As per the national COVID-19 situational update issued by the Ministry of Health, one new positive case has been confirmed. The individual who tested positive is a 33-year-old Bhutanese man who recently returned from the Middle East. This takes the total positive cases in the country to 48 and the numbers in isolation to 21.
With the virus showing no signs of slowing down, the health ministry has appealed to the general public to practice good personal and hand hygiene, physical distancing, and proper cough etiquette.
“Washing your hands frequently is one of the important measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus. It is also important to practice proper cough etiquette. From one perspective, the virus is giving us a good opportunity to improve public health behaviour. The health ministry is also looking into changing the overall public health behaviour,” said Lyonpo Dechen Wangmo.
Meanwhile, two more individuals have been declared recovered, taking the total number of recoveries to 11. 7 are females and while four are males.
The Health Ministry also reported that two more individuals have been moved from isolation to the de-isolation facility upon testing negative twice. This takes the total number of individuals under de-isolation to 16.
De-isolation is the 2-week long period where a confirmed positive case is kept under further observation after testing negative twice while being in isolation.
Meanwhile, the confirmed Bhutanese COVID-19 cases outside Bhutan stand at 22 with no new cases detected in the last 24 hours.
For now, with no community transmission and all cases being imported from outside, Bhutan continues to remain in the orange zone.
Passang Dorji
