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Nepal reported 21 new Covid-19 cases on Monday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 5, 152 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 11 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 157 people underwent antigen tests, of which six were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 319 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 1, 254 active cases in the country.

Two elderly men have been arrested for their alleged involvement in raping minor girls in different places of Kailali district. 

DSP Bed Prasad Joshi, spokesperson at the District Police Office, Kailali, said that they have apprehended Tilak Shah (60) for raping an 11-year-old girl of Chure Rural Municipality. 

Joshi said that Shah was arrested based on a complaint that he raped the girl while she had gone to a jungle to collect for the cattle. 

Similarly, police have nabbed Kallu Damai of Ghodaghadi Municipality-11 for raping an 11-year-old girl of the same municipality. 

DSP Laxman Bahadur Shahi, Chief at the Area Police Office, Sukhad, said that Damai was arrested on Sunday. 

Police said that they are looking into both cases. 

Hong Kong said on Sunday it is shortening the ban on airlines that are found to have carried three or more passengers who test positive for COVID-19 upon arrival, as the number of local cases continues to ease from its peak, Reuters reported.

Starting on Friday, the ban on individual airline routes will be halved to seven days as part of an ongoing "flight suspension mechanism", the government said in a statement.

The change comes after the government said last week a ban on flights from nine countries - Canada, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Britain, the United States, France, Australia and the Philippines - would be lifted on April 1.

If there is at least one positive test and at least one case of non-compliance with pre-departure testing on any single flight, the airline will also be suspended from flying the route for seven days.

Hong Kong reported 8,037 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday and 151 deaths, the second day in a row below 10,000 cases, as its latest wave of infections continues to ease, according to Reuters.

The financial hub will relax the social distancing measures in phases starting April 21, allowing restaurant dining after 6 p.m. with tables of four people, up from two currently.

Hong Kong's economy is set to contract in the first quarter, breaking four quarters of recovery streak, as retail sales fell for the first time in 12 months in February and export growth slowed, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said on his blog.

Businesses and the city's economy are reeling from widespread closures, as the government has imposed stringent social distancing rules since January amid a dramatic spike in the Omicron variant.

While the former British colony has officially stuck to a "dynamic zero" coronavirus policy similar to that of mainland China, which seeks to curb all outbreaks, it has been shifting to mitigation strategies as deaths skyrocketed, Reuters reported.

China began locking down most of its largest city of Shanghai on Monday as a coronavirus outbreak surges and amid questions about the economic toll of the nation’s “zero-COVID” strategy, Associated Press reported.

Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from early Monday to Friday as citywide mass testing gets underway, the local government said. In the second phase of the lockdown, the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River that divides the city will then start its own five-day lockdown Friday. 

Residents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended. 

Already, many communities within the city of 26 million have been locked down, with their residents required to submit to multiple tests for COVID-19. And Shanghai’s Disney theme park is among the businesses that closed earlier, according to the Associated Press.

Shanghai detected another 3,500 cases of infection on Sunday, though all but 50 were people who tested positive but were not showing symptoms of COVID-19. China categorizes such cases separately from “confirmed cases” — those in people who are sick — leading to much lower totals in daily reports.

China has reported more than 56,000 infections nationwide this month, with a surge in the northeastern province of Jilin accounting for most of them. 

In response to its biggest outbreak in two years, China has continued to enforce what it calls the “dynamic zero-COVID” approach, calling that the most economical and effective prevention strategy against COVID-19, Associated Press reported.

That requires lockdowns and mass testing, with close contacts often being quarantined at home or in a central government facility. The strategy focuses on eradicating community transmission of the virus as quickly as possible, sometimes by locking down entire cities. 

While officials, including Communist Party leader Xi Jinping have encouraged more targeted measures, local officials tend to take a more extreme approach, concerned with being fired or otherwise punished over accusations of failing to prevent outbreaks. 

With China’s economic growth already slowing, the extreme measures are seen as worsening difficulties striking employment, consumption and even global supply chains.

While China’s vaccination rate is around 87%, it is considerably lower among older people. 

National data released earlier this month showed that over 52 million people aged 60 and older have yet to be vaccinated with any COVID-19 vaccine. Booster rates are also low, with only 56.4% of people between 60-69 having received a booster shot, and 48.4% of people between 70-79 having received one, according to the Associated Press.