The Ministry of Health and Population is likely to recommend the Covid-19 high-level committee and the Crisis Management Center to ease lockdown restrictions in areas outside infection hotspots.

The ministry is preparing to report to the committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Ishwar Pokhrel on Saturday.

"We will recommend the high-level committee to enforce a partial lockdown in areas outside of hotspots,"Dr Roshan Pokhrel, chief specialist at the health ministry, told the Post. "As cases of coronavirus will be detected in the future as well, we cannot continue with the ongoing lockdown for a long time."

The ministry has been assessing the risk of a Covid-19 outbreak through rapid diagnostic tests in various parts of the country, including the Kathmandu Valley after the government on March 24 imposed a nation-wide lockdown, which is to remain in force at least until April 27.

Pokhrel said that the government has already relaxed the lockdown as people have been allowed to open shops selling daily essentials throughout the day, and those stranded in Kathmandu to go home.

"But we are still against the idea of lifting restrictions imposed on mass transportation, schools, colleges, mass gathering and feasts," he added.

Another official at the ministry said authorities are anticipating the emergence of Udayapur-like hotspots in the future, and that strict lockdowns should be imposed only in such hotspots.

"Udayapur's incident has become a major headache for us," the official said on the condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to the media. "We anticipate the emergence of such hotspots in the future as well, as the number of cases continuously rises in India."

Meanwhile, the district administration has sealed Bhulke of Triyuga Municipality-3, Udayapur after over two dozen people tested positive for the contagious disease. On Thursday too, a 55-year-old woman of the same locality tested positive to the virus, pushing the total tally of Covid-19 cases in the district to 28, according to Dr Bikash Devkota, spokesperson for the ministry.

Likewise, a 14-year-old boy from Dhanusha and a 26-year-old man from Bhojpur also tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, pushing the total number of confirmed cases to 48.

Authorities have continued to trace people who may have come into contact with infected people. The Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, which has mobilised two teams to carry out contact tracing in Udayapur.

"We have started tracing the contacts of people who came in contact with the infected people,"said a doctor working in Udayapur on the condition of anonymity, "We will test all who have come in contact with the infected people.

Mahendra Shrestha, director general at the Department of Health Services, said that the health ministry has identified some areas including Udayapur, and the whole of Sudurpaschim as potential hotspots of Covid-19.

"We have decided to test everyone who has returned from abroad, "Shrestha said. Thousands of people have returned home from India and other disease-hit countries in Sudurpaschim, and most of them have gone home without staying in quarantine.

Public health experts say that the decision to lift the lockdown should be based on evidence that the level of risk is low.

"Before lifting the lockdown, we should test to ensure that there are no cases and the risks are slim," said Dr Bhagwan Koirala, chairman of Nepal Medical Council.

"We all know that the ongoing lockdown cannot be continued in the same form, but we must ensure that risk is minimised before restrictions are lifted."

Three patients infected with Covid-19 have been discharged after recovery on Thursday.

Among them, two were admitted to Patan Hospital and one to Seti Provincial Hospital of Sudurpaschim Province. With this, the number of total patients who have recovered from Covid-19 in Nepal has reached 10.

The ones discharged from Patan are the 81-year-old woman and her son, 58, who were living in Sun City Apartment, Pepsicola. The patients stayed in hospital for 10 days.

"We just kept them under observation. No medicine was needed for them, as they did not have any problem," Dr Bishnu Sharma, director at the hospital told the Post.

Another patient discharged on Thursday is a 65-year-old woman of Lamkichulha of Kailali. The woman, who was admitted to the hospital on April 13, suffered from high blood pressure and asthma, according to Dr Jagadish Joshi, spokesperson of the hospital.