NAIROBI – Tanzania’s COVID-denying president is calling on citizens for three days of prayer to defeat unnamed “respiratory diseases” amid warnings that the country is seeing a deadly resurgence in infections. “Maybe we have wronged God somewhere,” populist President John Magufuli told mourners at a funeral for his chief secretary, John Kijazi, on Friday. “Let us all repent.” Magufuli has repeatedly claimed that Tanzania, a country of some 60 million people, defeated COVID-19 with God’s help.
The government has not updated its number of coronavirus cases since April, and the health ministry has promoted unproven herbal remedies.