Tanzania bans Kenya Airways as coronavirus spat escalates
TANZANIA banned Kenya’s national airline from entering the country effective Saturday, in the latest move in a deepening row triggered by Tanzania’s controversial handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tanzania said Kenya Airways flights were being banned “on a reciprocal basis” after Kenya decided against including Tanzania in a list of countries whose passengers would be permitted to enter Kenya when commercial flights resumed on August 1.
“Tanzania has noted . . . its exclusion in the list of countries whose people will be allowed to travel into Kenya,” Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority director general Hamza Johari said in a letter sent to Kenya Airways on Friday.
“The Tanzanian government has decided to nullify its approval for Kenya Airways (KQ) flights between Nairobi and Dar/Kilimanjaro/ Zanzibar effective August 1, 2020 until further notice,” Johari wrote.
“This letter also rescinds all previous arrangements that permit KQ flights into the United Republic of Tanzania.”
Kenya Airways chief executive Allan Kilavuka said on Saturday he was “saddened” by the letter and hoped the situation would soon be resolved.
Tanzania has taken a controversially relaxed approach to tackling the coronavirus pandemic and began reopening the country two months ago. President John Magufuli’s refusal to impose lockdowns or social distancing measures, and to halt the release of figures on infections since late April, has made him a regional outlier and caused concern among Tanzania’s neighbours and the World Health Organisation.
Magufuli declared Tanzania free of coronavirus in June, thanking God and the prayers of citizens for the disease’s defeat disease.
The diplomatic spat between Kenya and Tanzania erupted soon after the outbreak of the pandemic in East Africa, when Kenya blocked Tanzanian truck drivers from entering the country, fearing they would spread the disease.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s confirmed cases of Covid-19 have crossed half a million, its health ministry has announced, while cases in Africa as a whole approached a million.
Africa’s most industrialised nation recorded 10 107 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, pushing the total to 503 290, the ministry said on Saturday.
Slightly more than three million people have so far been tested for the virus in South Africa, which confirmed its first case five months ago, and 8 153 deaths have been recorded.
Africa has recorded 934 558 cases, 19 752 deaths and 585 567 recoveries, according to a Reuters tally.
South Africa imposed a nationwide lockdown at the end of March to curb the spread of the virus, but it has now eased many restrictions to boost economic activity — as have other countries across the continent, a large chunk of whose populations are poor and face hunger.
“The lockdown succeeded in delaying the spread of the virus by more than two months, preventing a sudden and uncontrolled increase in infections in late March,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a separate statement.
As restrictions have eased, infections have spiked during the last two months.
However, the daily increase in infections appears to be stabilising, particularly in the worsthit Western Cape, Gauteng and Eastern Cape provinces, Ramaphosa added.
The World Health Organisation’s top emergencies expert Mike Ryan last week warned that South Africa’s experience was a precursor for what was likely to happen across the continent.
The difficulty — if not outright impossibility — of socially distancing in Africa’s poor, tightly packed urban areas, has also been an enabler for the spread of the virus.
Cases in South Africa, which has the fifthhighest total in the world, have overwhelmed an already stretched healthcare system.
That presents a cautionary tale to the other African countries, whose health services are, for the most part, even more stretched.
During August, the National Ventilator Project will deliver 20 000 locally produced, non-invasive ventilators to where they are most needed, Ramaphosa said, as the government continues to mobilise additional facilities, equipment and personnel in provinces still experiencing an increase in infections.
Meanwhile, the government has admitted “smoking populations were less likely to be infected” with the coronavirus and develop Covid-19. And, in a further apparent inadvertent muddle, government argues cigarette purchasing during lockdown increased inter-personal contact — as compared with ordinary shoppers — without acknowledging its own ban on legal cigarette sales could be to blame.
But government insists tobacco smoking still makes smokers more vulnerable to the pandemic — hence the lockdown on legal sales. These arguments are found in a vast 251-page response by government to a court challenge against its ongoing ban on cigarettes and tobacco products.
British American Tobacco South Africa (BATSA) is set to argue that the regulation invoked to ban the sale of cigarettes is unconstitutional, in the Western Cape High Court next month.
South Africa’s largest cigarette manufacturer says the state’s justification for banning the sale of tobacco products during lockdown is an “exercise in smoke and mirrors” that has produced “few benefits and immense harm”.
Now the government has mounted its defence, in response to BATSA’s court papers.
Only the black market benefits from the tobacco sale ban. That’s the view from the South African Drug Policy Initiative.
Explaining the “medical literature on which the respondents (government) rely”, the papers detail government’s insistence that it only relies on evidence proving tobacco-related health risks during the pandemic — and tobacco’s general adverse impact on health.
However, by citing this evidence, the government appears to concede that a disproportionately low percentage of smokers suffer severe Covid-19 symptoms.
This is because more than a quarter of people in China smoke — 27.7% — whereas the study cites smokers as only 3.4% of all patients suffering severe illness from Covid-19.
This latter admission – that “smoking populations were less likely to be infected” — is likely to be seized upon as proof the government acted irrationally in banning cigarette sales.
The numbers of smokers in these figures again appear to be far lower than the percentage of Chinese people who smoke — just under 30% — thus suggesting smokers may be up to three times less likely to contract the coronavirus.
The state premier of Australia’s Victoria has declared a state of disaster to help contain the surge in coronavirus cases as he reported 671 new infections — almost double the previous day.
In a news conference on Sunday, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews also announced a curfew in the city of Melbourne and new movement restrictions for its residents. Andrews said that, for six weeks beginning yesterday until the middle of September, a curfew will be imposed daily from 8PM to 5AM the next day.
Within the same period, residents of Melbourne are not allowed to travel beyond 5km from their residence, and only one person per household is allowed to shop for groceries once a day.
Namibian schools will be suspended for the second time in four months next week, while limits on public gatherings will be tightened further to 100 from 250 amid surging cases, President Hage Geingob said.
In a televised speech on Friday, Geingob said the decision to suspend schools from August 4 for 28 days came after considering the risks associated with the spread of the virus.
The measure affects early childhood development, pre-primary, primary and the first two grades of high school.
Namibia has 2,129 confirmed cases and 10 deaths with the country’s rate of daily new cases now the fourth highest on the continent following South Africa, Eswatini and Gabon, according to Geingob. People will also not be allowed to consume alcohol at bars and taverns. They will only be permitted to drink it at home. — Al Jazeera\Reuters\AFP