{UAH} we cannot hide perpetually in wait until things normalize in Kenya and Tanzania
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8:23 AM |
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By Roy William Mayega
Uganda's epi-curve viewed on a weekly (or hebdomadal) timescale. After a near disappearance of cases in mid-April, we are now seeing a rebound that has led to a second peak. The second peak is associated with the largest number of cases confirmed in one day (13 cases). This week will determine whether the second peak has reached its peak or not. The second peak is almost entirely driven by long-distance truck drivers entering Uganda from 3 countries: Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan. These countries are already experiencing substantial community spread. Curiously, Uganda has handled these men with a benevolent hand, allowing them to hit our roads before confirming their status, and trusting them to behave. If a third peak is to occur, it will most likely be due to sustained community spread as a result of the seeds sown by these peripatetic men. Sustained community spread would lead to an exponential rise in cases. The current situation, while stable, is quite tenacious, and calls for massive preparedness actions at the district level (inclusive of General Hospitals) to handle a potential surge in cases and contacts. Districts should be ready for very localized battles to trace, find, recognize, screen, isolate, treat, quarantine, and enforce social distancing in the event that events are so many that available help from the center and the regions is stretched so thin.
But we cannot hide perpetually in wait until things normalize in Kenya and Tanzania. We have to eventually open up the economy, even if at a controlled pace, for we risk a plethora of other 'epidemics' and an upshot in mortality from familiar predators: Birth complications, pneumonia, malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS, measles, diarrhoea, anaemia, acute malnutrition, heart attacks, and diabetes. Tough decisions have to be made to save ourselves from a silent parallel pandemic of very well known but unforgivingly deadly killers in the process of playing hide-and-seek with COVID-19! In economics, they call it 'Opportunity Cost'. In 'Street-ology' we call it 'Caught between a rock and a hard place'! Lets see how week 8 goes!
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-- Uganda's epi-curve viewed on a weekly (or hebdomadal) timescale. After a near disappearance of cases in mid-April, we are now seeing a rebound that has led to a second peak. The second peak is associated with the largest number of cases confirmed in one day (13 cases). This week will determine whether the second peak has reached its peak or not. The second peak is almost entirely driven by long-distance truck drivers entering Uganda from 3 countries: Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan. These countries are already experiencing substantial community spread. Curiously, Uganda has handled these men with a benevolent hand, allowing them to hit our roads before confirming their status, and trusting them to behave. If a third peak is to occur, it will most likely be due to sustained community spread as a result of the seeds sown by these peripatetic men. Sustained community spread would lead to an exponential rise in cases. The current situation, while stable, is quite tenacious, and calls for massive preparedness actions at the district level (inclusive of General Hospitals) to handle a potential surge in cases and contacts. Districts should be ready for very localized battles to trace, find, recognize, screen, isolate, treat, quarantine, and enforce social distancing in the event that events are so many that available help from the center and the regions is stretched so thin.
But we cannot hide perpetually in wait until things normalize in Kenya and Tanzania. We have to eventually open up the economy, even if at a controlled pace, for we risk a plethora of other 'epidemics' and an upshot in mortality from familiar predators: Birth complications, pneumonia, malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS, measles, diarrhoea, anaemia, acute malnutrition, heart attacks, and diabetes. Tough decisions have to be made to save ourselves from a silent parallel pandemic of very well known but unforgivingly deadly killers in the process of playing hide-and-seek with COVID-19! In economics, they call it 'Opportunity Cost'. In 'Street-ology' we call it 'Caught between a rock and a hard place'! Lets see how week 8 goes!
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"War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
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