jute goods, polyester yarn and threads, noodles and pashmina. The country is largely dependent on imported products from neighbouring countries. After the outbreak of Covid-19, the import and export-oriented companies are also at risk. The export-import position of the months of the same period previously in Nepal that was booming was now in crisis.
The wholesale and retail sector is the second largest contributor to the economy, after agriculture. The sector contributes 14.37 percent to the economy, which is already being affected by the drastic downfall in imports from China following the outbreak of the disease. While these are the prevailing state, looking ahead there is also a high risk of general inflation. In the situation of limited supply from China, Nepal may have to import from third countries, which results in the products becoming more costly.
Future of COVID-19 in Nepal
Future COVID-19 cases in Nepal will depend on the situation in India where the cases are increasing rapidly. Nepal shares an open border with India and there may be an increase in the number of Nepali workers returning from India who remain stranded in different parts of India due to the lockdowns in both countries. It is estimated that 600,000 migrant workers will return to Nepal within a few weeks of lifting the nationwide lockdown restrictions. This flow of migrant workers could increase the number of cases as the government has not been able to utilise the lockdown time efficiently to prepare and ready for responding to COVID-19. The challenge will be to test and trace these people for COVID-19. Before the lockdown, thousands of migrant Nepali workers returned to Nepal without proper screening from the Indian states of Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat, where the R0 value is more than one indicating an outbreak of COVID-19 in these states.
Conclusion
The outbreak of Covid-19 paralyzed the whole industrial sectors of the world as well as the economy. Nepal has also faced an economic slowdown and fall in a great difficulty because this country largely depends on foreign remittance and exports of cardamom, jute goods, polyester yarn and threads, noodles, pashmina, palm oil, pulses, zinc sheet, handicrafts, and skin.
Due to the COVID-19 crisis, migrant workers returned to Nepal from foreign countries, rendering a huge number of the population unemployed and increasing depression among the unemployed. A coordinated global effort is required to support countries such as Nepal that currently do not have sufficient fiscal space to finance social policy, in particular universal social protection systems. Debt sustainability should be prioritised in this endeavour.
Without long-term structural changes, the deep-rooted inequalities exposed by the crisis will merely intensify. As well as tackling the immediate effects of the crisis, Nepal now has a unique opportunity to adopt policies aimed at achieving social justice and a human centred future of work.
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