TANZANIA’S new president president, Samia Suluhu, who assumed power on 19th March following the death of her predecessor, has changed the country’s official position on Covid-19, saying “we cannot afford to exclude ourselves from the rest of the world.”
Since May 2020, Tanzania has not been publishing any data on Covid-19 because the then president, John Magufuli, had said his country was Corona-free after a three-day session of national prayers.
The Corona denialist had even refused to accept vaccines, and he banned the use of face masks.
A month before his death on 17th March, Magufuli experienced an embarrassing reaction from bishops of two major churches – Catholic and the Evangelical Lutheran – who publicly declared that “Corona is real,” and advised their congregants to take all precautionary measures as advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Now, the new president says she will form a special committee of experts to advise the government, and that it was weird for the government not to track Coronavirus infections like other countries.
Follow her statement in this short video.
