They say that if you want to make God laugh tell him your plans.
Never has this been more apparent than in 2020.
A little known virus, the corona virus, at the end of last year found fertile ground in Wuhan, China to fester and incubate, then sped all around the global via the air routes of the world.
By February it had landed in Europe and in March exploded in Italy and Spain and threatened a dystopic landscape by year end.
Before Europe had it under control it crossed the Atlantic to the US, where if they don’t do it big they go home.
And only last week we heard that in Brazil they were exhuming graves to make way for new deaths.
Covid-19, the disease caused by the corona virus, is not a particularly lethal infection. On writing this the death toll came to about 5.4% of total infections, this translated into 446,000 deaths.
Why the corona virus has broughtthe world to a stand still is its high infection rate. Scientists have determined that one covid-19 infects about2.5 others in five days, the similar stat for the common cold is 1.5.
"Doesn’t look like much difference but by the tenth level of infection the one covid-19 patient will be responsible for infecting 78,000 as opposed to 3,800 for the common flu....
Uganda has been spared the apocalptic scenarios in Europe by taking firm preventive measures – the lockdown, that ensured that the rate of infection was slowed to a minimum.
The lockdown, the restriction of movement and congregation, however, has brough the economy to standstill.
We never saw it coming, when we were drawing up our New Year resolutions. It has been so devastating that Chinese billionaire Jack Ma said, that if your business survives the year consider it a win. All profit, gowth and investment projections are out the window.
In times of crisis whether you, your business or country survive will depend on the foundations on which they are built.
But now spare a thought for political aspirants who have invested millions, even billions of shillings in readiness for next year’s elections.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has said there will be no mass rallies, an announcement that has unsurprisingly thrown up a lot of criticism.
The EC say the recommendation was made under the advisement of the health ministry, which insists and rightly so, that social distancing protocals should not be ignored.
I see two critics of this announcement. First, there are those who trying to break into politics fear that without mass rallies there is little chance of winning enough face recognition.
"Their insistence that mass rallies should be allowed regardless of the health situation is based on them unwilling to wait another five years to shoot their shot...
The second group are those whose knee jerk reaction is to see conspiracy in every thing that is proposed by government or its agencies. That whatever government or its agencies decide is intended to perpetuate the NRM’s hold on to power. Many of these are opposition politicians, who wouldn’t be worth their salt if they didn’t view every thing government did with a jaundiced eye. That’s the hazard of their station.
The first group needs to take a chill pill. It would be irresponsible to the point of being criminal for government to put thousands of people’s health at risk for politics. The US is learning that lesson, as are the UK and Brazil.
"Covid-19 is real. Just because the government’s resolve in enforcing an unpopular lockdown, we have been spared the worst of it, does not mean it is a figment of the NRM’s imagination....
What would be fair criticism would be that if the health system was better, we would be able to afford a few thousand infections as our system would be able to cope better. Maybe that can be a campaign slogan for someone.
But this situation probaly makes the case for the opposition to focus more o n beefing up representation in parliament, rather than fixating on the presidency. In that way they would have been able ti muster the numbers to cause an amendment to the constitution to postpone the elections to a later date.
Okay you can shoot me now.
