A king who really cares

Wearing a baseball cap and knee-length traditional Gho robe, carrying a backpack, Bhutan's king has walked through jungles infested with leeches and snakes, trekked mountains and quarantined several times in a hotel in the capital. 

For 14 months, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has been travelling by foot, car and horse to remote hamlets to oversee measures to protect his tiny kingdom of 700,000 from the coronavirus outbreak that has flared up in neighbouring India.

The impact of the 41-year-old king's excursions are evident in a Covid-19 death toll of just one for the nation nestled between India and China in the Eastern Himalayas.

"When the king travels for miles and knocks ... to alert people about the pandemic, then his humble words are respected and taken very seriously," said Lotay Tshering, the country's prime minister.

"His Majesty's presence is far more powerful than just issuing public guidelines," Tshering told Reuters. His presence assures people they are not alone in their fight against the pandemic, the prime minister said.

Tshering, a practicing urologist, often accompanies the Oxford-educated king for trips near the porous border shared with India, where a second wave of the pandemic more than doubled the death toll over the last two months.

Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy in 2008. But loyalty to the royal family still dominates the nation's socio-political landscape.

In recent weeks, the king walked for five days on a trail passing through elevations of up to 4,343 m to thank primary health workers in remote areas.

"Our king's biggest fear is that if the pandemic spreads like a forest fire then our (nation) could be wiped out," said a senior palace official.

PM Tshering has said Bhutan is looking to mix-and-match vaccine doses because after inoculating 90% of its eligible population with their first dose of the AstraZeneca shot, the nation ran out of supplies.