Celebrating one’s misfortune

For instance, many Ugandans argue that COVID is “devastating” our country because of the corruption of “this regime;” that our healthcare system is grossly mismanaged. On twitter, some attributed my auntie’s death to this “corruption.” This argument is very appealing but wrong. First, on what basis can we conclude that Uganda has performed badly in handling COVID? I want to imagine that deaths would be the best measure of performance. Since COVID began, Uganda had by June 28 lost 900 people, or 19 deaths per one million people. This is not to say that this low number lessens the emotional pain of those who have lost loved ones.

However, Uganda has not performed very badly – at least for now. It is hard to know whether this is due to government action or luck or the blessing of the gods or some structural factors such as demography, residence etc.

What is clear is that nations with large sums of money and highly developed healthcare systems have performed much worse than Uganda. The richest country in the world with the most advanced and well-equipped hospitals and medical personnel, the USA, has lost 620,000 or 1,861 deaths per one million people; the UK 1,977, Italy 2,111, Spain 1,777, Germany 689, Sweden 1,435, Belgium 2,162, Switzerland 1,248, Austria 1,182, Denmark 436, Ireland 999, Norway 145.

Even in Africa, Uganda’s performance remains comparatively good. Africa’s leading democracies with regular change of government (the basis on which we imagine “good governance”) such as Ghana has had 25 death per one million citizens, South Africa 998, Botswana 457, Zambia 107, Senegal 68, Kenya 65, Namibia 541. Even Africa’s most effective states, Rwanda 32 and Ethiopia 37 have so far lost more people per one million than Uganda. This is not to say that this necessarily means Uganda has a better healthcare system than North America and Western Europe and other African countries. But it demonstrates that public anger against the government for a badly managed response is mistaken.

The countries worst hit by COVID are also the richest in the world with the most advanced medical facilities and personnel in the world. Many have implemented “smart” solutions but performed badly. The poorest countries of Africa, whom “experts” had predicted would suffer the most have fared the best.

USA, UK, France, Italy, etc. with all the money, medical equipment, best personnel and hospitals ran out of beds for COVID patients. If these countries can fail to handle COVID cases, why do we expect poor Uganda to do any better. We should be celebrating, even though cautiously, that we have not faced the disaster “experts” had predicted.

Thus, even though my auntie died for failure to access oxygen in time, I still believe that our medical services and our wider healthcare system have punched far above their weight. We are a very poor country that even with the best effort there is a limit to what we can achieve. Yet even though we face innumerable and seemingly insurmountable problems, I am always conscious of the fact that we too easily ignore our endowments, our strengths and imagine others are better. It is this sense of frustration that makes us angry and pushes us into self-hate, which is counterproductive.

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amwenda@independent.co.ug