President Yoweri Museveni has indicated that the Covid19 situation is “not really so bad” because “somehow God likes Uganda” but cautioned that if the nation defies the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), it may slip into the worst crisis.
“People should adhere to the measures we put in place. The cases graph since we took measures in March last year climbed in the months of July, September and December and now May the curve is highest,” Museveni said.
Museveni in his Saturday night speech announced no new measures as it had been anticipated but he signaled a doubt on whether the remaining school classes of P.1 to P.3 would open on June 7 as scheduled.
“The new cases are quite serious, very severe than the first one of China. These are from South Africa, India and the United Kingdom. From October 2020 to March this year when we opened schools, 239 cases were reported among students but recently 843 cases in schools and one death,” Museveni said.
The new variants are coded as; South Africa B1351; United Kingdom B117 and India B1616.VOC.
Museveni said a covid19 task force is sitting to debate the new measures that he will communicate next week.
He criticized India for cancelling the Astra Zeneca vaccine booking from global nations saying the action would damage international relations.
“Monopolizing is not good, let there be rationing. This is very tricky for the globe….let the vaccine be shared in percentages,” Museveni said.
He however said the action of India has given Uganda decisiveness of working hard to “develop our vaccine” and that there are attempts to get the vaccines from other countries.
Museveni said that Kampala and Wakiso are more infected because residents here do not implement the SOPs.
Uganda announced the first lockdown on March 18, 2020 when it announced 36 measures. This, Museveni said, helped to mitigate the crisis.
But Museveni erroneously said that government bought 900.000 vaccines yet these were a donation from India and Covax.
Statistics
Government targets to vaccinate 4.8m citizens but this number may change according to the entry of the new variants. Only 577,036 people have so been vaccinated.
Since March last year 1.100.350 tests have been conducted.
29 schools in 17 districts have since reported cases.
Today alone 690 cases have been reported.
Cumulatively, 46,623 cases have been reported.
43,401 have recovered.
Deaths stand at 362 persons.
“The real solution is in the vaccine,” Museveni said.
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