Covid-era E. Africa: Presidential shirts, workouts and eating with peasants
Travellers at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi after resumption of flights earlier cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions. Airports had been closed and passenger lounges had taken on a ghostly look. PHOTO | AFP
East Africa hunkered down, and Uganda and Rwanda, for one, imposed some of the strictest lockdowns on earth to control the spread of the virus.
In Tanzania, the combative and ham-fisted president John Magufuli came into his Covid-denialist element, and argued that God and steamed herbs, would be enough to beat the virus.
Remarkably, despite the cold war between member states and the abrasiveness of the now-departed Magufuli, the Covid-19 era has seen the most peaceful period in East Africa since 2013.
