President Yoweri Museveni will on Thursday address the country with an “update… on the Covid-19 situation [and] any other related issues,” Lindah Nabusayi, his senior press secretary said Monday morning.
The president last addressed the nation on Covid-19 on September 22 when he announced new measures and eased the lockdown.
The country is still doing well in managing respiratory illness and this past Friday he flagged off 282 pickup trucks to support logistical measures already in place for COVID-19 surveillance across the country.
According to data from the ministry of health, as of October 20, 1,768,664 tests had been conducted, 2,688,361 doses of Covid vaccines had been administered and the test positivity rate stood at 3%, with 111 new cases confirmed on that day.
On the same day, the president commissioned laboratories for testing Covid-19 at Entebbe International Airport COVID-19 to strengthen the country’s fight against the importation of the coronavirus.
The labs will be used for mandatory testing of all incoming passengers through our airport. According to Uganda Civil Aviation Authority, the labs were set up by the health ministry, which also trained the technicians, data entrants, and other staff involved in the Covid prevention chain.
The new development will reduce the turnaround time for Covid-19 test results from four hours to two hours and 15 minutes.
The address also comes as the country this past Saturday was hit by an explosion that left three injured and one dead.
The President urged Ugandans to remain calm, assuring the country that criminals who orchestrated the explosion in Kwata zone, Komamboga, Kawempe will be defeated.
“The public should not fear, we shall defeat this criminality like we have defeated all the other criminality committed by the pigs who don’t respect life,” he tweeted Sunday morning.