SUMMARY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ON COVID19

Burials: Whereas the compliance on this has been low, the high–risk factor assessed is the pressure of people seeking permission to go and attend burials from place to place. This poses the highest danger of spreading the virus and breaches of the strategy.

Directive:

(i) Burials to be restricted to the core family as applied in the military.

(ii) The Committee I put in place during my last address –led by Major General Rusoke and Dr. Musenero should ensure the institution of a well–coordinated mechanism which enables a few family members to transport dead bodied for burial. RDC and DPC should ensure that all SOPs are observed and not more than 20 people attend burial. And avoid gatherings and visits to the deceased family after burials which will promote spread of the virus.

Bars, Discos, Sports Betting, and Cinema Halls: Despite the directive, the bar owners and clients have not fully adhered.

Directive:

(a) KCCA, URA and Local Government authorities are directed to close and seal off all the bars. Police should accordingly arrest and charge with hefty fines imposed for reopening.

(b) It serves no purpose arresting the revelers while allowing the owners to reopen the following morning.

All other sectors which are not specifically mentioned should consider themselves closed for the next 42 days.

Institutions and Organizations: Although most offices have complied with the 30% physical presence at the workplace, the directive ought to be reviewed. Current information so far obtained indicates that despite this scale down, infection rates in this area are very high. I have thus revised this.

Directive:

(a) Further reduction to 10% in Non–core Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

(b) The Rt Hon Prime Minister working with the Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of Health will re–define the Non–Core MDA.

Factories and construction sites: Whereas this directive is being adhered to, it remains tricky because in some areas, workers have to cross different districts to reach their places of aboard. Therefore, a well–intended plan could yield less because of circumstances.

Directive: Where possible, the workers MUST be housed at places of work for the next 42 days. I encourage factory owners to work with the Ministry of Health to ensure only uninfected workers enter the camps. Where camping is not possible, the factory owners should work together with the Technical Committee to agree on a safe alternative to enable factory activities to continue safely during the lock down period.

Places of worship: The churches, mosques, and sports sessions are congregating settings and are a source that fuels rapid virus transmission. Directive: All places of worship and sports events remain suspended for 42 days.

The Monitoring of the compliance and adherence to these directives: The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), working together with the Technical Intersectoral Committee under Maj Gen Robert Rusoke are directed to closely monitor the compliance and enforcement of these directives. Except where specifically stated, all these measures take IMMEDIATE effect and will last 42 days when I will make subsequent revision. For our lives to continue, the following sectors fully function:

(a) agriculture,

(b) industry, manufacturing and tourism,

(c) health and medical services,

(d) security (police and army),

(e) utilities (water, electricity,mass media, telecoms, banking institutions, garbage/waste management, retail shops and markets),

(f) cargo transport and goods distribution. I have thus categorized these sectors as essential sectors.

At this critical moment, I wish to call upon all the leadership structures throughout the country. Every village has community health workers known as Village health teams (VHTs) who are in touch with families and keep records on the health status of the villages. For example they know how many people are in the village, how many are pregnant, how many children etc. These VHTs should now be leveraged to increase population awareness, support for SOPs and affected households. The district based governance structures are all in place with salaried staff and should take charge of the situation and support awareness creation and enforcement. The Ministry of Local Government has undertaken mobilization of these leaders and they are fully aware of their roles in the COVID-19 response. All district Covid -19 Task forces are hereby called upon to awaken the national wide response system up to the community level.

Update of vaccination:

The above measures will give us a temporally relief, however, we know that the ultimate solution to this Covid–19 challenge is to get our people vaccinated. To date, we have vaccinated a total of 869, 915 people, which accounts for 90.2% of the 964,000 doses received. Of these 57,797 (6.6%) have received both 1st and second dose. Yesterday, 17th June 2021, we received another 175,200 doses and we are expecting additional 688,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in early August. I have directed that these doses be prioritized to give second dose to those who have got already got their first dose. Government is working with Chinese embassy to bring in 300,000 doses of vaccines (Sinovac) and discussing modalities of acquisition of more doses through direct purchase. We are also in discussions with African Union on terms of acquisition of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines. The government will continue to explore all ways of fast tracking the acquisition of enough vaccines to vaccinate a critical mass of our population to ensure the country returns to normal operations.

Conclusion

Finally, to all of you Countrymen and Women, these are urgent and temporary, but extra–ordinary measures, which we as the Nation must jointly and fully embrace to protect and preserve our lives, our ways of life, the way we live, and our future. It is only through these measures that we shall in a long run protect our economy, preserve our democracy and sustain the NRM revolution.

Thank you.