For nearly two months the country has been under partial lock down.
The cardinal account for this, to prevent the spread of COVID 19, beyond manageable measures.
The first cases were traced from persons coming within by air. Most were put in isolation places . The ones who tested positive were given medical attention and the country got a sigh, that they were getting back on foot. Indeed they got, since we have not in a while, got news of their re-manifesting signs of the infection.
Later other cases emerged of a few contact persons to the group above. They under went medical attention too.
Close to have less than 10 active cases, there emerged another wave of entrance-The truck drivers.
The truck drivers have helped to show the relevancy of testing. The only key start in the fight against covid is testing. The more positive cases you get the better, you know your direction of fight. That shows you where the nuclear and the entire concentration should be settled in terms of response, deployment of your medical resources and working gear viz-a-viz how to handle the other parts that seem free from contacts.
The truck drivers pose a question tho- Was the taskforce approach in the circumstances to let the drivers drive in as their results are pending the best option ? No.
Statistics from URA will down play the line of reason that cargo generated substantial income to the Authority, in the time being.
Health analysts need to examine as well the impression I have that instead most Tru drivers got in contact at the boarder points whilst waiting for checkups with a few comrades who had been infected earlier.
The reasoning that after check up a driver would proceed , then contacted later was the most wanting opine in all the listed strategies in this fight. Its this that has drawn the impact of Covid more disatrous than the diseases its self per-se.
Data will show that since the first 21 days stay home campaign, there have been less than 10% of community cases. A category that is the most disturbing within all countries whose number of infected persons are high.
However tour national task force functions on a reasoning that the high number of truck driver cases is a susceptible basis, to increase or cause a massive out break in the number of community cases.
This hypothesis may have some degree of relevancy, but only to the extent of poor planning. It’s this hypothesis that keeping Uganda under lock down however.
If that’s the scare gate, why then ain’t truck entrances banned for a time being and boarders fully closed or entry massively restricted?
Ugandans are locked up home, pregnant women facing hardships to reach health centres, a piecemeal of persons getting food items as promised.
Businesses closing down each hour, tenants doubtful of the capability to pay rent arrears that are accumulating , landlords sunken in losses, schools losing direction , parents building castles of worry fear and uncertainty first to their jobs and to their kids education status.
These are all as a result of the hypothesis mentioned above.
The counsel given by the government is to the effect that our industrial sector will grow massively no cause of worry.
In my opinion, I dissent. It’s not true that a manufacture of sanitisers , face masks, will boost our economy as the head of state has argued. No economy grows basing on one sector. Neither can a new venture strikingly pick the economy from recession to a boom .
The executive has proposed and presented supplementary budgets to which parliament has passed. The executive has further intimated borrowing to have a spine of life through this crisis. This was the same state of affairs even prior to this outbreak.
So can a sanitiser and face masks manufacturing industrial hub, as we are hypothetically convinced, we are going to be or have a comparative advantage, resurrect our even prior to covid time recessed economy? No. That ain’t possible.
This is why we need some of the spiracles that allow commerce to flow in this country, get back to work.
The testing has proven . That the threat is on truck drivers. Now that their entrance is restricted, let’s approach massive random tests within the country as commerce gradually flows. We can open up bits by bits.
Denis Nyombi
