As the SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging Europe and the United States last year but practically absent in Africa, Ugandans and other Africans took to joking about how the West had been exposed as incompetent.
Now that the pandemic has embarked on its first true wave in Uganda, we are beginning to have a taste of its devastating health and economic effects.
COVID-19 deaths are no longer figures we read about in the news from Ministry of Health updates; more and more of us are now learning of deaths of relatives, colleagues, friends, neighbours and former classmates.
With infection rates rising alarmingly over the past month, the government had no choice but to announce an immediate national lockdown last Friday.
But the suddenness of the new lockdown caught the public unawares. Traders had no time to go to shopping malls and retrieve some of their stock.
With no immediate relief measures in place, desperate vendors in Kampala have taken the risk of going to the retail hubs in town and are being forcibly turned back home by the police.
In the meantime, we are starting to come face-to-face with the true cost of treating COVID-19 patients.
With bills running into the tens of millions and in many instances hundreds of millions of shillings, the treatment of COVID-19 patients is wiping out the entire financial savings of middle-class families.
Even if the NSSF were to give employees all their life savings with the fund, two short weeks of admission in a Kampala hospital for COVID-19 are enough for most to use up the money.
As I monitor both social media and radio stations across the country to gauge the national mood, I sense desperation and anger mounting at all levels of society.
The new cabinet announced two weeks ago by President Museveni has its work cut out for it.
And all signs are that Uganda is only in the early stages of this latest COVID-19 emergency. Much worse is yet to come.
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