Tanzania Opens To (Non-Gay) Tourists Without Conditions*

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: May 21, 2020

59 comments

There are huge restrictions on international travel at the moment. Many countries have closed their borders altogether, other countries are restricting visitors from some countries, others are requiring a mandatory quarantine, etc.

And then you have Tanzania…

In this post:

Tanzania opens with (basically) no restrictions

Tanzania’s President, John Magufuli, has announced plans to open to tourists effective immediately. There are no restrictions on where visitors can come from, and the only formality is that passengers will have to get their temperatures checked upon arrival in Tanzania. There will still be the typical requirements to wear masks and sometimes social distance while in the country, but that’s about it.

Previously the country imposed a two week quarantine period, but that is no longer in effect.

How many COVID-19 cases has Tanzania had?

Tanzania claims to have had only 21 deaths from COVID-19. The country claims to have had only a total of 509 confirmed cases, and also claims that there have only been 29 new cases since May 1, all of which were reported on one day.

Sounds amazing, eh? Well…

Why you shouldn’t go to Tanzania

For a bit of background, President Magufuli has also been quoted as saying that the economy is more important than the threat posed by coronavirus. And that’s probably the most reasonable thing he has said.

He has also claimed that his son recovered from COVID-19 using a lemon and ginger solution:

“My own son, after contracting the virus, closed himself in his room, took a lemon and ginger solution before getting well and is even able to do push-ups.”

And AIDS is also a thing, so we shouldn’t really care too much about COVID-19:

“We have had a number of viral diseases, including AIDS and measles. Our economy must come first. It must not sleep. If we allow our economy to sleep, we will not receive salaries. Life must go on.”

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg:

He has been accused of covering up the true number of cases in the country
He has had testing carried out on animals and fruit to demonstrate that there are false positives; rumor has it that some of these tests came back positive, and he thinks a “dirty game” is being played by the lab that analyzes the results
He claims that international health officials are exaggerating the crisis because they’re on the “payroll of imperialists”
He has encouraged people to go to church, because praying “can vanquish the satanic virus”

Also keep in mind that Tanzania has one of the worst records when it comes to LGBT rights under the current administration, so everyone is welcome, but not gays. In recent years the country has launched an anti-gay crackdown, including performing anal exams on men to determine if they’re gay (which makes so much sense… goodness).

Oh, Magufuli is also up for re-election this year.

Bottom line

There are some countries, like Iceland, that are trying to bring back tourism as responsibly as possible. And then you have Tanzania, which is opening with no restrictions, and which isn’t reporting COVID-19 cases. The president seems to think COVID-19 is a conspiracy theory against him.

So yeah, please don’t go to Tanzania right now. For the record, I’d love to visit Tanzania eventually, as I’ve met so many nice people from there and the country looks gorgeous, but I’ll wait for there to be a new administration, as I personally prefer to travel to countries without anal exams.

(Tip of the hat to Your Mileage May Vary)

Support OMAAT

Conversations (59)

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Comment as a member

Membership is free and takes no more information than commenting as a guest. Earn status points for good contributions, and see fewer ads as your status grows.

Loading comments…

Recent Comments

The latest from the OMAAT community.

Phil Guest

May 24, 2020, 8:41 pm

@Stuart P. It’s clear that your not coz your soooo obsessed with a question that I simply asked. What’s wrong with you? God your so cranky. And no one asked you to read my so called “rubbish”.

‼ 0

StuartP Guest

May 24, 2020, 1:45 pm

@Phil... once again, you are clearly obsessed with sex when you comment to me " coz you ain't getting any action? Whats wrong with you ? Calm down, go take a cold shower. I will not read your rubbish any further on this blog.

‼ 0

Sean M. Diamond

May 24, 2020, 6:38 am

@Canadian - Your naivete is showing. Certainly, while Donald Trump has not covered himself in glory via his policies and conduct during this pandemic, he still has to operate within a mature institutional system that is able to serve as a relative safety net in case he gets it wrong. There still is a political opposition in the USA, a media who regularly calls him out on his actions, and relatively free and fair elections with a chance to remove him from office. There is no question that the USA will survive this pandemic, albeit significantly changed and scarred from the experience. Most African countries, whose democracy is at the same stage of development as the US was before the Civil War, do not have the same luxury. Right now, merely reporting independently on the COVID situation from Tanzania has effectively been criminalized. Rather than trying to give a positive spin to negative statistics, they have just decided to not bother with statistics at all. Getting things wrong is an existential threat to the entire nation, and consequently the entire region. Tanzania and its ports are a critical link to the land locked countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and Zambia that border it. That is why, even though they may appear to be superficially similar from a populist perspective, Magufuli is far more dangerous than Trump in terms of the harm he can cause with his actions. @some guy - Various countries and leaders have taken vastly different actions to counter the pandemic, influenced by local priorities and guidance. That of course is their sovereign right to do so, and in most of those cases there is no doubt that despite the ineffectiveness of some policies, they were still intended to be well meaning. Whether this is Ramaphosa's ongoing nationwide lockdown in South Africa, Bolsonaro's explicit prioritization of the economy over lives, or New Zealand's self-imposed isolation bubble, there has been some level of policy driving the action - the assessment of which will allow visitors to analyse and mitigate their risks should they choose to travel there. We don't have that (or any) level of clarity for Tanzania right now (and no, swabbing goats and eating ginger isn't policy), which is why warnings like this to be aware of the situation there are warranted. Nobody is saying that TZ has done better or worse than other countries, but rather that the information coming out of TZ raises more questions than it answers and should be treated with cautious skepticism accordingly - especially as borders open to tourists.

‼ 0

Phil Guest

May 24, 2020, 2:48 am

@Stuart P is it wrong to ask a question? You think you own me? I can ask whatever I want okay. It has nothing to do with porn. You commenting coz you ain’t getting any action?

‼ 0

Alex Z Member

May 23, 2020, 2:16 pm

@Canadian I'm not complaining about our president and trying to show there are way worse places to live than US. This is a travel blog why are people immediately turn to Trump. I get why Ben wrote about Tanzania and it's president. What all these people are not realizing is that there's a good chance he'll be elected for another four years. Also, I love Canadians but isn't your Prime Minister who they call Trudope?

‼ 0