Cleaners work at a reopened shopping mall in Lalitpur, Nepal on Sept. 12, 2020. The Nepali government on Friday reported the record high single day spike in COVID-19 cases of 1,454 in the last 24 hours. Despite rising cases, the Nepali local administrations in the Kathmandu valley eased restrictions imposed on transport services and business activities starting from Thursday for a week. (Photo by Sulav Shrestha/Xinhua)
KATHMANDU, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Nepali government on Friday reported the record high single day spike in COVID-19 cases of 1,454 in the last 24 hours.
The last record high number of daily COVID-19 cases was observed on Sept. 4 with 1,354 new infections in a day.
"With the new infections, total COVID-19 cases in Nepal reached 51,919," said Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population at a press meet on Friday.
The total coronavirus cases in Nepal surpassed 50,000 on Thursday.
The cases started to resurge since the Nepali government officially ended the nearly four-month-long lockdown on July 22 allowing most of the economic activities to resume. The cases have nearly tripled from 17,994 reported on July 21.
Nepali officials expected a continued rise in the cases in the upcoming days. "In the worst case scenario, we have expected the cases to surge upto 90,000," Sameer Kumar Adhikari, joint spokesperson at the health ministry told Xinhua recently.
Despite rising cases, the Nepali local administrations in the Kathmandu valley eased restrictions imposed on transport services and business activities starting from Thursday for a week.
Kathmandu valley has emerged as the major hotspot of coronavirus in the country recently with 696 out of the 1,454 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry.
While the total cases were largely confined initially among the Nepali migrant population who had returned home after the pandemic, it has now spread in the communities. According to Adhikari, more than 95 percent cases are locally transmitted in the recent days.
Nepal also reported five new deaths on Friday, increasing the total fatality from the pandemic to 322.
Meanwhile, Nepal's Tourism Minister Yogesh Bhattarai said on Thursday that the Nepali government has removed the limit on international air passengers coming to Nepal. Earlier, the Nepali government had restricted the number to maximum 800 per day. Nepali government allowed the resumption of scheduled international flights starting from Sept. 2. Enditem
