(TibetanReview.net, Mar29’20) – The number of exile Tibetans known to have been infected by the Covid-19 global pandemic that broke out in China’s central city of Wuhan in late 2019 has now risen to six, with the Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) saying Mar 28 that two more Tibetans – one each in Switzerland and Italy – were infected. Besides a Tibetan woman in the USA has spoken of having been found positive in test.
There are no details about the two new cases in Europe.
However, the patient in the USA, who is apparently a nurse and on way to full recovery on her fourth day in hospital, has given a video message being circulated online, recounting her encounter with the disease and cautioning people not to take the dangers of getting infected by the novel coronavirus lightly.
Meanwhile, speaking in a video message posted on the CTA’s official website Tibet.net Mar 28, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay has said all the family members and those who had contact with the first known Tibetan victim, a returnee to Dharamsala from the USA who died in hospital on Mar 23, had tested negative for the pandemic infection. Apart from the family members and friends of the deceased, the others included two taxi drivers and a family that had travelled with him in a separate taxi but joined him at stops along the way from Delhi to Dharamsala.
The Sikyong has also said around 500 Tibetans across India with recent travel history, including within India, were being kept quarantined for a period of 14 days as a precautionary measure.
Previous Tibetan media reports said the quarantine was being imposed in some of the Tibetan seat monasteries and settlements in South India, with many or most of those quarantined being students returning to their monasteries.
The Sikyong has also called on all all Tibetans who had entered India on or after Feb 15 to register themselves with the government of India through the CTA authorities in the local area of their current presence.
