Tanzanian President John Magufuli said Sunday that the number of coronavirus cases there had dropped drastically thanks to the populations’ prayers, and implied the epidemic might soon end.
Magufuli’s government has been criticised for a lack of transparency regarding the toll that COVID-19 has taken, with the last official update on April 29 listing 480 cases, including 16 deaths.
Only the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar has provided more recent data.
On Sunday, the president proclaimed: “We started with God and we will finish with God. Looking at what is going on in our hospitals, it’s obvious that God has responded to our prayers.”
National television broadcast his comments from a church in his northwestern hometown of Chato, on Lake Victoria where he has been since March 28.
Magufuli cited several examples of improvement, notably at the Amana hospital in Dar es Salaam, where the number of patients reportedly dropped from 198 to 12.
Credit: news.phxfeeds.com
