COVID on top of the world: Virus arrives on Mt. Everest after climber tests positive
KATHMANDU, Nepal — The coronavirus has landed on the world’s tallest mountain.
A Norwegian climber became the first to test positive for the coronavirus in Mt. Everest base camp and was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he was hospitalized with COVID-19.
Erlend Ness told the Associated Press in a message Friday that he tested positive for the coronavirus April 15. He said another test on Thursday was negative, and he was now staying with a local family in Nepal.
An ace mountain guide, Austrian Lukas Furtenbach, warned that the virus could spread among the hundreds of other climbers, guides and helpers who are now encamped on the base of Everest if they do not get checked immediately and safety measures not are taken.
Any outbreak could prematurely end the climbing season just ahead of a window of good weather in May, he said.
“We would need now most urgently mass testing in base camp, with everyone tested and every team being isolated — no contact between teams,” Furtenbach said. “That needs to be done now. Otherwise, it is too late.”
China and Nepal have jointly announced a new official height for Mt. Everest, ending a disagreement between the two nations.
Furtenbach, who is leading a team of 18 climbers to Mt. Everest and its sister peak Mt. Lhotse, said there could be more than just one case on the mountain because Ness had lived with several others for weeks.
A Nepalese mountaineering official denied that there were any active COVID-19 cases on the mountains at the moment.
Mira Acharya, director at the Department of Mountaineering, said she had no official information about the COVID-19 cases and only reports of illnesses such as pneumonia and altitude sickness.
Mountaineering on Everest was closed last year because of the pandemic, and climbers returned to the Himalayan peak this year for the first time since May 2019.
The popular spring climbing season in Nepal, which has eight of the highest peaks in the world, began in March and ends in May.
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