Advertisement As another wave of COVID-19 spreads around the world, Mongolia is particularly hard hit with the pandemic. Although Mongolia stayed free from this deadly virus for almost 10 months, thanks to drastic measures such as closing its borders, canceling international flights, closing all educational facilities, and even banning the national holiday of Tsagaan Sar (Lunar New Year) and Naadam Festival, the latest wave has brought an explosion of cases. Daily case counts first crossed the 100 mark in early March; now they routinely top 1,000. Over the past week, over 8,000 new cases were registered, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases above 26,000. This is highest number per million people in the Asia Pacific region.