Schools or lives

Reopening schools requires a thorough assessment of the implications.

As Nepal’s seroprevalence survey shows, 13 percent of the country’s population has been exposed to Covid-19 until September. According to officials, Province 2 tops the list at 23 percent followed by Bagmati at 13 percent. In the Kathmandu Valley, 17 percent of those who participated in the survey had antibodies against the virus. These are alarming figures; epidemiologists warn that a lot more could have been infected by now. Results of seroprevalence surveys conducted in different countries show that their numbers are on the lower side—less than 10 percent.