President Museveni who was making his speech on the COVID situation in Uganda on Sunday evening closed schools and suspended communal/religious gatherings for 42 days and instituted restrictions on cross-district movements, as the government struggles to contain the spread of coronavirus with the Ministry of health reporting an unprecedented surge in cases and community infections.
While the ban on schools and communal/religious gatherings takes immediate effect on Monday 7th June 2021, public transport between districts will start on June 10, 2021, to allow students who are still in school to return home.
The remarks were made in a televised address hours after the ministry of health report indicated that Uganda had registered 1,259 new COVID cases with nine more deaths.
The new cases, which is the highest figure since the outbreak were confirmed in March last year saw a spike in Uganda’s tally to 52,935 on Sunday as health officials fear for the worst in this second wave.
“All schools and institutions of higher learning should close for 42 days effective 8:00 AM of 7th June 2021 (tomorrow),” Museveni said on Sunday.
“There is an increased number of clusters of infections in schools. When the children were in villages, I didn’t hear of any infections. Now when we opened schools have become new centres of infections.”
He noted that a total of 948 cases have been reported in 43 schools in 22 districts with Kampala, Gulu, Masaka and Oyam districts constituting 61% of the reported cases in schools and higher institutions.
According to Museveni, because of the need to stop this trend, there is a need to close all schools and institutions of higher learning for a period of 42 days until further notice.
“All schools that had been open should close with immediate effect. The risk of staying together is bigger than that of dispersal. The reason is to avoid concentrations.”
The president said that for all teachers to return to school, they all should first get vaccinated for COVID.
