TIG Post

Tag: lockdowns

  • Ugandan president announces that lockdowns have “reduced” Ebola outbreak

    Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni announced on Tuesday that lockdowns in two districts have reduced the spread of Ebola cases in the country.

    Since the start of the outbreak in late September that at least 55 people have died of the disease. The updated toll points to 141 confirmed cases.

    “(In Kasanda, Ed.) The cases have now reduced, during the second 21 days restriction, to one to two cases per day. Progress in Kasanda has been slow because of lack of cooperation. In Mubende, for 18 days we did not get a case”, declared Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni.

    On November 5th, the government extended the containment measures taken in mid-October in the districts of Mubende and Kassanda, in central Uganda and epicentre of the disease.

     

    African News

  • South Africa’s transport Dept extends validity of expired licences

    If you are worried about your driving licence that has expired during the lockdown, don’t stress, as you have until next year to renew it.

    Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has publicized the gazette announcing amended directions on the validity period of licences, which was published on Wednesday, 22 July.

    “All learner’s licences, driving licence cards, temporary driving licences and professional driving permits, which expired from 26 March up to 31 August 2020, are extended to 31 January 2021,” the gazette reads.

    In addition, all motor vehicle discs, temporary permits and roadworthy certificates, which expired between 26 March 2020 and 31 May 2020 are deemed valid until 31 August 2020.

    Furthermore, motor trade number licences, which expired between 26 March 2020 and 31 May 2020, will also be given a grace period ending on 30 November 2020.

    Source: allafrica.com

  • Kampala gradually returns to normalcy after lockdown

    Life in the Ugandan capital is slowly returning to normal after nearly two months of lockdown.

    Major highways in Kampala on Tuesday experienced heavy traffic after the government partially lifted lockdown measures that barred private transport.

    Pictures shared online showed cars lined bumper to bumper as early as 3 pm as drivers rushed home to beat the night curfew.

    Police said several people had been arrested and their cars impounded for violating the 7:00 pm to 6:30 am curfew rules.

    “We are not going to listen to traffic jam excuses, plan your travel arrangement early,” Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Patrick Onyango told local channel NTV.

    According to directives issued last week by President Yoweri Museveni, private transport was allowed to resume from May 26 and to carry a maximum of three passengers.

    Public transport will resume on June 2 with buses operating at half capacity to ensure physical distancing rules are adhered to.

    “This opening of public transport will not be allowed in the border districts of Uganda for another 21 days. And when the taxis resume, I don’t want to hear of brokers and these noisemakers in the park. Since it is impossible to space out the passenger and the boda boda rider, boda bodas and tuk tuks will not be allowed to carry passengers,” Museveni said last week.

    Operators are also directed to provide commuters with sanitiser before boarding the vehicles. No one will be allowed on to buses without the recommended face mask.

    Operators say they will increase fares as buying sanitisers and ferrying less people will increase their operating costs yet pump prices remain high.

    Prior to easing the restrictions, only cargo transporters and essential service providers were allowed on the road.

    Uganda as of Wednesday had recorded 253 Coronavirus cases with no deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

    Source: theeastafrican.co.ke

  • Sailor sent on Pacific odyssey over lockdowns

    It was supposed to be an idyllic trip of a lifetime around the Pacific for one sailor – but instead it turned into a nightmare.

    Wong, from Singapore, was hoping to spend three years travelling the seas on his yacht, visiting different countries – but the virus outbreak meant countries started closing their ports to him as he tried to dock.

    “I pleaded with them [and said] I didn’t have anywhere to go. They said to head back to the ocean,” he told me, about his arrival off Tuvalu.

    And with nowhere to dock, the ocean was indeed where he found himself, wandering alone with no end in sight.

    After almost three months, with food and fuel supplies getting dangerously low, he was finally rescued by the Fijian coast guard.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Coronavirus: Stock markets boosted by remdesivir drug hopes

    Shares in the US and Asia have risen on hopes that an experimental drug could help treat symptoms of Covid-19.

    A leading US infectious disease expert said that early results of a clinical trial on anti-viral treatment remdesivir were “quite good news”.

    Investors are betting the drug could help countries emerge from lockdowns aimed at curbing the outbreak.

    Gilead Sciences, which is developing the drug, saw its shares rise by more than 5.5% New York trading.

    White House health advisor Anthony Fauci said a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) study showed that the drug had a “clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery” from the coronavirus.

    Markets had already begun to rise after Gilead said preliminary indications from a remdesivir trial showed that it helped patients recover more quickly.

    A potential medical breakthrough like this is seen as a key step towards governments being able to ease the tight restrictions they have imposed on the movement of people as they try to slow the spread of the infection.

    Lockdowns across the world have frozen economic activity, led to hundreds of millions of people being put out of work and raised concerns of a long, deep global recession.

    Shares also got a boost from a promise by the US central bank that it would continue to shore up the American economy against the impact of the pandemic.

    At the end of its two-day monetary policy meeting, the Federal Reserve left key interest rates near zero, while Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the US economy would drop at an “unprecedented rate” in the current quarter.

    But he also said growth would pick up as restrictions were lifted and vowed that the Fed would continue to support the recovery.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was up by 2.1% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 2.4% higher.

    That came on the back of strong gains for US stock markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2.2% higher, the S&P 500 ended up by 2.7% and the Nasdaq gained 3.6%.

    Source: bbc.com

  • European lockdowns could avert 11,300 air pollution deaths – Researchers

    Improved air quality in Europe due to lockdowns to combat the coronavirus pandemic has delivered health benefits equivalent to avoiding 11,300 premature deaths, according to a study published on Thursday.

    Researchers extrapolated the likely impact on diseases caused or made worse by air pollution, which has fallen dramatically as hundreds of millions of people have stayed at home over the past month.

    “You could compare it to everyone in Europe stopping smoking for a month,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which conducted the study.

    “Our analysis highlights the tremendous benefits for public health and quality of life that could be achieved by rapidly reducing fossil fuels in a sustained and sustainable way.”

    The benefits in Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy exceeded the equivalent of more than 1,500 premature deaths in each country.

    The average European citizen was exposed to nitrogen dioxide levels 37 percent below what would normally have been expected in the 30 days that ended on April 24, CREA said.

    The gas is mostly produced from road transport.

    Exposure to particulate matter, generated by transport, industry and coal-fired heating, was 12 percent below normal levels, according to the study, which covered 21 European countries.

    If sustained, a drop in pollution of this scale could lead to 1.3 million fewer days of absence from work and 6,000 fewer new cases of asthma in children, CREA said.

    At the same time, the researchers noted that prolonged exposure to dirty air prior to the pandemic could have caused or exacerbated diabetes, lung disease, heart disease and cancer – all conditions that increase the risk of death for COVID-19 patients.

    “There is an overlap between conditions associated with air pollution and those that have increased the risk of dying from COVID-19,” said Sara De Matteis, a professor at Italy’s Cagliari University and member of the European Respiratory Society’s environmental health committee.

    Air pollution causes more than 400,000 annual premature deaths in the 27-member European Union and the UK, according to the EU environment agency.

    “The impacts are the same or bigger in many other parts of the world,” said Myllyvirta.

    In China, NO2 and PM2.5 levels declined by 25 percent and 40 percent, respectively, during the most stringent period of lockdown, with an even sharper fall in Hubei province, where the global pandemic began.

    Worldwide air pollution shortens lives by nearly three years on average, and causes 8.8 million premature deaths annually, according to a study last month.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) calculates 4.2 million deaths, but has underestimated the impact on cardiovascular disease, recent research has shown.

    Source: aljazeera.com