May 9: At a time when the country is facing severe crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has claimed that the situation is still under control.

The prime minister made such claim in an interview with American news channel CNN on Saturday morning (May 8).

The remark made by Prime Minister Oli has caused massive backlash. Social media was abuzz the whole day with criticism of PM Oli for his remark as the crisis was deepening across the country. Critics said that the prime minister lost an opportunity to seek international support by giving a false statement. They were of the view that Oli should have given the real picture and that could have helped the government receive foreign assistance to fight the pandemic.

During the interview, PM Oli said that the first wave of coronavirus had come under control but there was an outbreak of second wave due to the negligence of the public.

“We had brought the infection under control last year. The death toll had dropped to zero. New infection was below 50 per day. But the general people thought that the pandemic had ended and were negligent. That caused the second wave of coronavirus,” PM Oli told CNN.

“We have mobilized all our mechanisms to bring the situation under control,” he added.

The prime minister further said that the government has been busy in creating awareness among the people to save lives. Although the prime minister maintained that the situation was under control, the health ministry had recently said that the rate of infection is rising at an alarming rate and that the health facilities of the country were not able to cope with the situation.

According to the data provided by the ministry, a total of 53 people died due to the disease across the country on Saturday alone. Daily infection has climbed above 8,000 while the number of active cases is almost 100,000.