The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Despite the continued lockdown in the southern region of Bhutan, especially in Phuentsholing, there is a surge of positive cases in the country, with the highest number of positive cases reported in the last two days.
A member of Technical Advisory Group (TAG), Dr Sonam Wangchuk, said the increasing number of positive cases in the country does not mean that there are active infections going on in the community.
Dr Sonam said that in the last two days, the country reported the highest number of cases because of the mass testing being conducted to further relax the affected districts. The health ministry initiated COVID-19 testing for all individuals starting from five years of age and above.
Dr Sonam clarified that people who have recovered or are on the verge of recovering tested positive, so what is shown in the case report does not relate to the true active infection that is going on in the community. Therefore, the public should not get confused that despite the lockdown, the number of positive cases detected are high.
Every virus has its course of infection, as some virus takes a longer period to infect. So different viruses have different periods of infection. As for Omicron, if a person gets infected today, the maximum infectious period will be about 10 days, after that if the same person is detecting positive with the RT-PCR then it is most likely a dead virus, but that person is not infectious.
He further explained that if a recovered person is tested after 30 days, they would still test positive. So that is why when they test the samples, they often try to analyze their exposed history.
All the individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 a month ago are requested to not test again as they might still test positive. But it is nothing to worry as these individuals are not infectious, and the general public must not to stigmatize them.
After almost four weeks of lockdown, different districts are now transitioning from red to yellow zone and to the green color zone. Since the health ministry is doing mass testing in the affected districts, and because of that a lot of positive cases have been picked up, but looking into the laboratory results, almost 50 percent of the cases must have recovered or they are recovering. About 20 to 30 percent of the people who tested positive are likely to have an active infection, said Dr Sonam Wangchuk.
He said as per their assessment there is a decline in the positive cases, and the general public should not worry about the number of cases that is updated every day. As of now, Jomotshangkha is having little more active transmission happening in the community, especially in the rural areas. Other red areas including Wangduephodrang are seeing decline in the positive cases. The symptomatic testing is done every day, and not many people who come forward are testing positive.
Hopefully within the next three to four weeks, most districts, especially in the south would clear the virus and may be able to eliminate the virus from the community, as per the assessment, said Dr Sonam Wangchuk.
Meanwhile, since the Phuentsholing outbreak on 7 January, 744 children below 12 years have contracted the coronavirus, followed by 510 children age between 12-18 years, 4,694 adults aged between 18-65 years old and 166 elderly aged people have contracted the virus as of 18 February 2022.
Chukha has reported the highest community cases with 1,136 cases so far followed by Wangduephodrang with 551 cases, Samdrupjongkhar with 264 cases, Sarpang with 131 and Pemagatshel with 225 cases from the community.
Paro has the highest number of imported cases with 143 cases, followed by Chukha with 118 and Wangduephodrang with 93 cases.
Six dzongkhags in the country have not reported any positive cases so far. They are Gasa, Bumthang, Lhuentse, Trashiyangtse, Trashigang and Trongsa.
