Import substitution good but who gains?
I wish to thank all those that have been involved in the fight against the coronavirus. After going into lockdown for more than two months with the resultant loss of production and incomes, exposing ourselves to misery, poverty and diseases, I wish to suggest that it is now time to move on with our lives.
I have seen the experts at Ministry of Health warning all and sundry that we can’t open up now. The question then is, for how long are we going to hide ourselves? No one, not even the experts at World Health Organisation (WHO), know when this disease will go away.
People who think Covid-19 will soon go away might have to wait for a shock of their lives! In fact, WHO now says the disease will be with us up to next year, if at all it goes way. In the past, we have witnessed new diseases which we naively just wished away, thinking they would disappear, but they didn’t. HIV being a good example.
I heard President Museveni in his 15th address to the nation on Covid-19 say the only way we can go back to normal lives is to wait for a vaccine to be found. But it is said the earliest the vaccine may come is 18 months from now, if it ever comes anyway! It’s true we are all living in fear of Covid-19, but we have to accept that the new disease is here with us.
All we can do is learn to live with it just like we are living with HIV, TB, malaria, etc, to avoid prolonging our fears.
But how can we live with this new disease? There are two things that those that get infected can do. One is that you can just do nothing, just let the disease do whatever it wants like flu does to people.
All we can do is to eat well – eat fruits, vegetables or even herbs. We can also visit a health facility for treatment just like we do when we ailing from other diseases.
Naturally, some people will die just like they die of other diseases. In fact, I have started to believe more in President John Magufuli of Tanzania, who avoided to put his country under lockdown. I suspect that Mr Magufuli will have the last laugh as his detractors sulk in disbelief about the futility of their cowardice. Only time will tell!
Francis Nyanzi
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