President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni gave his new year’s message at his Rwakitura country home in Kiruhura District on December 31.
Museveni announced full reopening of the economy despite a spike in Covid19 cases.
The reopening will be in a phased manner, starting with schools on January 10, and entertainment industry two weeks later.
Here are the new directives:
- 1. The transport sector, which has been operating at 50%, will be opened fully, but with the necessary SOPs such as the wearing of masks, full vaccination by both the crew of PSV and the travelers, etc.
2. The cinema halls and sports events to be allowed to operate with SOPs.
3. Pre-primary, Primary and Secondary schools will be opened for learners, starting on the 10th of January, 2022. The Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Health, to work out applicable SOPs and communicate them.
4. When all the learners were made to travel on the same day, there was a lot of congestion in the bus-parks and car-parks. It may be wiser to start with S1 to S3 for some days and the rest later. The Ministry will give detailed guidance and so will the other Ministries for the other sectors.
5. The Performing Arts, Concerts, Bars and Discotheques, will be opened two weeks after the opening of the schools and with SOPs directed by the Ministry of Health.
6. Curfew will be lifted for everybody at the time of opening for the performing arts but not for bodabodas.
7. The bodabodas will continue to observe the curfew hours of 1900hours to 0530hours (Shaaha emwe y’ekiro to shaaha ikumi n’ emwe z’ekiro)
8. In order to ensure safety against corona, the scientists have now recommended a booster doze for those above the age of 50 years. These are 3.3 million. Therefore, the 50-year old plus persons, that have already received 2 dozes, come out, again, for the booster doze.
9. Those who get suspicious signs of runny nose, headache, tiredness ─ which could be mild to severe, sneezing, scratchy/sore throat, muscle aches, quickly report to the nearest health facility, so that you get treatment.
10. Some of these measures will be reversed,ifCovid-19 high dependence and intensive care units bed occupancy, exceeds 50% and if the daily rate of hospitalization for severely and critically ill patients, is sustained at 30 per day for 5 days in two or more Covid-19 Treatment Units. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in Government hospitals are 187and HDU (High Dependency Unit) beds are 475. The total corona virus beds are 3,100.
