Kathmandu, April 13 -- When the Nepal government clamped a lockdown after only the second case was detected in a student travelling back from France last year, everyone thought it would be for a week or two at most. We have passed the one year mark, and now another new year. And the virus is still with us.

In fact, epidemiologists are coming to the consensus that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is never really going to go away. It is going to merrily mutate and adapt to every new vaccine, then exploit human behaviour and global mobility to keep spreading through many variants.

In Nepal, we have been worriedly watching the second wave batter neighbouring India. We should have been more prepared for that tidal wave to arrive on our shores-it was ine...