It seems like Tanzanian populist president John Pombe Magufuli has learnt nothing and forgot nothing.

It is barely 2 months down the road when Italy announced it’s first coronavirus  case in the City of Lombardy

Italy moved from just 2 cases to being the country with the highest number of deaths within 3 weeks a deadly statistic that saw them become the world’s new epicenter of the pandemic.

The drastic rise in the number of cases has since been attributed to delayed critical government decisions and the laxity of the Italian population as majority of people never heeded to the president’s call of social distancing and staying at home.

Just like Italy, Tanzania’s Magufuli is slowly but surely repeating the same mistakes ultimately posing a big threat to the region’s combated effort to fight the virus.

As we write this article  life in Tanzania hasn’t changed one bit despite the fact that the country has so far registered  147 cases.

The president is totally against the idea of a lock down, people are still congregating in churches and mosques. The market places are busy and people are going on with their normal lives without any health measures put in place to prevent the spread of the virus.

Tanzania’s refusal to take the virus seriously posing a big threat to other East African nations who moved ahead in implementing measures that curb the spread of covid-19.

Only yesterday a Tanzanian truck driver who entered the country through Mutukula border tested positive for Covid-19 and an intensive search is already under way to have him retrieved from the population.

The threat posed by Tanzanian negligence on Covid-19 is therefore too big to ignore and the sooner Magufuli realizes it the better for all the 5 East African nations