Uganda losing 17 people to Covid-19 everyday as economy fully reopens

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health is now banking on personal responsibility to curb the transmission of COVID-19 as the economy fully reopens.

Bars, entertainment centres, public concerts and the entire Arts industry are now allowed to operate, after close to two years of extreme restrictions which were first instituted in March 2020, to halt transmission of COVID-19. There will also be no more nighttime curfew, in line with a pronouncement made by President Yoweri Museveni in his new year address.

But Dr Diana Atwine, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health told URN that as restrictions are being lifted, an average of 17 people are dying everyday and severe cases have been registered where 65 percent are people of advanced age and not vaccinated.

She said that people need to continue observing standard operating procedures (SOPs) of wearing masks, physical distancing and getting vaccinated because no one is sure of what will happen next considering the unpredictable nature of the virus.

For now, Uganda has started recording another reduction in cases after a spike that started in December. At the National Planning Authority where weekly projections of infections trends are made, their latest model released on Monday shows the country will continue seeing this reduction in the coming weeks.

Eng. Abraham Muwanguzi who heads the Science Planning Department at the Authority says the country has registered a 52 percent drop in the previous two weeks, quoting their model which shows there will be a further drop till the week ending February 5, 2022.

The model projects a weekly total of 2,286 and a daily average of 326 new cases for the week ending February 5, 2022. But even as projections are showing a downward trend with daily positivity rates not going beyond 5 percent of tests done, experts just like Atwine say this can quickly change, yet not as many people are offering themselves for immunization.

As of yesterday, she said only 12.5million doses of the vaccines had been administered of the over 32million doses stock that the country has so far received.

When it comes to infections, official figures released by MOH show the country has recorded a cumulative 160,572 cases and some 284 are currently admitted in different treatment facilities across the country.

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URN