Second lockdown in offing as virus surges 

Government is considering a second lockdown as a radical measure to break the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic that has so far killed 359 people, and left at least 521 fighting for their lives. 

 Mulago National Referral Hospital and other facilities across the country are currently packed, and positivity rate has jumped from 1.5 per cent in April to 7.8 per cent as of yesterday.  

The country’s heath officials said more contagious variants of the virus, especially from India, Nigeria UK and South Africa, are partly to blame for the accelerating spread. 
Critics, however, say the government relaxed after January polls and many citizens have not been vaccinated.

 Out of 521 infected people, a total of 186, including a newborn baby and a 14-year-old boy are either admitted to High Dependency Unit (HDUs) or Intensive Care Units (ICUs). 

Dr Diana Atwine, the Health ministry Permanent Secretary, yesterday called an emergency meeting of the temporary Covid-19 taskforce to discuss the way forward. 
Dr Atwine said due to non-compliance with Covid-19 guidelines despite the rise in infections and deaths, the lockdown is a possible preventive measure.

“If the public has refused to take the measures we have put in place, I think it’s the way to go. Some areas must be locked down unless people get back to observing SOPs (standard operating procedures). Otherwise, our systems will be overwhelmed and we shall see scenarios we have been seeing in some countries,” Dr Atwine said.
 
Kira Road Police Division commander Mathias Turyasingura, who was at the rank of Superintendent of Police, succumbed to coronavirus at Mulago hospital yesterday.  
The outgoing Local Government minister, Mr Raphael Magyezi, yesterday announced he had tested positive.

When the second wave hit the country this month, the cases rose swiftly from 36 as of April 23 to 202  on May 23. 
At least 200 Ugandans contract the virus  daily, according to figures from the Ministry of Health. 
 
Health officials also resolved to meet President Museveni and brief him about the current situation, including the National Covid Taskforce, which is not fully constituted. The changes in government affected the operations of the taskforce.   
 
Dr Atwine issued a statement, announcing the formation of a temporary National Covid Taskforce. 

She indicated that the President had directed that pending a new Cabinet, a temporary national taskforce be constituted comprising the Permanent Secretary and undersecretaries to handle the national response to the resurgence.  
 
The new taskforce convenes today at 2:30pm to discuss the way forward. 
The team is expected to come up with key recommendations on how the government should respond to the crisis. 

The team, according to sources, will discuss the pros and cons of a second lockdown and which districts or sectors to be affected.

“It (lockdown) is very possible because for us lives matter and anything that would disrupt lives of people, we would find solutions and one of them is to find solution through lockdown…Therefore, as Ministry of Health, we will not just sit and watch but come up with a solution to present to the taskforce,” Dr Atwine said. 

The planned lockdown, according to sources in the ministry, targets Kampala City and other badly hit urban areas. 
The capital accounts for 55 per cent of the infections in the country.  

Scientists weigh in
Dr Misaki Wayengera, the head of the Ministerial Scientific Advisory Committee on Covid-19, said although the lockdown is possible, it cannot be approached the way it was done previously.

“It can be done by either locking down some sectors, there might be adjustments or it might be done geographically like Kampala. Kampala is a mess, so it might get lockdown,” Dr Wayengera said. 

He added: “We are still trying to see and we are still understanding the transmission where it is  actually coming from to make decisions on how to approach this.” 
According to Dr Wayengera, Ugandans should expect tough enforcement of the Covid-19 measures. 

He reiterated that if the public does not adhere to SOPs, then the lockdown is inevitable.

Consultations are to be conducted between the Ministry of Health and different stakeholders who will then propose some solutions to Mr Museveni to guide accordingly.

A number of young people, who have been infected, have presented severe symptoms unlike the first wave where the elderly were the most affected. 

Private hospitals have started turning away Covid-19 patients to public health facilities.  

In a period of seven days alone, Uganda has registered at least 1,000 cases.
Dr Monica Musenero, the senior presidential adviser on epidemics, confirmed  that a meeting is being organised to discuss the surging numbers, and the public will be informed of the outcomes. 

The surge in infections comes at a time when schools are preparing to reopen for Primary One pupils on June 7. 

Ministry for Health Permanent Secretary's  statement on lockdown

The country is experiencing the second wave and we had alerted the public about this. We knew it was coming but at the time when we were sounding the warning, people were busy in politics, now that politics is done, we want the public to listen to us. We have experienced a sharp rise in the cases. Two days ago, we got 187 cases in one day.  I think yesterday the numbers could be more than 200. 

In less than a week, we have lost more than six people from our ICUs. What is sad is that a number of people we are losing are very young, our ICUs  and HDUs(High Dependency  Unit) are full, some private hospitals have started turning away patients who have Covid-19 and are sending them to our public hospitals. Our hospitals will soon be full, possibly in less than a week if we go by what we see or what we saw in the last five days.

 The public is reminded that the second wave is worse than the first because in the first one, we did not lose many young people. Statistics of our young people in ICU that come in very critical stage are worrying.
Its a shame that the campaign against the vaccine had been going on, and it has obscured the real threat.  The vaccines we sent to some districts have not been enthusiastically embraced. We have decided to recall these vaccines so that we do campaigns here where the big hotspot is Kampala, Mukono, Wakiso districts.Everyone who wishes to have the vaccination will have it. 

 We are reactivating Namboole stadium. We have also been having challenges of travellers coming in. Although they have negative results, when we tested, we find many people who are positive. These are some of the people who don’t want to follow SOPs.  Ideally, the asymptomatic patients are supposed to do home-based isolation and make sure that we follow up, they test when they are cleared, and they can be free.  Then we can leave hospitals to symptomatic cases because they are rising fast. 

 But the challenge is that our people don’t want to listen when they go for self-isolation, they don’t adhere to the rules and they have ended up infecting their loved. In the beginning, we were isolating them but we are going to get to a level where hospitals must be left to the critical patients because Entebbe is full, Mulago by yesterday (Tuesday) morning had 84.

 It (lockdown) cannot be ruled out because for us lives come first. If the public has refused to take the measures that were put in place, I think it’s the way to go, some areas must be locked down unless people get back to observing to SOPs.  Otherwise, we shall overwhelm our systems and we shall see scenarios of some countries.  

 If the people refuse to listen,  we shall engage the taskforce.  Currently, the taskforce is not fully constituted because I think the old members now are no longer available. But  I believe it will soon be constituted and we start. In the meantime, we are going to have a press statement to give the country the details of what is happening in the country and what people need to do.
 We shall also propose some measures after consultation with all the stakeholders, we shall propose solutions to the President and he will guide. 
 
 India could not export vaccines because of the high burden of diseases they had. They had to concentrate the vaccine within the country to vaccinate their people. We are now engaging COVAX to order. They wrote to us and said there is a window where we can purchase through COVAX then they are negotiating collectively, they are looking at other manufacturers of Astrazeneca like in UK,US.

But we are also looking at possibilities of getting other vaccines, Johnson and Johnson through African Union. We have also ordered through that. We are also looking at other vaccines that have been approved by World Health Organisation such as Chinese vaccine. Some of those vaccines are very expensive. 

I think the Chinese is $40 or so per dose the Russian has not yet obtained approval by World Health Organisation.  I am told they have also made a single dose.   Why we were encouraging people to take vaccine early we knew, the science doses do not tell lies. 

When you take a vaccine, your body needs time to start preparing the fight to start making the antibodies.  When you get a vaccine today and you get the infection tomorrow, you are as good as someone who was not vaccinated. 

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