Bhutan ordered its first nationwide lockdown on 11th August after a returning resident tested positive for coronavirus after being discharged from quarantine and coming into close contact with people in the capital Thimphu. The case took the total in the tiny Himalayan kingdom to 113, still the lowest in South Asia, and it has yet to record a fatality. Bhutan, which is heavily reliant on high-end tourists, banned tourism in March after an American visitor tested positive for the virus, and ordered a three week mandatory quarantine for everyone returning from abroad.

The lockdown was ordered after a 27-year-old Bhutanese woman, who returned from Kuwait and was discharged from quarantine after testing negative, tested positive at a clinic on 10th August.

“The unprecedented lockdown is enforced to identify and isolate all positive cases, immediately breaking the chain of transmission,” the government said in a statement, restricting movement of people and vehicles in the largely Buddhist nation of 750,000 people.

All schools, institutions, offices and commercial establishments will remain closed and exams will be postponed, while students and trainees in boarding facilities were told to remain on campus and follow COVID-19 protocols. Bhutan had already enforced strict screening and monitoring of people at all entry points to the country which, the government stated, was the reason for the slow spread of the disease.