“Our strength lies in the fact that we are small”, explained, in mid-April, Dasho Dechen Wangmo, the Minister of Health of Bhutan, to explain the success of his country in the fight against Covid-19. The small kingdom wedged between China and India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, has recorded only 1,190 declared cases of its 750,000 inhabitants, including one death. Success attributed to compliance with restrictive health measures – archery competitions, very popular, have been suspended – and a flash vaccination campaign.
With 63% of its population vaccinated, Bhutan is ahead of the United States or Israel. Caregivers traveled by helicopter or trek to the heights of the Himalayas, where tents were pitched to serve as vaccination centers for nomads and herdsmen of yaks. In the remote Lingzhi region, four hermits even agreed to take a short break from their meditation to receive their injections.
A year ago, public health experts feared the worst for Bhutan. How does a country with a doctor for 2,200 inhabitants – while the World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 2.3 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants – a single machine to carry out Covid tests, and a porous border with India, which has seen the epidemic soar, could it avoid disaster? A year later, Bhutan is a model. “What can we learn from its success, we the United States who have handled the crisis so badly? “, wonders science journalist Madeline Drexler in a long article in the journal The Atlantic published in February 2021. The country was better prepared and the king managed to manage the crisis. One would be tempted to add that Bhutan has taken advantage of its small size, first of all by taking advantage of the rivalry between the two neighboring great powers. Fearing that Beijing would come to his aid first, New Delhi rushed to send him vaccines. India, wanting to show its power to the rest of the world, has exported so many doses that it is now lacking. Little Bhutan took advantage of this.
“More efficient, more responsive”
Contrary to the cliché that sticks to his skin, Bhutan is not the realm of “gross national happiness”, but rather the realm that has learned to be happy while being small. Without arrogance or will to power. What head of state in the world would dare to claim his pride in belonging to a tiny country? Yet this is what His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck said in front of the students of the University of Bhutan in February 2015: “As a small country, we can be much more efficient, more responsive, and more resolute than a large nation can be. “ He even added that this made it possible to avoid many problems, such as the development of mega-cities or the emergence of a technostructure remote from citizens.
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