{"id":9364,"date":"2021-04-30T17:49:12","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=9364"},"modified":"2021-04-30T17:13:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T17:13:24","slug":"is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us","title":{"rendered":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed to be bailing us out with the Covid-19 vaccine. But if for some reason you have decided that ignorance is bliss, let me spoil it for you. It is bad, unprecedented bad. People are dying on the streets, because the health system is overwhelmed, from a new variant of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

You probably don\u2019t remember but around this time last year, the lockdown was starting to bite. Forced to stay home for a couple of weeks, we were starting to get jittery from the experience. Those who often suffer anxieties or for whom home isn\u2019t a safe abode were going through the pits, while the rest of us hobbled on the best way we could.<\/p>\n

We looked on in amazement and confusion, sometimes enviously, as Burundi and Tanzania moved on with life as usual \u2013 going through the rituals of staging pretend-democratic elections and frolicking around in large gatherings.<\/p>\n

We even said that it would be madness to go into our own charade \u2013 but somehow still did, probably because our elections are more an economic answer than they are a political one. We hadn\u2019t even registered any Covid-19 related deaths and were wondering why truck drivers weren\u2019t getting banned from our borders.<\/p>\n

A year later, nobody cares that they didn\u2019t get their plate of government-served posho and beans. We have families with empty spaces where their loved ones used to sit, businesses reeling and workers reeling from the impact of Covid-19, and the unraveling of thievery and misuse of recovery funds. All these seem to have pushed us to get back to how things used to be \u2013 how things need to be.<\/p>\n

A friend recently arrived in Uganda, from Canada, and she was flabbergasted by what she saw on our streets. Having spent the last year under lockdown, she couldn\u2019t explain to herself \u2013 or to her people at home \u2013 how nothing had visibly changed about Kampala life as she had always known it.<\/p>\n

I joked that we probably had, without knowing or intending to, achieved herd immunity \u2013 because there seemed to be no explanation why we were behaving the way we are, seemingly oblivious of the consequences. So much that even those who had been identified as high-risk groups were spending more time indulging in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories than they were in the queues to get jabs.<\/p>\n

I am probably committing a bit of literary appropriating here but I couldn\u2019t find a better quote to capture the folly of our indulgencies, better crafted than how the American feminist writer, Audre Lorde, did, when she said, \u201cCaring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

She obviously was talking about things different, and yet I find that for people who would be described as engaged in socioeconomic and political warfare, there is little investment in self-preservation. The contradiction for Uganda is that where you have a young population for whom \u2013 from the evidence of it \u2013 the biggest threat is not necessarily the pandemic, but economic survival, self-preservation and caution become luxury items.<\/p>\n

Which then brings us to our approach to the safety protocols we are using for the vaccine rollout. Two months into the exercise, we only just crossed the 300,000 people mark and there is still no explanation why or concerted strategy for mitigation \u2013 only suppositions from here and there. Would we, for example have achieved more success if our approach hadn\u2019t been \u2018cut and paste\u2019 from the global rollout template, but instead been more cognizant of our demographic context.<\/p>\n

Would our numbers have been higher, if young people (25-40 years), who form a core demographic \u2013 and are breadwinners and providers for their families, had been actively targeted for vaccination, and therefore served as influencers for their older relations? We probably will never know, because we approached this with such tunnel vision, and those same young people don\u2019t seem to care much as well.<\/p>\n

Looking at how young people have moved on from the kind of self-preservation that\u2019s required to survive whatever struggle they are engaged in, and government\u2019s near-predictable bungling you worry what might happen if this thing doesn\u2019t go away \u2013 or if anybody is working behind the scenes to stave off an India-like situation.<\/p>\n

Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. rukwengye86@gmail.com<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed to be bailing us out with the Covid-19 vaccine. But if for some reason you have decided that ignorance is bliss, let me spoil it for you. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":9363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-9364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nIs anybody watching India and worrying for us? - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed t ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed t ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-30T17:49:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-30T17:49:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\"},\"wordCount\":757,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\",\"name\":\"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us? - Uganda\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-30T17:49:12+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"description\":\"If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed t ...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg\",\"width\":720,\"height\":480,\"caption\":\"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/\",\"name\":\"Uganda\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cfeditoren\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us? - Uganda","description":"If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed t ...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?","og_description":"If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed t ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us","og_site_name":"Uganda","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa","article_published_time":"2021-04-30T17:49:12+00:00","og_image":[{"width":720,"height":480,"url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?","datePublished":"2021-04-30T17:49:12+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us"},"wordCount":757,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg","keywords":["Africa Press","Africa Press-Uganda","uganda"],"articleSection":["all news","files","homepage-english"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us","name":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us? - Uganda","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg","datePublished":"2021-04-30T17:49:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"description":"If you are plugged into any newsy stuff, you must have come across the stories coming out of India \u2013 the guys supposed t ...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/04\/img-608c3a96dc130.jpg","width":720,"height":480,"caption":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/is-anybody-watching-india-and-worrying-for-us#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is anybody watching India and worrying for us?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/","name":"Uganda","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"cfeditoren"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}