Rise in COVID-19 cases will force hospitals to choose which patients to treat- Medical experts

Ugandan medical experts have warned locals against complacency, saying there is most likely going to be a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks.

According to the experts, the cases are bound to gravely increase to hot spots, arising from community sporadic COVID-19 cases.

These claim that Ugandans are expressing the highest level of complacency and this could only worsen the situation.

While appearing on NBS TV’s morning breeze on Monday, Lt Col Henry Kyobe who is the COVID-19 incident commander expressed concerns over the increased ‘complacency” from the members of the public who are ignoring guidelines on social distancing and wearing masks.

“The population should not be complacent right now. We have not registered any deaths yet because we get patients early, we are worried about the complacency from the public,” he said.

He warned that of cases continue to surge, the government will be forced to ‘de-hospitalize’ the hospitals and stat taking in patients that need critical treatment while the others take treatment from their respective homes.

Uganda has so far registered 646 cases of COVID-19 with 103 recoveries, yet at least 1900 people remain quarantined and awaiting results.

This is on top of the daily entries at different borders by truck drivers and hot spot communities neighboring borders, specially Elegu.

Ugandans continue to show the highest level of complacency, for example, a number of Boda Boda riders can be spotted in Kampala and surrounding districts, ferrying people despite orders for them to stick to cargo.

Dr. Monica Musenero, an epidemiologist and senior presidential adviser on epidemics says Uganda is yet to see the worst due to complacency. She says people are no longer afraid of the disease and have abandoned wearing masks and social distancing.

According to Dr. Musenero, while the health system used the lockdown to prepare itself, the Ugandans who were supposed to benefit from it will see no benefits if there’s no behavioral change.

Data from the health ministry shows that at the time when Uganda received its first case, the level of awareness and fear of COVID-19 stood as high as 60 percent. Today, the fear of the disease among the population has reduced to as low as 20 percent in some parts of the country.

At the moment, Uganda has the capacity of treating about 2000 patients at a time and only 120 can be checked into the intensive care unit. This means that the country has already utilized half its capacity.
President Museveni while delivering his first address on COVID-19 said that he does not want the country to be like Italy, where hospitals started choosing which patients to attend to and which ones to let die.

Nile Post has exclusively learnt that the surge in cases could as well force the government into declaring a second lockdown to reduce the spread.

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