COVID-19 new infections will average at 179 per day this week, according to the latest projections released by the National Planning Authority (NPA) on Monday afternoon.
Attributing this to the easing of the lockdown especially on public transport which has now made it possible for people to move across district borders, the report signed by NPA Executive Director Joseph Muvawala predicts the weekly total to be around 1,382 by the 21st of August.
In the week ending August 7, the model projected 215 new daily cases and the actual cases were 221 which were followed by projections of the week ending August 14, where 203 new daily cases were predicted. The actual average was about 180. These predictions come at a time when the country is reporting a decrease in daily infections and the positivity rate.
According to latest figures released by the Ministry of Health on Monday which is one of the data sets that the NPA uses to model, of the 3,372 samples tested on the 14th of August, 137 were positive resulting into a test positivity rate of 4.1 per cent. Comparably, from results released on Sunday, 309 were positive from 5,406 samples.
Emmanuel Ainebyoona tells URN that the biggest batch of people tested are travellers with the majority comprising of migrant workers. He said while alerts are still being tested, they only come in small numbers. However, this raises questions of whether the current figures reflect the real infection trends in the community.