‘People are sick, coughing’: Covid outbreak on Mount Everest, at least 100 climbers infected

Believe it or not, Coronavirus has reached even the farthest places on the earth as reports say that at least 100 climbers and support staff on Mount Everest have tested positive for the virus.

Quoting an expert mountaineering guide, news agency AP reported the estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.

Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week became the only prominent outfitter to halt his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said Saturday one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides have tested positive.

“I think with all the confirmed cases we know now confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders I have the positive tests so we can prove this,” Furtenbach told The Associated Press in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

“We have at least 100 people minimum positive for COVID in base camp, and then the numbers might be something like 150 or 200, he said.

He said it was obvious there were many cases at the Everest base camp because he could visibly see people were sick, and could hear people coughing in their tents.

A total of 408 foreign climbers were issued permits to climb Everest this season, aided by several hundred Sherpas and support staff who’ve been stationed at base camp since April.

Nepalese mountaineering officials have denied there are any active cases this season among climbers and support staff at all base camps for the country’s Himalayan mountains. Mountaineering was closed last year due to the pandemic.

Furtenbach said most teams on the mountain were not carrying virus testing kits, and that before his team pulled out, they had helped conduct tests and had confirmed two cases.

Most teams are still at base camp, hoping for clear weather next week so they can make a final push to the summit before the climbing season closes at the end of the month, Furtenbach said.

In late April, a Norwegian climber became the first to test positive at the Everest base camp. He was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was treated and later returned home.

Nepal reported 8,607 new infections and 177 deaths on Friday, bringing the nation’s totals since the pandemic began to more than 497,000 infections and 6,024 deaths.