Government suspends public transport as coronavirus cases rise to 14

Uganda’s government said on Wednesday that it is banning public transport for two weeks in a further tightening of measures aimed at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Earlier, the ministry of health announced that infections of the Covid-19 coronavirus had risen to 14 after five new cases were confirmed.

The ramped up measures affect public service vehicles such as minibuses, buses, boda boda cyclists, and passenger trains. However, cargo and freight transportation vehicles are exempt from the ban. Boda bodas and smaller trucks can only operate if they are transporting goods, not passengers. The measures, effective immediately, were announced by President Yoweri Museveni in a national address.

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“We expect to get more reports of scattered cases but on the whole, we are happy that we took critical decisions early enough like closing schools and centres of worship. This greatly reduced points of contact,” Mr Museveni said.

“However, now that we have some new cases, the government must take additional measures to check the spread of this disease. We cannot wait until more people are infected.”

He added that only private vehicles will be allowed to operate though they should not carry more than three people, including the driver.

In addition, only food traders will be allowed to operate in markets; sellers of non-food items have been banned for 14 days. Markets bring together many people and make it difficult to enforce ‘social distancing’, the president said.

Mr Museveni added that government departments will operate with only essential staff for the next two weeks, while non-essential civil servants will work from home. However, “critical agencies” like the Uganda Revenue Authority will continue operating fully.

Economic pain

In his first three addresses on the outbreak, Mr Museveni expressed discomfort at restricting public transport, calling it “tricky”. Other than calling for precautions to be observed by both passengers and operators — stopping unnecessary travel, not allowing sick people on board — the government left the sector to operate.

It’s not hard to see why. Most people in the country depend on public transport to get around. In Kampala alone — the three districts of Kampala (22.5%), Wakiso (20.8%) and Mukono (5.3%) are responsible for close to half of Uganda’s total gross domestic product78% of the population relies on minibus taxis and boda-bodas to get to work.

Public transport and the boda boda sector are also big employers — it is estimated that Kampala has close to 300,000 boda bodas — in a city where 76% of jobs are in the informal sector. Suspending those services, however temporarily, means taking bodas and taxi drivers out of work. People cannot get to work, and the businesses that depend on foot traffic in the city will suffer.

But the cabinet had to weigh between economic hardship and coronavirus infections spiralling out of control. The new confirmed cases were either outside the Kampala metropolitan area or had travelled to distant parts of the country. One is a trader in Adjumani with a recent history of travel to the border with South Sudan, two Chinese nationals arrested in Zombo district, on the border with DR Congo, for escaping quarantine, and an eight-month-old infant in Iganga whose father recently returned from Kenya.

As Mr Museveni pointed out, whoever infected the baby did not walk; he thinks its the father. The government is convinced there are coronavirus patients spread out across the country, and public transport raises the risk of infections. So do crowded spaces like markets. The rationale of the new measures “is to minimise movement and contact among people,” the president said.

As Mr Museveni pointed out, whoever infected the baby did not walk; he thinks its the father. The government is convinced there are coronavirus patients spread out across the country, and public transport raises the risk of infections. So do crowded spaces like markets. The rationale of the new measures “is to minimise movement and contact among people,” the president said.

With the earlier preventive measures and current government messaging emphasising ‘social distancing’, the hope is that the growth of new infections can be contained. The worst-case scenario, which the government hopes to avoid, is an exponential growth in new infections that would overwhelm the health system.

That possibility proved to be trickier than tighter restrictions on transport.