And the visitors from India are not cooperative

Actually magatwe a re these men and women pouring into the country from India every week get really angry when confronted with the covid protocols of rapid testing upon arrival in the country. Those who have arrived through flights from South Africa or Ethiopia at the Sir Seretse International Airport often share tales of how some of these Indian brothers and sisters get hostile towards local officers at the airport telling them what had to be done before entering the country. Gatwe they behave as if Botswana owes them something and quickly want to just go through to their homes in the city without being subjected to the mandatory tests. And it gets worse because we learn that the airport tests always return Negative, yet most of the time the arrivals get to later test positive while already inside the country and having mingled with their employees and other Batswana across the country. It is not surprising that this past week a lot of people locally were found to have contracted the Indian variant of the virus. We used to be told that the virus can remain undetectable for 10 to 15 days inside the human body, which is why those arriving from outside the country were quarantined for 14 days – now it’s business as usual we gather. You arrive at the airport; you test; get you negative results and waltz into the city. Ten days later you test positive, but you have already infected 70 people. And that is when you are quarantined. Whatever has happened to that tough covid regime of April 2020?