UPDATE: 21/01/2022
Hey there all,
As you may know, India and Nepal is experiencing the early stages of a third wave due to Omicron. The last wave that Nepal faced overran our healthcare system swiftly and led to many people being unable to access urgent medical care with dire consequences. It also led to large scale government shutdowns that affected our ability to operate smoothly, with material supplies, shipping and the ability to have staff on premises reduced. The first of these government lockdowns has begun, though it is mild currently and we are operating mostly unaffected.
By this point we are old hands at managing production during lockdowns and have plenty of material supplies stockpiled, effective and safe workarounds for workplace density limits and systems in place to deal with shipping issues. However, Omicron is significantly more transmissible than previous variants and while the illness may be milder we are expecting a significantly higher case load on hospitals which failed to cope in the last wave. It’s possible that we may see harsher lockdowns than during previous waves as an attempt to suppress this with stricter density limits or a reduced ability to leave the home to work at all. If such lockdowns aren’t imposed we may need to reduce our staff load regardless if we feel working in our usual manner puts them and their families at risk. There may be new, unforeseen challenges that we face as well.
It’s possible that we are able to maintain our usual pace of manufacture without much issue, however it’s also possible that we run into significant workshop delays. It all depends on the government’s response and the way that omicron affects the nepalese populace. At this stage it’s too early to tell- we’ll keep you updated with relevant information as the situation progress. Currently our wait time is at 6-9 weeks from the date of having placed the order, due to winter limiting our working hours as we’ve attempted to get on top of the delays that remain from the festival season. We want our customers to be as informed as possible and depending on how the situation plays out this could expand to a 12 or more week wait time. Please keep this in mind when ordering.
With all this said though, it’s very important to the livelihoods of our staff and our community that we continue taking orders and operating normally as possible, but we’ll need the support and understanding of our customers.
We’ll keep you posted as the situation changes and if we’re notified of any guaranteed delays we’ll contact our customers directly to inform them and get them the most accurate timeline we can.
Thanks and take care,
The Team at Kailash Blades
