Nepal has banned all domestic flights from Monday (May 3) midnight and all international flights from Wednesday (May 5) midnight until May 14 due to increasing COVID-19 cases.
Health Minister Hridayesh Tripathi has stated that the decision on flight restrictions will be in place until May 14, but charter flights will be allowed.
Nepal has made quaratine mandatory for everyone arriving in the country. Those flying in from abroad will be subject to a mandatory 10-day quarantine in hotels upon arrival.
All travellers will have to produce a negative polymerase chain reaction test (RT-PCR) result done within 72 hours prior to departure for entry into Nepal.
Earlier, Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority had decided to introduce a fixed allocation system for airlines to restrict the number of flights.
According to statistics, a day before the prohibitory orders came into force, domestic airlines saw an all-time one-day record of passenger numbers of 15,263 on April 28.
As the orders were being enforced in Kathmandu, people scrambled to leave the city.
Bus services too have been stopped since April 29.
Nepal had earlier enforced two-week prohibitory orders in Kathmandu on April 29. The three districts of Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, and Lalitpur are the most affected by the pandemic in terms of the number of daily infections being recorded.
On Sunday, Nepal reported the highest-single day rise of coronavirus cases since the beginning of the virus outbreak in January last year. The country recorded 74 new infections in antigen tests and 7,137 in polymerase chain reaction tests, and 27 new fatalities from COVID-19-related complications while the death toll reached 3,325.
With the number of active cases at 48,711 the countrywide infection now tallies to 3,36,030. The highest number of daily cases was recorded on Sunday, May 2.
