Thimphu: In their effort to ensure that there is no risk of community infection, the Bhutanese government announced that all businesses will have to close by 7 pm  starting today.

The government also notified that gathering in groups of more than three people would be discouraged and officials on duty would monitor gatherings and ask people to discontinue activities.

The regulation comes into effect as a precautionary measure to prevent a possible risk of community infection with the increasing number of people completing the 21-day mandatory quarantine period.

Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering said that with hundreds of people coming out of quarantine, many are seen out in the towns in Thimphu, Paro and Phuentsholing.

While all those completing the 21-day mandatory quarantine period are certified of having tested negative to the virus, Lyonchhen said there is a small window where negative could be ‘false negative’.

“This is same with all other tests. As of now, in all medical science history, there is no test that is 100 percent specific,” Lyonchhen said, adding that the Covid-19 test is the same. However, he said it is a highly sensitive test, meaning that if a person tests positive, it is almost certain that he or she is positive.

Following the completion of the 21-day quarantine period, many people are already in the town for about three days now.

While surveillance has been stepped up, Lyonchhen said that should there be a positive case over the next few days, it could be said that those negative test results from quarantine centres were ‘false negative’.

With this, all three Bhutanese who earlier tested positive for Covid-19 are now moved to de-isolation. After completing 14 days of de-isolation and upon testing negative at the end of the period, he or she would be declared recovered.
 
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