Africa-Press – Uganda. The issue:
Covid-19.
Our view:
With another lockdown staring us in the face, in the end it all comes down to personal responsibility to ensure that we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Wear face masks, avoid crowded places and wash your hands regularly.
The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is upon us and experts have recommended that government considers another lockdown to slow the spread of the disease that has so far killed 359 people, and left at least 521 fighting for their lives.
As is the Ugandan tradition, people are now flocking to vaccination centres, more than two months after Uganda received more than 964,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. There were reports of slow intake of the vaccine in the beginning, but Ministry of Health says the number of people lining up for vaccination has shot up from about 300 people per day to more than 1,000.
Whereas this is a good sign, the bad news is there are about 300,000 doses of the vaccine left. And the worst part is that we might not be receiving more vaccines anytime soon because India, the supplier, is itself grappling with the surge of the pandemic locally and has temporarily halted export of the vaccine.Until government finds another supplier, chances are high that we might soon run out of the vaccines. This means we have to go back to basics: We subdued the first wave of Covid-19 and can do it again, provided we follow what the experts are saying.
A walk down any crowded place in any corner of the country will show you that the Covid-19 standard operative procedures (SOPs) have been thrown out of the window. In relaxing the lockdown last year, government had laid out measures that must be followed to ensure that we do not arrive at where we are now.Face masks seem to be optional today, and yet proper wearing of face masks has been found by scientists to be effective in reducing human-to-human transmission, the reason government ordered that whoever was going out in public must wear one.
The practice of social distancing has also been ignored by many. It is uncommon to see more than three people – sometimes all strangers – crammed onto one boda boda without masks. If we go on like this then the spread of second wave, which is said to be hitting the younger people hard, is going to be fast.
Handwashing facilities were a must at places accessed by the public, but taps at markets, arcades and shopping malls have either run dry or have been ignored by the public. Regular washing of hands with soap and water, or using hand sanitisers, is still one of the measures that can be used to prevent Covid-19 infection.
With another lockdown staring us in the face, in the end it all comes down to personal responsibility to ensure that we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Wear face masks, avoid crowded places and wash your hands regularly.
