President Museveni’s Address on COVID19

“Last year started with locusts, floods, landslides, and also COVID-19 which came creeping from different parts of the world. On 18th March, we announced very serious measures even before we had the first case.

When we had controlled the epidemic, we announced deliberately calculated measures of relaxation. However, the people who are not advisable took over.

I hear that some of our young MPs are fundraising for cheap popularity. Stop that, you are putting many people’s lives in danger. This is not the time for cheap popularity.

Today I am just here to alert you. We are going to have a fullscale National Task Force meeting on Wednesday and we shall communicate what we have agreed.

We don’t want anyone of us to die from this avoidable problem just because people are not listening. The situation is not too bad if we wake up. Somehow, God likes Uganda. There must be some reason.

Ugandans who are in the villages, if you are not doing serious work, don’t come to Kampala or Wakiso. Stay in your villages, they are safe. Kampala and Wakiso are full of COVID-19 because people here don’t listen.

These new infections are quite serious. For example, from the new cases recorded on 25th May, the asymptomatic were 5, mild were 59, severe 59, and critical 9.

When we opened schools for the finalists from October 15th to March, we only had 239 cases in the schools. Recently, 803 cases have been confirmed in the schools and one of them died.

The whole strategy hinges on minimizing the infections. That is why we succeeded last year. In Europe and other places, they failed because they failed to control the numbers. The high-grade health centers were of no value but simply overwhelmed.

One of my doctors told me that caring for one person until full recovery would take 21 days. How will you cater for each person for 21 days if the numbers of infections are high?

When the crisis in India deepened, it stopped exporting the Astrazeneca vaccine. This is unfortunate on one hand but it’s also good on another hand. It is unfortunate because it undermines international confidence in cooperation.

I told our people to reserve 40% for us and we share 60% with our brothers in East Africa. I appeal to the countries with the COVID-19 vaccines to use this approach.

Because of the abundance of waragi, we were the only ones in East Africa making sanitisers when the crisis started. Someone wanted us to stop exporting the sanitisers but I said NO.

Towards the end of next week, I will make another broadcast and give you a detailed way forward.” President Museveni in a presser Saturday evening.