It is still too early to gauge the success in the fight against COVID-19 in the country but no stone has been left unturned. The only obstacle, like many other countries, was a shortage of equipment.

It was a phenomenon that was yet to be understood and the rumours and conspiracy theories that were being shared on social media were not making things any easier.

The most prominent – during the early days of the outbreak, when Africa seemed to be spared – was that Africans had Covid-resistant genes or that the virus could not survive in the tropics. That theory now seems to have been debunked as Africa could soon be the next epicentre.

The scariest thing is that some people still do not take the issue seriously. In Malawi human rights groups forced a court injunction to delay a national lockout because businesses had opposed it.

Burundi, on the other hand miraculously continues to register few or no cases. It has reported only five cases of who three have been allegedly fully recovered while one died. And yet the national football league continues as usual.

Some Rwandans also seem to be in that kind of school of thinking; they are more worried by the lockdown that when The New Times carried out a survey to lift the lockdown which was supposed to end on April 19, the results were almost 50/50.

That is all out of the false sense that simply because more people were being cured and fewer numbers of new victims were being reported daily, we are out of danger.Well, they can as well return indoors as the government has extended it to April 30. By now they should have become veterans in the art of lockdown, so it won’t be so hard a task, but patience pays and saves lives.