LIVE: 14th Presidential Address on COVID-19

NEW MEASURES

✳ 1. Shops selling general merchandize will open provided they are not in the shopping malls, shopping arcades and food markets.
✳ 2. The heroic market women that have slept in the work places for all these days, will be allowed to go home and come back to work daily if they want to.
✳ 3. Public transport will resume but with strict regulations. Mini-buses, buses, taxis, tuku-tukus can operate provided they carry only a half of their normal capacity. Public transport won’t operate in border districts for another 21 days.
✳ 4. Boda bodas won’t carry passengers yet. They should continue to carry cargo as they have been doing during the time of the lock-down.
✳ 5. Bars, night-clubs, gyms, saunas, swimming pools and hair-salons, will stay closed for another 21 days since they cannot easily observe the rules of social distancing.
✳ 6. The International borders of Uganda and the airport will remain closed so that we do not import additional cases from outside.
✳ 7. Education institutions can open but only for finalists/candidate classes. There will be no first-term examinations. Social distancing is a must. Other learners will wait for now.
✳ 8. Curfew from 1900hours  until 0630 hours , remains in place for another 21 days.
✳ 9. Food restaurants can open as long as the clients observe social-distancing and there is no air-conditioning which spreads the virus.
✳ 10. People with private cars will be allowed to drive as long as the car does not carry more than 3 people, including the driver.
✳ 11. All the other restrictions will remain in place for 21 days.

Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni’s on-off-on COVID-19 national address will go ahead shortly.

Hours before the President’s speech, he demonstrated to Ugandans how best to consume some of the relief food that’s been distributed to ease lives of the urban poor mainly in Kampala and Wakiso. He demonstrated this at a cabinet meeting held on Monday afternoon.

There has been a dispute by some about the quantity and quality government is offering.

As of May 17th, government has distributed relief food to over 1.3m Ugandans. The package to the families includes 6 kg of maize flour per person, 3 kg of beans per person, and salt. The lactating mothers and the sick will receive 2 kgs of powdered milk and 2kgs of sugar.

“I asked the kitchen staff to prepare 1kg of the maize flour from the food being distributed by the COVID-19 relief team. My intention was to understand how an individual can consume this food optimally during this period,” he said on twitter, sharing photographs of his demonstration to Uganda’s Cabinet.

“The scientific conclusion we have arrived at is that 250gs of Posho is optimal for consumption in this situation, this means that for 2.6kgs of posho, about 10 days are possible,” he said.

“Consume about 250gs of the relief Posho per meal, you can obtain enough calories to enable you to considerably survive for quite some time. The food should not be consumed wastefully.”

Today’s address

With Uganda’s COVID-19 statistics heading towards 300, President Museveni is expected to reassure the nation today on steps to control the pandemic, and ease the lockdown.

When President Museveni last addressed the nation, the confirmed cases were less than 100, but are now at 248 with the cumulative number of foreign truck drivers who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Uganda at a record 125.

The President is expected to explain two key new measures; the testing of drivers before they return, and return of Ugandans from abroad.

Early in the week, news broke that some Ugandans had been given permission to return, this despite the President clearly stating Uganda’s borders had been closed to passenger traffic.

Kazibwe for easing lockdown

Earlier in the day, former Vice-President Dr. Specioza Wandira Kazibwe said Uganda has contained the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and is well placed to ease the lock-down.

She said that ‘technically’ the curve is flat as the majority of those who have tested positive are imported cases into the country, and not from the community.

“The infection as we see it now, going to over 200 cases, are not an actually infection originating in Uganda. Which means they do not reflect the degree of risk within the population, but they reflect a degree of risk to being infected,” said Dr Kazibwe.

She was speaking on Morning Breeze on NBS TV today as a Senior Special Presidential advisor global health and population, attached to the Ministry of Health.

“The phased easing of the lock-down is already happening. What you must do is make sure your health system is ready to treat the infected cases. The Ugandan system is ready, ” she said confidently. She says the Ministry of Health has also given Ugandans enough information to act on.

Kazibwe said most of the Ugandan cases are positive, but they are ‘not sick’. They are mild cases, she says, that need to be quarantined, not admitted into a hospital. Uganda’s hospital bed capacity can cope, she reassured.

“Being infected does not mean you are sick. Our cases have mild symptoms, and do not even need admission. We have bed capacity for those who are moderate to severe and need to be admitted. Truck drivers are driving, do they need to be admitted – they are doing their work already,” she said.  “They need to be quarantined, not admitted.”

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DR WANDIRA KAZIBWE: Curve is flat, time to ease lock down https://t.co/sZihJr1ijn

— The Independent (@UGIndependent) May 18, 2020