Covid-19 Cases on the rise in Uganda

It has announced 209 new cases of COVID-19, a number which ominously indicates a more than 100% increase in daily infections.  

While many Ugandans rub their palms and await the lifting of restrictions in January towards a return to normalcy, the ministry of health reveals that it is not yet Uhuru as the new coronavirus cases in the country have driven up the total cases to 128,509.

This new report adds that the tests it ran on December 15, 2021 confirmed these new cases out of the 4,812 samples collected that day.

While getting to the brass tacks of the new cases, the ministry said Wakiso has 125, Kampala 56 while Kyotera and Busia have seven and five cases, respectively.

Napak district has four cases, while Mbarara and Amuru have two each.

The districts of Mbale, Ngora, Jinja, Hoima, Mpigi and Soroti have one each. 

The ministry said two truck drivers from Kyotera and Amuru tested positive for COVID-19.

One more COVID-19 death was reported, bringing the total to 3,272.

The Ministry also said that those who had recovered from COVID-19 are 97,949 and that a total of 7,888,584 vaccine doses have been administered in the country.

In his national addresses recently, President Yoweri Museveni said that by the end of December 2021 more than 12 million Ugandans should have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

He stated that by the end of December, Uganda will have received 23 million doses of vaccines ahead of the complete opening up of the economy in January next year whether people go for vaccination or not. 

“By the end of December 2021, 12 million people should have been vaccinated,” forecast Museveni, including vulnerable people and health and education workers. Even if you don’t come out for vaccination, we will open the schools and the economy. If anything goes wrong, the moral responsibility is yours,” he said.

This will happen against the background of SARS-CoV2 variant B.1.1.529, also known as Omicron, which was first identified by scientists in South Africa from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021, being highly transmissible, more resistant to vaccines and possibly already in Uganda. 

With 80,000 new infections of Omicron in the United Kingdom and US president Joe Biden forecasting doom with respect to the same, Covid-19 may have the last word on what the Museveni government will eventually do.