“Behind the Mask” is a WNYO podcast now also becoming a column on The Oswegonian that locates international students on campus and alumni living abroad and reports on what their experiences have been like overseas coping with COVID-19. Host and columnist Tomas Rodriguez can be reached with tips at 772-333-5501 and on Twitter @TomasFRoBeltran.

The journey navigating the pandemic has not been easy Clarissa Karki, a Nepal native who just started her degree this fall at SUNY Oswego.

As for Nepal, many people lost their jobs during the pandemic, which resulted in food and supply shortages.

“In Nepal, it’s pretty much the same. The pandemic is a little bit overwhelming,” Karki said. “The vaccine rates aren’t as high, but I’d say it’s pretty much the same.”

Nepal has shared borders with India and China. During the peak of the pandemic, the border shared with China remained closed, said Karki.

That was not the case for the border shared with India, she said.

“As soon as the virus started getting extremely active in India, the trend followed in Nepal,” Karki said. “The situation was horrible.”

That surge caused the country to face bed and ventilator shortages, with hospitals quickly filling with COVID-19 patients.

Low-income workers have seen the most impact because they rely on a daily wage system, she said.

“It’s still a problem right now,” she said. “The vaccine rates aren’t as high because Nepal doesn’t produce any vaccines and almost all the vaccines that come to Nepal are basically donated by other countries.”

Nepal was under lockdown for the first time between March 2020 and July 2020. People were not allowed to leave their homes other than getting their groceries at designated times.

One factor leading to high positivity rates has to do with the fact that a significant portion of the Nepalese population is not literate, she explained.

“That was a little bit of a problem at first when people really didn’t know it was a very dangerous virus,” Karki said. 

In addition, Nepal is considered a developing country. A lack of internet access further complicated the situation from one day to the next, she said, where it created a disparate situation between those who could search for COVID-19 updates online and those who could not.

That same lack of access to the web led many to lose their jobs from one day to the next, Karki said. 

On the other hand, there are many Nepal residents who work in India during the day and who could still do so during the pandemic given that the border between both countries remained open, she said. 

“There are a lot of Nepalese migrant workers in India and vice versa,” Karki said. “When the government announced the lockdowns in both countries, people wanted to return home to their families, and that is when people just did not get tested.”

Due to the large amount of people crossing the border, both nations found it difficult to carry out contact tracing and testing those crossing the border for the virus.

“People ran away from quarantine facilities,” Karki said. “They thought it was a prison.”

The strictest lockdown measures were enforced for that same reason toward the beginning of the pandemic, she said.

Those who skirt the rules and left their homes unlawfully had to do 30 sit-ups in the presence of police. That rule was put in place to avoid locals from evading fines, she said.

“That was the most severe form of penalty people were asked to do,” Karki said.

Clarissa  Karki | The Oswegonian