Kathmandu, May 5 -- Nepal's first wave of the coronavirus last year now looks like a ripple, and what the country is now witnessing is the main eruption.

A lot of the attention is on Kathmandu Valley because more than half the daily new Covid-19 cases are here. But it is the Tarai districts bordering India that have been ravaged first,just like last year, but on a much vaster scale.

Epidemiologists say what happens in India arrives in Nepal four weeks later, and the border cities precede Kathmandu by two weeks. Banke district, for example, which is the gateway to Nepal for most returnees from India, is the second most affected after Kathmandu, with 4,811active cases.

Banke's positivity rate is shocking:210 of the 299 PCR testsat Nepalg...