By Michael Woira
I am now counting days inside my house, just like those days I used to be at school waking up early morning and then have something to drink, then it was always class time till break time, me and almost everyone else is working from home because some other work keeps going on no matter what happens and we should all together as Ugandans commend government for giving ICT a priority because I can do everything from home including my little work conversations, morning meetings with my fellow staff and many other things that I have been able to do online while back here at home.
Several things happen in our lives but the COVID19 issue has really hit us hard as a country and as the world because we have all been affected economically. We welcomed this year with a lot of joy, happiness and celebrations not knowing it will not be as good as we expected it to be. We used all our savings bidding farewell to the year 2019 but now is the time that many are regretting because they cannot live life of not earning but only spending, by the end of the lock down many would have learnt some good lessons on saving and planning ahead with expectations of crisis at any time.
In such times, we always have to reflect on what the holy books say; prayer and putting all our faith in God is the best option in such situations, Imagine what life would be like if you were not religious, Each problem you faced would be scary, cause you pain, and leave you feeling hopeless. You would walk around the earth with the weight of sin resting on your shoulders but because with such a religious holy country, we are strong in the lord and he will sort this soon.
The book of Matthew 5:4 says that “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” One of the hardest situations any person will face in life is the death or suffering of a loved one. Losing someone or seeing some that is close to you suffer with a sickness shatters your world and makes you so sad in that you may even be forced to believe God doesn’t care.
God is able to cast out all evil from the world, and can do so for our lives as well. When we are faced with a difficult situation like the current one that we are facing, He is by our side ready to help us overcome this notorious virus. If we believe in Him, we are gifted with His guidance, aid and teachings. We can always scream his name from wherever we are and nothing not even a pandemic will put us to our knees.
Coronavirus has become a killer virus all over the world and countries have lost many of their citizens. I want to commend government at the local, state, District, Region and international levels for the decisive actions taken during this period. The disruption of classes, jobs, tournaments, leagues, and even routine mall shopping has an absolute been a very serious necessity to curb the spread of COVID19.
We won’t get everything right as a country, but all necessary steps have at least been taken by government to stop the spread of the virus. Just this week the president has addressed the nation many times on live Television, Radio and via social media and his communication has always been on providing necessary information about all the various developments reached at by government to fight the virus from spreading.
The objective has been one and that is; to minimize contacts between households as far as possible so that we can reduce the rate of transmission of the virus and number of COVID19 cases, ensuring our health care system is not overwhelmed.
The core instruction has not changed: you must not leave your home except to buy necessary food and supplies, for medical appointments or to work where that work is essential as directed by the president in his recent National addresses. When the president announced the directives, everyone first thought they could not work out because this has never been done before in Uganda. We have no rulebook or precedents in line with this as a country and I just think that this could have happened during those times of Uganda’s liberation, a time when no one could go to work because they feared for their life, people stayed at home.
The decision to lock down the country briefly was the right one by the president, but clearly we recognize that the additional detail may have caused confusion and challenges in its implementation to many people and those who are supposed to be guiding the locals in the implementation process for example the Local Defence Unit force that has always been clobbering people chasing everyone as if there was a directive to chase Ugandans away from their towns during day.
Since Monday, government has taken time to thrash out the details of the directives, and also the president gave more clarity on the issues that had not been well understood by the population, especially decisions on how the lock down should apply to certain businesses, which government did not have time to consider in those short hours before the lock down began.
As we look at several other ways of preventing ourselves from getting infected, the starting point is to keep in mind that we must all bear in mind that we follow the directives of the president that require us to be home and avoid unnecessary movements. The objective is to minimize unnecessary contact between individuals from different households.
It was recognized that there will always be a need for people and vehicles to move all around the country to keep the some essential businesses running especially the medical staff, those stocking and working in the shops which sell essential supplies, the media, the revenue collectors, National Water, Electricity or those collecting garbage. All of this requires a significant number of people to leave their homes for work each day, but self-evidently it is difficult especially without Public transport but thanks to government that such groups of people have been availed with stickers for the vehicles to carry on with their operations which is not only good for them but for the whole public that they serve.
Michael Woira works at Uganda Media Centre
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