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The Health Ministry's National Mental Health Response Team recorded more cases of anxiety, depression, and reaction to COVID-19 positive status this lockdown. From around 140 calls received so far, more than 70 were related to anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric issues. 

Bhutan This Week ( January 1- 7, 2021)

Monggar police, on the 9th January 2021, registered two cases of breach of lockdown protocols. While one case involves 16 men who played archery during the Nyilo, another involves eight women, who played khuru during the lockdown.  

While the pandemic has distorted the normal functioning of every-day life, persons living with disabilities were hit the hardest. However, Ability Bhutan Society (ABS) is up to its best to provide the most needful. 

A ropeway, the only lifeline to cross the Mochhu River, two households of Yangkana under Goenshari Gewog in Punakha is genuinely in need of a proper bridge. It has been two decades now that the villages have been dependent on the ropeway to travel and transport their goods till the nearest road point.

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) will fast-track the prosecutions of the cases related to the breach of lockdown protocols. Defaulters would be charged under two sections of the Penal Code of Bhutan with non-compoundable prison terms.  

Boulder export from Gelephu to Bangladesh resumed in November last year, but it has never been able to regain its normal pace even until now. Most of the exporters have now suspended the export due to risks along the 350 kilometres highway through the Assam and Meghalaya states.

Bhutan reported its first death due to the COVID-19 on 7th January 2021. A 34-year-old COVID-19 patient with pre-existing medical conditions died at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital (JDWNRH). He was admitted to the COVID-19 ward. 

Although lockdown has been relaxed in the zones that did not report any community transmission, with travel restrictions, concerns are still high among farmers, especially for an undisturbed market for their farm produces. A women farmers’ group of Goling under Nangkhor Gewog in Zhemgang is one of them. 

With the inter-dzongkhag travel restriction still in force, the government has facilitated travel for stranded people in various parts of the country since a few days back, but what of those who do not own a private car?