“Many people are dying,” Pralhad tells me. He pauses. “But it is not useful to be paralysed. We must act.”
Pralhad Dhakal, Adara’s Nepal country director, and I WhatsApp most days, as the situation escalates. Pralhad’s face on the screen is covered with two masks, and the street behind him is almost empty. “I am going to see if I can find an oxygen concentrator” he says. “And try to get it on a plane to Simikot.” We know that if he manages it, many lives could be saved.
Covid-19 is burning through Nepal, and in the regions where we work there is no oxygen for those who need it. I implore him to stay safe as he goes outside. Pralhad is an important leader in our global team, and our long friendship is deep. I am afraid for him, for our Nepali team and for the communities I have come to know so well over the last 23 years.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I know that every stone has Covid – I am standing five metres back, washing my hands, being careful.”
As the virus spreads, so too does fear.
The Covid-19 positivity rate in Nepal is at 47%, one of the highest in the world, and cases have skyrocketed in recent weeks. On Sunday, Nepal recorded more than 7,300 new cases, bringing the total to more than 450,000. We know the true figures are vastly greater, as data is not able to be gathered and testing is limited.
In the capital, Kathmandu, ICU beds are full, Covid wards are at capacity and many are dying because they cannot get oxygen. Across Nepal the horrifying scenes that we have seen in India are being repeated. Nepal’s healthcare system is weak with only 1,127 intensive care beds and 453 ventilators for almost 30 million citizens. According to World Bank data, there are just 0.7 physicians per 100,000 people – nowhere near what will be needed as the new variant races through the country. The impact is likely to be worse in the places where my organisation, the Adara Group, works – in very remote communities, many days walk from the Nepali road system, where healthcare systems are almost non-existent.
I have for many years had a double-act sort of life – building businesses in the financial markets, while at the same time working as the chair of an international development organisation. Somehow, it has all fit together. But my two worlds have never been as divergent than they are now. I am exhausted by corporate Australia’s enthusiastic celebration of the rising economic tide, contrasted with the dread and despair engulfing so many developing world countries.
How can it be that in Australia we revel in a projected increase in real GDP of 4.25%, yet at the same time demur as the government cuts our overseas development assistance while a global pandemic rages through the developing world? How can it be that we carry on our privileged lives while our neighbours, our friends, are facing a medical, economic and societal emergency of breathtaking proportions?
The World Health Organization tells us that only 0.3% of Covid-19 vaccine supply is going to low-income countries. They are urging countries to consider donating vaccine to poorer nations before vaccinating children, through the Covax global vaccine sharing system. What an act of grace that would be.
Our world is dividing – perhaps more than ever before. Into those who think the pandemic is behind them and those who know it is all just beginning. Into those who look forward to the future, and to those who fear it. Into medical oases, and medical deserts.
We are all connected, even across these ever-increasing chasms and Covid-19 will not be over for any of us, until it is over for all of us.
My plea on this chilly May afternoon is simple: for those who can, to do all they can.
I give the last word to Pralhad: “I am sending a request for more funds. We have a lot of work to do.”
Indeed we do.