Impacts of COVID-19 and Nationwide Lockdown on River Ecosystems in Nepal |Biomedgrid

Since January 2020, the novel virus of corona virus families, COVID-19, has been infecting people across the globe and today 213 countries have confirmed positive cases [1]. COVID-19 has caused a global pandemic with profound impacts on human life, environment, and freshwater biodiversity [2-4]. Corona virus was first diagnosed in Wuhan city of China early this year. World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak as public health emergency of international concern on 30th January 2020 and then announced a new name for this disease as COVID-19 on 11thFebruary 2020 [4]. On 11th March 2020 declared it as pandemic. In Nepal, a first case was reported on 23rd January in 31 years old Nepalese who returned from Wuhan city on9thJanuary 2020. As of June 2020, above 15000 positive cases has been detected from 73 districts out of 77 districts of Nepal [5]. The country went into strict lockdown effective from 24th March to 15th June 2020 and slight ease later. All highways and streets are free from vehicles, factories are shut down; flights are grounded; rivers related activities like sand mining are completely halted. While people are lockdown inside with limited direct activities, the implications are serious and particularly dire for the poor and vulnerable people in the country.