Dr Diana Atwiine, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health told URN that as restrictions are being lifted, an average of 17 people are dying every day and severe cases have been registered where 65 per cent are people of advanced age and not vaccinated.
The Ministry of
Health is now banking on personal responsibility to curb the transmission of COVID-19 as the economy fully reopens.
Bars, entertainment centres, public concerts and the entire Arts industry are allowed to operate effective today, after close to two years of Xtreme restrictions which were first instituted in March
2020 to halt transmission of COVID-19. There will also be no more nighttime curfew, in line with a pronouncement made by President Yoweri Museveni in his new year address.
But Dr Diana Atwiine, the Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry of Health told URN that as restrictions are being lifted, an average
of 17 people are dying every day and severe cases have been registered where 65 per cent are people of advanced age and not vaccinated.
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She said that people need to continue observing Standard
Operating Procedures (SOPs) of wearing masks, physical distancing and getting
vaccinated because no one is sure of what will happen next considering the unpredictable
nature of the virus.
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For now, Uganda has started recording another reduction in
cases after a spike that started in December. At the National Planning
Authority where weekly projections of infections trends are made, their latest
model released on Monday shows the country will continue seeing this reduction
in the coming weeks.
Eng. Abraham Muwanguzi
who heads the Science Planning Department at the Authority says the country has
registered a 52 per cent drop in the previous two weeks, quoting their model which shows there will be a
further drop till the week ending February 5, 2022.
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The model projects a weekly total of 2,286 and a daily
average of 326 new cases for the week ending February 5, 2022. But, even as projections are showing a downward trend with
daily positivity rates not going beyond 5 per cent of tests done, experts just like
Atwine say this can quickly change, yet not as many people
are offering themselves for immunization.
As of today, she says only a 12.5million doses of the vaccines
have been administered of the over 32million doses stock that the country has
so far received.
When it comes to infections, official figures released by
MOH this afternoon shows the country has recorded a cumulative 160,572 cases and
some 284 are currently admitted in different treatment facilities across the
country.
