President Yoweri Museveni yesterday acknowledged the huge economic impact of the lock down due to COVID-19 by saying that stay-at-home measures cannot stay forever as the economy has to thrive.
“I emphasise that we are not relaxing the lock down because the virus has gone away, but because the economy has to survive,” Museveni said, adding that: “The lock down was not meant to eliminate the virus completely, but rather to delay and be able to manage its spread.”
Therefore, contrary to many people’s expectations that the president would keep or even tighten the lock down because of the recent spike in COVID cases, the president instead announced further relaxations.
The following are the points the President made;
1. Taxis, buses and the train service allowed to resume on June 4, next Thursday, but will carry half capacity.
2. Shopping malls to re-open by June 4.
3. Stand alone shops in Kampala allowed to re-open immediately.
4. Observance of social distancing measure relaxed from 4-metres at 2 metres, between the seller and buyer.
5. Boda bodas, Tuku tukus still not allowed to carry passengers.
6. Airports shall remain closed to international passengers until further notice
7. The decision on re-opening of education institutions for candidates and OTHER LEARNERS, postponed for one month, as government assess the impact of the re-opening of public transport to the disease trend.
8. Government has agreed to implement distance learning for all levels. Prime Minister’s Office has been charged with the duty of working out the modalities of how this will be implemented.
9. Wearing of masks shall be enforced in all public places.
10. Government-provided face masks will start getting distributed by June 10, starting with the border-districts.
11. Other lockdown measures like the curfew, ban on social gatherings such as prayers in places of worship and social functions shall stay in place until further notice.
12. The Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to study the cases of the 4000 people who are in jails for defying the presidential directives of lockdown. The president says he wants them released.
