March 14 – April 14, 2020, it is one month since Rwanda registered the first COVID-19 case.
The number of positive cases kept increasing ever since, but on April 5, the country started discharging patients who recovered, too, and the trend is continuing.
On Tuesday Rwanda registered 7 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the figure of confirmed positive cases to 134 cases cumulatively. Of this total number, 49 have already recovered including 7 in the last 24 hours.
The seven cases were confirmed out of 983 samples that were tested in the last 24 hours and they are contacts of previously confirmed positive cases who were identified through tracing.
Within one month, apparently, the number of positive cases among travelers from foreign countries is declining, and cases being confirmed in the latest days include largely contacts of previously confirmed positive cases.
This could explain the reason why the government consistently warns that “anyone who withholds information relevant for contact tracing, or knowingly fails to report COVID-19 symptoms and jeopardizes public safety will be punished in accordance with applicable laws.”
As for the new cases, the ministry said that they have been isolated and the tracing of contacts is ongoing.
Also, the good news is that for the last one month, Rwanda did not register any critical case.
All the update in the last 31 days indicate that “All patients are under treatment in stable condition in designated health facilities. The majority are asymptomatic. No patient is under critical condition.”
In a teleconference on “Rwanda: Insight for Investors” organized by Invest Africa, bringing together over 400 investors from across the globe and members of the media, President Paul Kagame said that the country did all that is possible to respond as a matter of urgency.
He said that when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, Rwanda moved fast to find out what is known about it and looked around the world to see what everybody else was doing and moved to rein in the spread of the virus when it was still early.
Since March 21, the country started a lockdown, now in its third week where all travels were suspended including flights and local public transport.
Only very urgent services are still operating and these include food shops and markets, health facilities and essential utilities like water and energy services, petrol stations, the media, agriculture, all in respect of safety measures.
Observing a one meter social distance kept being inforced by security officers when it comes to public places, while unnecessarily movements were banned.
Some taxi parks, being idle, they are now being used to decongest markets so that the one meter social distance can be easily observed.
Police adjust on a daily basis on ways of preventing unnecessarily movements though some individual people are still failing to abide by the instructions.
Hygiene has also been inforced. Washing hands constantly is understood by all, shaking hands, hugging, a culture in Rwanda has succesfully been put on hold.
The government in the second week of the lockdown started providing relief support for those families that can only put food on the table if they go out to earn a living every morning.
Medically, the country kept improving, adjusting to international standards in fight against Covid-19, but also several supports were appreciated.
That includes medical equipment to fight Covid-19 from Jack Ma Foundation.
Early this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a US$109.4 million financing for Rwanda to go towards the fight against the new Coronavirus.
Yesterday, the IMF also put Rwanda on the list of 25 countries that will receive immediate debt service relief.
That is under “the IMF’s revamped Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) as part of the Fund’s response to help address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director.
Unless otherwise, the lockdown will be lifted on April 19, at 23:59.
