Team News Riveting
After confirmation of the first Covid-19 case in Namche Bazar this week, officials of the Khumbu rural municipality have decided to indefinitely shut down the Mt Everest region for outsiders effective Saturday 24 October.
Earlier, a statement had given one day notice and said the region would close on Friday itself. But that would leave many trekkers stranded in the region where the nearest road is a two day walk from Lukla.
Solukhumbu district had been considered Covid-19 free, and hundreds of visitors including climbers from Bahrain Royal Guard expedition team as well as Nepali hikers have been in the area in recent weeks. Foreign trekkers had also started trickling in after Nepal allowed hikers and climbers from abroad after 17 October.
However, the local municipality made it mandatory for airlines flying to Lukla to verify all passengers had PCR negative reporters before boarding in Kathmandu. But residents and officials were shocked when the first confirmed coronavirus case was detected in a 65-year-old man in Namche Bazar on Thursday.
Local officials in Solukhumbu have sprung into action, flying in medics from Kathmandu directly to Namche Bazar by helicopter on Friday, when they are planning to collect throat swabs of around 400 people.
The COVID-19 scare has once more thrown the prospect of trekking and climbing in the Everest region this autumn season into uncertainty. It is not clear whether an international expedition on Mt Ama Dablam made up of a Qatari Sheikh with British and the US climbers will go ahead.
After eight months, non-Nepalis were finally allowed to fly to Kathmandu from 17 October, but with two bizarre exceptions: flights from Indian cities are still banned, and only foreign trekkers and mountaineers are allowed into Nepal.
