Nepal says Everest climbing continues despite reports of Covid-19

Everest

A Nepali government official said on Monday that many foreign climbers were continuing their attempts to summit Mount Everest despite reports of a Covid-19 outbreak at the base camp of the world's tallest peak. In April, a Norwegian climber was evacuated from the base camp of the 8,848.86 metres (29,031.69 feet) mountain and flown to Kathmandu where he tested positive for Covid-19. He has since returned home. Lukas Furtenbach of the Austrian Furtenbach Adventures company, evacuated his team from the mountain this month saying there was a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases at the base camp. ‘So far we have about one hundred confirmed cases in Everest base camp, confirmed by doctors, by hospitals, by insurance companies, by expedition leaders, by helicopter pilots who are flying out the patients and of course by the climbers themselves,’ Furtenbach told Reuters TV in Kathmandu on Monday.