Museveni expected to announce total lockdown as he addresses country on Covid situation today

President Museveni has announced that he will later today address the nation on the Coronavirus situation.

“Fellow countrymen, countrywomen, bazukulu, I will address the country today at 8:00pm on a number of issues but mostly the COVID-19 situation. I call upon you to tune in to the different radio and TV stations for this address,”Museveni announced on his social media handles.

It is expected that the president will announce a second total lockdown of the country after a continued surge in the Coronavirus infections in the country.

Whereas earlier this month, government  closed schools and banned inter-district travel with hope of containing the situation, the Covid-19 cases have continued to surge.

Scientists and the national Covid-19 task force had earlier asked the president to totally lockdown the country but Museveni was adamant to do so since many sectors of the economy were just recovering from the previous lockdown.

This prompted him to lockdown some sectors with a call for the population to adhere to the set Standard Operating Procedures.

However, it is said that all these have not yielded anything as Covid-19 cases continue to soar.

For example in less than a month, Uganda has recorded 13254 Covid-19 cases and a total of 149 people have succumbed to the deadly virus.

The situation has also worsened after both private and public hospitals have reported running out or having acute shortages of AstraZeneca vaccines and oxygen. Many hospitals say they are no longer able to admit patients to intensive care.

This, according to experts has subsequently necessitated the need for a lockdown.

This state of affairs including the many deaths due to the virus  has also forced many Ugandans to voluntarily adhere to the set Standard Operating Procedures like wearing of masks and washing of hands.

Many others like boda boda riders and taxi drivers have organised themselves to enforce the guidelines.

President Museveni is therefore expected to announce totally locking down the country for a specific period of time to be able to contain the situation that seems to have gone out of hand.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Health reported 1584 new Covid-19 cases and 34 deaths from tests done on June, 15, 2020.

Uganda has now recorded a cumulative total of 67, 215 infections and 542 deaths since the first case was reported in March 2020.