Thread by @TenzingLamsang

#Bhutan #COVIDー19 thread

When it comes international best practices in handling COVID-19 countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore etc are cited as examples to follow.

However, a little known success story so far is Bhutan, a tiny himalayan state with limited resources.

We got our first confirmed & imported case in form of a 76-yr-old male US tourist with underlying co-morbidity conditions on 6th March 2020.

With the system ready from before immediately aggressive contact tracing was done along with testing and quarantining of all 1st contacts

Even though it was just one case, from 6th March on all play schools, schools and colleges in Bhutan were shut down and social distancing was instituted.

Also, tourism and movement of labour into Bhutan was halted.

There was also non-stop health advocacy on COVID-19 prevention.

Since Bhutan had already sought out testing kits it could start testing all symptomatic cases & all Bhutanese coming back into Bhutan.

From the beginning Bhutan had the highest testing rate in South Asia and right now it is one of the highest in the world at 13,000 tests per mn.

Bhutan also made the decision to quarantine all Bhutanese coming from abroad for 14 days which was extended to 21 days.

This decision was prophetic as of the 9 cases in Bhutan so far 7 were detected while in such quarantine.
The first 2 cases were the US tourist & his wife.

With all tourism & foreign labour movement into Bhutan stopped from 6th March Bhutan took an even more stringent step & sealed all its land borders on 22nd March as announced by HM The King.

Bhutan at the same time chartered flights to pick up groups of stranded Bhutanese.

While Bhutan did not have community transmission it did not want to take a risk &yet not harm the economy too much.
So Bhutan went into a semi-lockdown frm 28th March on.
So work from home, no public gatherings, no group sports, no group travel, no discos but businesses are open.

Ordinary Bhutanese come forward to help.

Though hotels were hardest hit by tourism ban they offered hotels as free quarantine centers. (Govt decided to pay a modest amount.)

Businesses donated millions. Ministers/MPs gave up month's pay, many donated & farmers donated produce.

Thousands of Bhutanese (of a population of around 700,000) volunteered & joined the Desuups a voluntary govt civil force to help stretched police & immigration officials at zero pay to serve as labourers for unloading goods, for border patrols, policing, preventing crowding etc.

This Bhutanese spirit was led from the front by HM The King who travelled constantly all over the country to personally check on the preparations and to keep the spirits of the people up.

The Monarchy in Bhutan is a deeply popular & unifying institution and this lifted spirits.

Next important step was saving the economy & jobs.

For this His Majesty in consultation with govt & central bank announced a Nu 30 bn relief or stimulus package which is around 14% of Nu 216 bn nominal GDP.

This is one of the highest in the world and highest in the region.

While some countries have differed loan instalment payments, Bhutan led by HM is the only country in the world to not only defer loan instalment for 3 months but also waive off the interest component for 3 months.

Banks agreed to bear 50% of this and govt will bear other 50%.

With tourism & other sectors hard hit many thousands had already lost their jobs or were on half pay.

To ensure people get the basics the 30 bn package had a Kidu component where people are getting Nu 12,000 per month for losing a job & Nu 8,000 per month for getting half pay.

One big worry for parents, students & teachers alike are is education with schools/colleges shut for 2 months now.

However, to overcome this Bhutan has the most intensive online & mass media educational classes in the region.

This is for a country that got the internet in 1999.

Bhutan's health staff & system has been very effective& real heroes.

Apart from one of the highest testing rates in the world& effective contact tracing &quarantine system approach of our health staff is to treat & care for Corona patients with 'the love & respect they deserve.'

Bhutan's health system is due to decades of conscious investment led by the Kings.

Health always gets a large chunk of our budget & this has paid off for us.

Health care is free for us and has penetrated to the grassroots. E.g COVID-19 PPE is available in rural clinics too.

In tough times like this it also does help that Bhutan is one of the few countries in the world where teachers and medical professionals are the highest paid civil servants in Bhutan courtesy a 2019 pay hike to give further emphasis on health and education.

While systems are important, the approach in Bhutan is also based on treating the nation as one family & then trying to care for every Bhutanese.

Bhutan as directed by HM has even hired apartments in New York to give a free quarantine centre for Bhutanese expats settled there.

When strategic experts talk of determination of small nations to survive, Israel & Singapore are favoured examples.

However minus the nukes (unofficial) of Israel & economic firepower of Singapore, Bhutan has shown you can survive &thrive with good leadership & a united people.

On a final note- a personal confession.

At international airports I admit to having occasionally & enviously gazed at more 'powerful passports' that don't even require visas.

This COVID-19 crisis among others things has taught me how lucky I am to hold a Bhutanese passport.