WHAT HAS BEEN DISCUSSED RECENTLY?
Despite the relatively few tweets about COVID-19 in Uganda, there were still quite a number of interesting ones that revealed some underlying sentiments that Ugandans had about the pandemic. Let’s explore this in the following case study:
A CASE STUDY OF FEBRUARY 2021
In February 2021, only around 0.6% of tweets in Uganda were related to Covid-19.
Of these, some messages were expressing the pandemic in Uganda to be over, or not to be of significance, as the examples below show:
“Uganda Covid free 💪🏽”
“Now we register only 12 new cases of Covid 19? Small small 12?”
“What was the fear for. Covid was really hyped”
There were also some other themes of discussion that came up repeatedly. Below are a few examples:
QUESTIONING THE NEW FOR CONTINUED RESTRICTIONS
“Why is there still a curfew in Uganda?”
“When will curfew be lifted? Asking on behalf of everyone.”
“Sincerely tweeting, why do we still have curfew in Uganda????”
VACCINE HESITANCY
“Are we sure vaccines are safe anyway?”
“Do we really need #COVID19 vaccine as UGANDA?”
TESTING – THE ASSOCIATED EXPENSE AND NEED TO TEST
“Testing for covid19 in uganda… it’s like a privilege!”
“I’ve tested for covid 8 times since covid came. never tested positive. tonight i sit here to think about my ka money 😫”
PRESENCE OF COVID – IS IT THERE OR NOT? / WE SHOULD LIVE WITH IT
“Do our leaders know that covid19 isn’t just a “period” …. this thing is gonna hit us for a long time. We are gonna have to eventually learn how to live with it ….just like we did with HIV n a bunch of other diseases n conditions”
“Why would we import covid vaccines when covid does not exist in the country 🤔”
Let’s also take a look at the popular tweets within this time period. These seemed to mostly discuss the above topics, some by being very grave about it, and others by trying to present them in a comedic way. A look into a few of these tweets shows this:
POPULAR TWEETS FROM LAST 4 MONTHS (FEB 2021)
“One day I will tell you guys how my mom nearly married me off during the lockdown and how I had to sit her down and give her the “I am not like that kind of girl” speech 😹”
“I have seen great businesses and enterprises close during this Covid19. I have seen renown rich people struggle to provide for their families because their income has been frustrated. If you still have a meal everyday and a roof over your head, count yourself blessed.”
“If there is just one thing I pray for every day is that covid ends and SOPs for taxis are removed. The fact that the common man has to pay twice as much as they used to in order to go to work is heart breaking. I really pray that taxi fares go back to normal soon 🥺.”
“Aaaahhh… but African governments bought tents and cars when rich countries were investing in vaccine research.”
CONCLUSION
The analysis above has shown us the reducing interest in discussion about COVID-19 in the past months. One can only hope that that does not translate into the dismissal of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and all other safety measures, for the sake of our health in the midst of this pandemic.