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The scariest thing about the novel coronavirus is that any of you reading this may have it and yet be asymptomatic. Nepal has reported just a single case. Probably at least a few more are infected. In a coronavirus infection, the older you are, the more severe symptoms you are likely to show. Particularly vulnerable are the elderly with preexisting health conditions like heart and lung ailments. Thankfully, Nepal is a young country with an average age of 21.6 years. Just around four percent of the national population of around 30 million are over-65.

Thus, even if the global pandemic touches Nepal again, most of the sufferers here will fully recover. Yet that is cold comfort. First, we have inadequate test kits and a potentially large number of asymptomatic young carriers of the virus. In that case, they could pass on the infection to the more vulnerable elder members in their homes and communities. With our under-funded and over-stretched healthcare system, complications among the elderly may then explode. It is telling that in places with good healthcare systems novel coronavirus fatality rate is around 0.5 percent, compared to around 3.4 in places with bad ones.  

It is vital to test all those who show even some symptoms of novel coronavirus quickly. But that is not enough. Over the past week or so, China and South Korea, the two Asian hotspots of coronavirus, have been able to cut the number of new infections drastically through a rigorous tracing and prompt isolation of all those who have come in contact with proven coronavirus carriers. The results have been drastic: the number of daily new cases in China has plummeted from 3,500 in late January to under 24 (as we went to press). 

This gives us hope that even if the virus reenters Nepal, it can be contained. But only if the country can strictly adhere to the rules that have worked elsewhere. Our ability to contain the virus depends on the ease of availability of protective masks and sanitizers. On whether we can build enough isolation units in our hospitals, on whether temperature checking at all our public buildings can be made mandatory. Other effective measures include shutting down schools and cinema halls, limiting the use of public transport, and minimizing hospital visits. 

This is no time to panic though. The government should discourage hoarding of essential commodities like medicines, LP gas and daily edibles through the assurance of their continued and timely supply. It’s all too easy to become selfish in times of crisis. Citizens may only need a gentle nudge to their conscience to behave more magnanimously. But after the WHO has declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a ‘global pandemic’, Nepal will do well to brace for the worst. Again, it will be dangerous to bank too much on the low number of reported infections. 

As a precaution over coronavirus, which has already spread to over 100 countries around the world, most political parties in Nepal have suspended their large-scale gatherings. And on time; but the parties need to do more. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that Nepal, along with other South Asian countries, is at high risk.

The ruling Nepal Communist Party has suspended all meetings and gatherings aimed at strengthening its organizational structure. The main opposition Nepali Congress too has canceled activities in the run-up to its General Convention. Smaller parties have acted similarly. But are our political parties doing anything substantive to proactively mitigate the corona scare?

With their nation-wide bodies, they can certainly contribute. “Political parties have organizations from the center to grass-roots level,” says political analyst Bhojraj Pokharel. “They have the biggest and widest networks of all entities in the country. So they can definitely help raise awareness about the virus.”

Political cadres can also reach far-flung areas with low presence of traditional or social media and discuss precautionary measures with the people.

Two months after the COVID-19 outbreak in next-door China and after the spotting of the first and only coronavirus case in Nepal thus far, our parties are yet to carry out any substantive awareness drive. (Of course, they claim otherwise.) Instead, major parties—ruling NCP and opposition NC—seem busy in internal power plays. In the parliament, lawmakers have raised questions about government preparations in tackling a possible outbreak. The parliament is also discussing a motion related to the coronavirus. Moreover, the political parties have posted some preventive measures against coronavirus in their social media. But there is as yet no public engagement.

“Political parties should constantly talk about safety measures with the people. But the top-down hierarchical nature of our parties hinders with this kind of public activism,” says Devraj Dahal, another political analyst.

“At the same time, there should be coordination among government agencies and ministries. For instance, the Ministry of Home Affairs is now issuing statements on coronavirus, which is not the right approach,” Dahal adds.

Political leaders and cadres can take to the streets, they can talk to the people, and they can give out the right information, which is not happening at the moment. A crisis can in fact be an opportunity for political parties to show their presence.

But it seems even people are unaware of the role of political parties during a crisis. They believe handling a crisis is solely the government’s duty. But it is worth asking: If parties can mobilize thousands of cadres during election campaigns, why can’t they do so to raise awareness against a potentially deadly disease?

Representatives of political parties reject the allegation that they have done nothing substantive on coronavirus. “We have already instructed party rank and file to launch door-to-door campaign to inform people about preventive measures,” says Nepali Congress Spokesperson Bishwa Prakash Sharma. He claims Congress was the first party in Nepal to prepare a coronavirus video and disseminate it over social media. Besides, Congress youth wing Nepal Tarun Dal is monitoring the market to check the artificial shortage of daily commodities.

Similarly, ruling NCP leaders say they have already issued a circular to their sister organizations and grassroots level cadres to help raise awareness. Party General Secretary Bishnu Poudel says they have instructed their cadres to go to every household with preventive measures against coronavirus. “They have been instructed to work in coordination with people’s representatives, civil society leaders and local media,” Poudel claims.

The Sajha Party has launched its own ‘Sajha Namaste Campaign’ urging people not to shake hands and to do a ‘Namaste’ instead. “We have prepared a video on corona incorporating the views of health experts and we are disseminating it through social media,” says the party’s Prakash Chandra Pariyar. Besides such messages on social media, the party, however, is yet to instruct its members to undertake a door-to-door campaign. But Pariyar claims Sajha fully understands the priority right now is “to inform people about preventive measures”.

Even though these parties claim to have deployed their cadres as well as their sister and youth wings against the virus, their workers are seldom seen in the field knocking on people’s doors.

If they are willing, the political parties can help in other ways as well. First, party cadres can identify any weakness on part of the government agencies and put pressure on them to correct them immediately. “Then, in case of an outbreak, they can coordinate with concerned agencies to provide medical care to the people,” according to Pokharel, the political analyst.

“Best of all would be for all the political parties to join hands to tackle the common challenge,” Pokharel says. Instead, in Nepal, the tendency is to go it alone to prove your loyalty to the people—even (or especially) in times of crisis.

People generally prefer private schools to public ones. But this does not apply to one public school in Bhojpur. The Janasewa Basic School at Bhojpur Municipality-7 is these days drawing more students compared to rival private schools in the vicinity.

Wanting their children to learn English, parents often send them to private schools that supposedly teach them ‘better in English medium’. Many private schools even advertise themselves as ‘English only’ zones. As the public schools don’t place such emphasis on teaching English, parents tend to shun them, and these schools are often neglected. The quality of education on offer is thus generally poor. Parents are willing to pay much more to private schools.

In the case of Janasewa though parents are enrolling their children in the school even by withdrawing them from private schools. This year, 52 new students were enrolled. The school is being developed as the district’s model government school. It uses teaching style and curriculum that are similar to those of private schools. Better exam results also naturally attract parents and guardians.

“They teach the same way boarding [private] schools teach. They use English medium. Results are good too,” says Tulasi Poudel, a parent. “It saves us from the high cost of boarding [private] schools.”

“Low-income people like us would be greatly relieved if all public schools had such good standards,” he adds. “We could then give English education to our children, and they would excel in studies.”

Apart from English medium, other important features of this school are: regular classes, good discipline, regularity of teachers and students, focus on classroom activities, and teacher-student engagement. Parents say the school offers them quality education at minimal cost.

Many public schools in the district were merged or closed down in recent years due to their poor teacher quality and their inability to attract good students. Not Janasewa; even relatively better-off parents send their wards here. As per school records, its alumni have done well in higher studies too.

“Although it is a public school, we offer the standard of private schools. We also offer scholarships and boarding facilities,” says teacher Sikshika Shrestha. “Our students are disciplined and both our teachers and students value the importance of time and learning.”

According to Headmaster Thir Bahadur Shrestha, teachers in other public schools are often more involved in politics rather on teaching. “This is why the quality of education in public schools is in a decline. These teachers are better qualified and better trained than their private school counterparts. The problem is that they don’t like working.”

The district has 341 basic and 69 secondary-level public schools where 61,240 students are enrolled. Among other things, lack of designated subject teachers and teachers’ frequent absence ail most.

People panic in a crisis. Logic does not always work in the face of a direct threat to you and your family. As the coronavirus originated in China, surely, all Chinese folks, and even those who look like them, are its potential carriers and must be rigorously avoided. A video that was reportedly shot in Kenya and has been doing the rounds on Twitter shows a crowd surrounding a Chinese couple. “You are corona!” a local shouts at the Chinese woman. The locals nearly punch the Chinese man who is trying to defend his compatriot. 

Nepal has thus far been lucky to have escaped the corona contagion, even though its entry cannot be ruled out, most likely via the open India-Nepal border. The arrival of Chinese nationals via air routes has not been completely halted either. Yet doctors and virologists have a point when they say that had corona entered Nepal, it would have been hard to keep it down; the number of infected people would have exploded in our jam-packed settlements. 

Coming back to the Chinese, Nepalis are naturally wary of the people they know little about. Different political systems, different self-beliefs, different food and language—there is so much that separates us. This is why even though most Nepalis have enormous goodwill towards China as a state, and as that important counterbalance to India, they can’t easily relate with the Chinese people. It won’t be a surprise if scenes like the one shot in Kenya were to be repeated here. Or in India. I remember an experienced Nepali diplomat telling me about how easy it was for him to deal with the Indians over the years. Yes, there were many differences, and yet there was also the feeling that the two sides understood each other. With the Chinese, it was a different matter altogether. The Nepali diplomat often felt his Chinese counterparts had agreed to certain things on the basis of what they had said, only to be later told that there had been no such agreement. The Chinese don’t mean what they say, he said. With them, you have to learn to read between the lines. Perhaps he would have said something similar about the Indians if he was not so familiar with the Indian way of life. 

Thankfully, thousands of our children are now learning Mandarin. There is no better way to understand a foreign people than by understanding their language. Let us hope that in the days ahead we will be in a position to deal with China more productively, both at diplomatic and people-to-people levels. 

Crisis creates panic. But a crisis like the coronavirus contagion also offers a rare opportunity to see the commonalities between us—and to build on them. We don’t need no foreign language to understand human suffering.