ITS ONE THING HAVING RISING NUMBER OF INFECTIONS, IT’S ANOTHER HAVING DEATHS TO COVID-19; Third World Countries Like Uganda Have Got No Social Structure To Handle Challenges Associated With Lock-Down

ITS ONE THING HAVING RISING NUMBER OF INFECTIONS, IT’S ANOTHER HAVING DEATHS TO COVID-19; Third World Countries Like Uganda Have Got No Social Structure To Handle Challenges Associated With Lock-Down

 There are believable reports that the entire cabinet of the government of southern Sudan including vice president Riak Machar have all tested positive to the corona virus.

 According to the world media, the entire covid-19 taskforce of the juba authorities, with the single exception of the health minister, have been infected with the pandemic.

It’s obvious that the covid19 pandemic has indeed taken its toll on humanity all over the world.

Lets Interrogate The Exaggerations

 But it’s also a fact that the extent of its devastation has been blown out of proportion. We need to interrogate whether the health measures which WHO instituted were well informed or out of panic. There is overwhelming evidence which attests to the fact that some measures were not well thought out.

While there are alarming levels of infections, the deaths are relatively not that alarming. Its one thing having people testing positive to covid-19 and it’s completely a different story having them die of the same.

 We should debate along those lines. For instance while America has lost over 100,000 people to covid-19, Uganda has lost none!

Uganda is, however, eager to pose as an endangered country by virtue of the 212 people who have tested positive to covid-19 with 68 people who have recovered and zero deaths.

Why should Ugandan adopt the same measures like America?

These are two different dimensions which we should interrogate accordingly.

But let’s talk logically.

If so many people are getting infected, how many are recovering?

Globally 5.43m people have been infected, 2.18 have recovered while 0.345 thousand people have perished.

If you factor in the number of a little more than a quarter a million people out of the global population of 7.8 billion people, you simply realize that the figures and stats are entirely not in favor of sacrificing the global economy in the name of fighting a pandemic.  There was NO need to enforce the lock-down to fight covid19 whatsoever.

Now if the number of people recovering is far bigger than those perishing then we should be having a different narrative. We should be employing a strategy that is not as panic-driven as the one which was designed by the world health organization that obliterated the world economy.

If people are recovering even before a vaccine is found then we should be confident that covid19 can be contained without sacrificing the livelihoods with a lock-down.

WE CAN LIVE WITH COVID19

We should be honest and concede that mankind can live side by side with the corona virus, like we have done with the previous pandemics which have had a devastating effect on the world.

As we speak now, there is no direct vaccine for the Ebola virus, the aids pandemic, SARS and the ZIKA virus. But those pandemics have somehow evaporated.

We are almost certain that the vaccine for the corona virus will not be found in the near future. There is a very good chance that it might simply evaporate on its own without the healing powers of a vaccine or health guidelines that were issued by the inept world health organization.

And the narrative now is that ’its one thing registering a big number of people infected with covid-19, and it’s another thing altogether to have people perishing to covid-19.

THE IMPLICATIONS

The implication is that we should base our decisions in the fight against tcovid19 more on the number of deaths than on the number of infections.

Because if we base on the number of infections to institute tough measures we shall be missing the whole point.

Experience has so far proved that most African countries took the drastic measures to enforce the lock-down before they even knew what the whole fracas was all about.

They based on scanty information from WHO to force their citizens into self isolation even when it’s clear that they (most African countries) don’t have the necessary social economic structures to shutdown their economies.

As time goes by, the world will come to realize that the lock-down was one of the most idiotic measures ever undertaken in the fight of the corona virus.

The Ugandan government, for instance caged people in a complete lockdown in the entire country for more than two months but failed to feed even one percent of the population.

When the population cried out, the government dispatched food, in the form of rotten beans full of stones and poor quality posho which they tried to serve in just two towns of Kampala and wakiso.

They Ugandan government has even failed to those two respective districts. It’s a shame of the highest proportions.

This is where the world health organization carries a bigger blame coz they were the authors of that lock-down idea as a one of the guidelines to stop the spread of covid-19.

Once dictatorships got the WHO instructions they used them as a weapon to suppress and subjugate their people and as an opportunity to demonstrate power.

They confined people in their homes without food for more than sixty days. And when they delivered the rotten food, it was not sufficient enough to cover that period of the quarantine.

THE CONDEMNATIONS

The world should condemn these inhuman acts that have been done in the guise of fighting covid-19 by some demonic African governments.

Although these governments couldn’t feed their citizens, they also made it a criminal offence for anyone to volunteer assistance to the suffering people in the form of food grants.

If you cannot feed your people, why don’t you allow them to get the assistance from other sources?

In Uganda, one Member of Parliament called Hon Francis Zaake tried to help out his people by distributing some food items, but he was arrested and tortured to near death by the Ugandan police.

The police was acting on the orders of president Museveni who had instructed the immediate arrest anyone found distributing food, citing attempted murder as the charge that would be used against the volunteer.

The Ugandan government has so far collected over shs40bn from wiling citizens as donation fund to fight covid19, but there is little chance that it will be accounted for.

The health care system is in shambles but government has got no single idea of revamping it using those newly generated resources.

PRECEDENCE

Yet there are plenty of case studies to learn from in other countries. For instance in china, when covid19 broke out, the Chinese government managed to build a make shift hospital in just two months!

Okay, you can claim that china is a first world country that can afford such an indulgence.

But look at Kenya; they have made a big investment in the health sector by increasing the number of beds in all hospitals around the country. They have revamped the staff of hospital workers by recruiting new personnel in almost all hospitals around the country.

The Kenyan government has even made an economic stimulus package that will see Kenyan youth receive cash handouts from government.

What has the Ugandan government done so far?

Nothing apart from posturing that they are fighters, and taking credit for the zero deaths of Ugandans to covid19.

Well, the Ugandan government doesn’t deserve any credit for the fight against covid-19 because they were accomplices in allowing it to spread in the country in the first place when they took long to close Entebbe airport.

The majority of the covid19 cases have all been imported from outside the country –which is a direct primary responsibility of government to deal with incoming persons.

Interestingly, last month some members of parliament passed a motion recognizing president Museveni as hero who has fought and defeated the corona virus! Oh dear! What an irony.

Wonders indeed never cease.

The way forward

There is no justification for the continued lock-down when countries that have lost more people have opened up to normal business.

Open up now. Ugandans are yearning for their right to earn a living!

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a political journalist, blogger and currently an anti-lock-down activist.

kamwadafred@gmail.com