“Feel like a bullet”: Bhutan’s Prime Minister mourns the rare death of COVID in the kingdom | Coronavirus pandemic News

The Himalayan kingdom, which has recorded only four dead coronaviruses, is seeing an increase in infections associated with the highly contagious variant Omicron.

Bhutan’s success in preventing coronaviruses is almost unparalleled, but a rare death of a patient (only a fourth in the kingdom) shows that more work was needed to tackle the pandemic there, he says.

The remote Himalayan nation of about 800,000 people, located between China and India, has recorded fewer COVID-19 deaths than anywhere else in the world.

The only places with lower official tolls are some countries that do not publish data on remote Pacific islands and coronaviruses, such as North Korea and Turkmenistan.

But Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, a doctor who is still undergoing surgery over the weekend, said it was “a bitter reminder” that last week’s death was “a bitter reminder” that we need to do more.

Tshering said in a Facebook post on Saturday night that “knowing that a precious life had died” with COVID-19 “felt like a bullet blow.”

“I am saddened by the nation and continue to offer my prayers for our dear friend,” he added.

The prime minister said Bhutan was still committed to eradicating the disease and said the nation could not afford to pay for “something that could prevent the loss of our people.”

Bhutan, as in much of the world, has experienced a rise in infections with the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Friday’s death occurred on the same day that health authorities reported 205 new cases of coronavirus, a national record since the pandemic began.

The kingdom has seen less than 5,000 cases of the disease since its inception two years ago, and Bhutan has already vaccinated almost its entire adult population by mid-2021.

India’s neighbors and major trading partners, meanwhile, claimed more than 41 million confirmed infections on Sunday.

India has also reported nearly 500,000 deaths, the highest number of deaths in the world after the United States and Brazil, although research suggests that the country’s actual toll could be 10 times higher.