Uganda has registered a spike in the cases of Covid-19 ahead of planned school and full economy reopening in January, 2022.
According to the Ministry of Health, Uganda on 20th December registered 502 new cases of Covid-19 pushing the registered cumulative cases to 130,178.
On 18th December, the country registered 357 cases of the pandemic whereas on 17th, 297 cases were recorded.
The cases started surging in mid December and there’s fear among Ugandans that in case the trend persists, the schools and economy may not be fully reopened as planned.
So far the East African country has 10,121,220 total of administered Covid-19 vaccines doses.
Active cases admitted at Health facilities stand at 85 with 3,274 death cases.
President Yoweri Museveni in October this year announced that schools would reopen in January 2022, two years after they were closed.
In a televised address, Museveni said the general economy will also be opened at the start of next year.
He urged the citizens to observe Covid-19 safety measures to avert a surge in infections.
“Even if you don’t come out for vaccination, we will open the schools and the economy and if anything goes wrong, the moral responsibility is yours,” said the President.
Following Museveni’s directive, the Ministry of Education and Sports a few days ago announced that all schools will officially reopen on 10th January, 2022.
Meanwhile, Uganda is among the over 50 countries where Omicron variant has been detected.
The World Health Organization said recently that even though no deaths have been reported so far, the presence of Omicron could damage the global economic recovery.
The WHO warned it could take weeks to determine how infectious the variant is, whether it causes more severe illness and how effective treatments and vaccines are against it.
Omicron which was first identified by health experts in South Africa on November 24, has more than 50 mutations, of which at least 30 are in the spike protein that the virus uses to gain entry to host cells. These mutations may affect how the variant behaves, spreads, and the the severity of the disease it causes.
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