Forging Covid tests should be fought

We reported yesterday that Aviation police had arrested 24 people who had on Sunday tried to travel out of the country with fake Covid-19 test results.  
The Covid-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests are a prerequisite for any traveller and planes are mandated not to carry any passenger without a negative test certificate.
 
First, we must commend the Aviation police for their efforts in ensuring that all those that get to the plane have tested for the virus and are negative. The world is reeling from the effects of a pandemic that has now claimed more than one million lives, infected about 40 million people and brought global economies to their knees.

In Uganda, there have been direct and indirect effects of the pandemic on the economy and people’s wellbeing. The National Planning Authority in April pointed out that the pandemic can lead to sickness and mortality, depletes healthcare resources and affects the labour force.
 
Besides, if the pandemic does not affect one directly, it will have behavioural effects resulting from the fear of infection and association with others, closes places of employment, disrupts transportation, motivates private sector decision makers to disrupt trade, travel, and commerce by cancelling scheduled commercial flights and reduces shipping and cargo services, among others. 
Overall, the effects of the pandemic are dire. 

Now, imagine that passengers from other countries forged certificates to come to Uganda while they are positive. Wouldn’t that endanger all of us? The purpose of closing down borders in March was to limit transmission of the virus from high-risk countries in Europe and Asia.
Initial findings indicated that airports – and planes - were the biggest conduits of the virus since its outbreak in China in December last year. So trying to sidestep the standard operating procedures (SOPs) at airports, defeats this very logic. 

This, then, just serves to tell us that we cannot afford to spread the virus at any cost. Our appeal to the airport authorities is to also be vigilant on returning passengers. What systems do we have in place to detect genuine and fake test certificates from other countries?

An experiment by this newspaper a few weeks ago showed that officials at Entebbe airport would just check for the 72-hour lapse. But can we apply the same standards to all passengers - whether leaving or arriving?
Let’s help other countries so that they also help us. The virus can only be defeated with combined effort.