Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday announced to re-impose a strict lockdown that included the closure of schools and the ban of inter-district travel to curb a surge in COVID-19 cases within the East African nation.
The new measures, which will be effective from Monday morning, include the closure of all educational institutions, some bans on travel, the shutdown of weekly open markets, and the suspension of church services.
Most of the new restrictions, Museveni mentioned, would be implemented for 42 days. An assessment of their impact will then assist the government to decide whether to ease or prolong them, he added.
Uganda implemented one of Africa’s tightest lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic more than a yr ago, but it was gradually lifted as cases slowed to a trickle.
Last month however infections began to spike and new cases, particularly among younger individuals, have surged, fuelling fears that the nation could slip into an out-of-control second wave.
Museveni mentioned in a televised address on Sunday night that a second wave gripping the nation was “diffuse and sustained”.
“In this wave, the intensity of severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients and demise is higher than what we experienced within the first wave of the pandemic,” he mentioned.
From January to April the positivity rate in tested samples was mostly below 3% but the rate began climbing sharply last month, hitting 18% on June 2, according to Ministry of Health data.
The new restrictions potentially threaten to arrest an already fragile economic recovery from the blow inflicted by last year’s lockdown.
Those restrictions contributed to a 1.1% economic contraction in 2020, but the finance ministry had projected before Sunday’s new measures that growth would climb to between 4-5% within the fiscal yr beginning July.
