“The International Monetary Fund
(IMF) said in a blog on the outbreak's impact on Africa last month that
"social distancing" was not realistic for the most vulnerable, and
the notion of working from home was only possible for the few,” reported
Bulawayo 24.
"The very measures that are crucial to slowing the spread of the virus will have a direct cost on local economies," said IMF. "The disruption to people's daily lives means less paid work, less income, less spending, and fewer jobs."
In Zimbabwe the lockdown was
imposed when the country had less than 10 known corona virus patients and most
of whom had recently arrived from outside the country. It would have made more
sense to trace, test and isolate all those the patients had been in contact
with. A nationwide lockdown was certainly uncalled for at that stage.
If we assume there were a lot
more people infected than the 10 the regime admitted, which is very likely, but
even then a nationwide lockdown did not make any sense given people still
continued to meet in numbers to collect water, queue to buy maize meal,
vegetables, etc. as Mnangagwa himself witness during in impromptu tour of
Harare Suburbs last weekend.
WHO has underlined the
importance of washing hands regularly with clean running water as one of the
key measures to stop the spread of corona virus. It is shocking that Zimbabwe
is still failing to guarantee the supply of clean running water to 90% of the
population. Government has made no concerted to improve the supply of clean
water, even major hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo Hospitals still experience
water shortages.
Why Zanu PF jumped at imposing
nationwide lockdown when it cannot supply even something as basic as clean
water has to do with the regime’s autocratic tendency than sound scientific advice
and common sense.
South Africa has tested more
than 47,000 people, as of 3 April 2020, and has 67 mobile testing units. President
Cyril Ramaphosa has decided, based on the data from field tests, to extend the
lockdown by another two weeks!
Zimbabwe has only tested 400
people and has one fixed testing centre based in Harare. The country has only
500 test kits donated by WHO. A few weeks ago, Mnangagwa allocated US$4.5 to
Thokozani Khupe and her fellow POLD member to travel around lobbying for the
lifting of the sanctions, for example, but failed to spend even one dollar to
but corona virus test kits! Mnangagwa will probably extend Zimbabwe’s lockdown
too, based on his autocratic instinct, Caesar’s will!
If this corona virus is going
to behave like the common flu, then we must expect the numbers of infected
people to increase significantly as we get into the cold months of May, June
and July. This is the time when a nationwide lockdown would have made sense.
Assuming that by then the government would have done something to ensure there
is clean running water, etc. and thus improve on basic hygiene and social
distance.
Zimbabwe’s ongoing 21-day nationwide
lockdown was ill-advised. It will have little positive impact in slowing the
spread of the virus, if at all. But worst of all, for a nation with no welfare
system to help the most needy in society meet their basic needs, it is very hard
to sustain a nationwide lockdown for a couple of weeks much less a couple of months.
Ending the lockdown when the infection
is getting worse is insane and yet that is exactly what the country will be
compelled to do to avoid people starving to death!
“Kupedzera miseve pamakuguvo,
hanga dzisati dzasvika!” (We have wasted our arrows on the crows when the guinea
fowls are yet to come!) Worse still, it is the man-eating hyenas, not the
harmless guinea fowls, we have to fight off!
Corona virus outbreak has happened during the hot summer months during which the virus is not as contagious, giving Africa three or so months to prepare before the cold winter and the increased infection. Countries like Zimbabwe should have spend the time making sure basic things like the supply of clean running water, clean sanitation, refitting its collapsed health care services, providing proper stalls for vendors, etc.
ReplyDeleteImposing total lockdown just because that is what other nations have done is just down right stupid especially when maintaining the physical separation during the lockdown is near impossible especially when the government had failed to provide simple things like supply of clean water to stop queuing for it.
When you live from hand to mouth as most vendors do, even one day without going out is a serious economic hardship. The 21-day lockdown is going to be a serious economic challenge and it will be even harder to extend the period. Mnangagwa will end up looking really foolish if it should turnout he imposed the lockdown prematurely and could not do so when the need finally arose!
@Felix
ReplyDelete“Pathetic reporting, always opposed to everything done by this governments whilst gloating over neighbour affairs.”
Considering this Zanu PF regime has blundered from pillar to post for the last 40 years and hence the reason the country now finds itself with an economic in total meltdown, collapsed health service, etc.; it is therefore hard to find anything to praise the regime about.
But to focus on the subject matter before us, are you saying the lockdown was a wise think? Or do you think we should all praise the act regardless?
The evidence on the ground shows this is yet another Zanu PF blunder. It seems you are fishing for complements. Well you should read the Herald and listen to ZBC TV and Radio. Here you will hear the truth and frankly we do not take kindly to your misplaced sense of patriotism. If the lockdown was another Zanu PF blunder the cost in human suffering and deaths is more important than messaging Mnangagwa’s great leader ego!
@ Onai
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa came with his "Zimbabwe is open for business!" confident he will kick start the Zimbabwe economy. The economic meltdown is still in the doldrums and sinking. He promised to stamp out corruption and the wholesale looting in Marange and Chiadzwa continues to this day. He promised to hold free, fair and credible elections but only to blatantly rig the elections.
He has promised to stop the spread of corona virus in Zimbabwe and it is naive to see how he can ever achieve that when he is not even doing the basics such as supplying clean running water to wash hands regularly, testing and tracking corona virus cases, etc. There is no doubt Mnangagwa has no clue what to do to stop the spread of the virus that is not being a pessimist but rather being a realist.
Out of genuine concern for all Zimbabweans, we wish to share the following account of our father's untimely death in the hope we might just save one life.
ReplyDeleteOur father Ian Hyslop, 79, was examined by his Bulawayo doctor on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 25, specifically as we felt he needed to see a doctor as he was suffering troubling flu symptoms. Thereafter, in the days leading up to his death on Saturday, April 4 – we believe he was examined by two local general practitioners with utter carelessness and ignorance.
We know that the resident doctor did not wear any protective personal equipment (PPE) when she examined dad on more than one occasion prior to finally deciding to drive him to Mater Dei Hospital. Her claim that she always wore PPE in a WhatsApp message to some of the residents at the retirement village on the night of April 7 is a complete fabrication.
We know she visited dad with the chairwoman on the first occasion for a mere check-up without PPE, or on follow up visits still clearly not recognising he could be a Covid-19 case, insisting he just had chest infection, but more so deciding to test him for malaria!
I know resources in Zimbabwe are scarce, but good medical and nursing care is imperative. I also know people will say dad was 79 years old and had stents, but his friends will confirm he was a healthy fit and a very independent man who played bowls often.
As a family, we cannot understand how two doctors, if not three, fully aware the lockdown was due to Covid-19, did not once consider him to be a typical case and hospitalise him on March 25 or at least March 31 when he clearly needed to be. As a result, there is no other way of describing them but careless, ignorant and negligent medical practitioners. The chairwoman and management of Qalisa must also take responsibility for illegally preventing the old folk from leaving the complex to see their preferred practitioner if or when the need arose during the lockdown period.
Both the ruling party, Zanu PF, and the opposition MDC have assured the nation repeatedly that the country was prepared to deal with the corona virus outbreak. When Wilkins Hospital, the hospital in Harare designated the covid-19 centre admitted its first patient, the late Zororo Makamba, it was clear the leaders were lying. Beside the bed, there was nothing else, no medicine, no ventilators, no clean running water and had a bucket for a toilet.
Zimbabwe had 10 confirmed corona virus cases and yet had only carried out 400 or so test, using the 500 test kits donated by WHO. The country was not doing any tracking and testing as in clear from the few tests. SA has 67 mobile testing unities and we in Zimbabwe have one fixed test centre in Harare.
Most urban dwellers in Zimbabwe still have no access to running clean water making a joke of the repeated advice to wash one’s hands.
Zanu PF has handled the corona virus outbreak with its usual breath-taking incompetence. The pandemic has tested nations to breaking point, Zimbabwe was broken before the outbreak and to have this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime in power will turn the tragedy into catastrophe of Biblical proportion. Many people will suffer and many will die unnecessarily because this Zanu PF government let them down!
@ Chokwadi
ReplyDeleteAfter all that wittering, I am no wiser!
WHO has said nations should be testing and tracking to contain the spread of the virus, for example. This Zanu PF regime has only carried out 400 or so tests when there are over 10 confirmed cases in the country and most of them were not in isolation for a week or more before they were confirmed. Of course the government has not been carrying out enough test and only an idiot like you would argue the regime should be "supported"!
Corona virus is spreading in Zimbabwe and this Zanu PF regime's blundering incompetence is going to turn this tragic event into a catastrophe of Biblical proposition. Country like UK with well resourced health care service are being tested to breaking point what more a country like Zimbabwe whose health care service was already broken and governed by one of the most corrupt and incompetent regime in the world!
It is nincompoops like you who have refused to accept Zanu PF is a party of corrupt and murderous thugs all these last 40 years and thus allowed the regime to drag the nation this deep into this hell-on-earth. It is you who must now open your eyes and stop supporting these vote ring and murderous thugs!
"You are supposed to be supportive!" Supportive of what?
@ Felix
ReplyDelete“Every African country has effected total lockdown to protect its citizens. Even Kenya with the largest slum in the world where people are informally employed is under lockdown. Every system has its pros and cons and leadership considers all that. Chamisa himself was the first to call for a total lockdown and when it came for the first time he agreed with the government on policy matters. This virus infection threat is not only in Zimbabwe, its world wide and to blame the government for blundering without proposing your own recommendations is grossly unpatriotic and unhelpful. Economic recovery is not purely the President responsibility, play your part too. If you continue to feed the black market, do you think that you are helping the economy. Fault finding is a weakness of some Zimbabweans amateur journalists. Good journalism looks at both sides and recommends ideal solutions. What are your recommendations my friend.”
Felix, you are just one of those naïve and gullible individuals who have been brainwashed by decades of Zanu PF misinformation and propaganda into believing everything the regime says.
It is Zanu PF standard response to dismiss all criticism as false, rubbish, “amateur”, etc. but without ever offering reasons why it false or the alternative, the truth!
Another line of Zanu PF propaganda is to dismiss the criticism because you failed to offer solutions even when solutions have been proffered and ignored.
The total lockdown here did not make sense because physical distancing is impossible when 5 people or more like in a two-room house, have to queue with 20 plus others for water, etc. It would have been better to attend to such needs as supply clean water, reorganising the markets, etc. so people are kept apart. To impose the lockdown just because other have done it is foolish.
Everyone with half a brain knows that Zimbabwe is a de facto one party state in which the Zanu PF ruling elite do as they please. They have no clue what they are doing and so are blundering from pillar to post with disastrous consequences but there is nothing the people can do about it. They are democratically accountable to no one.
Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections in 2018 only to blatantly rig the elections. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll!
Zimbabwe has been dying for meaningful democratic change leading to free, fair and credible elections and an end to this curse of bad governance. And you ask me for recommendations; fcuk me, what a idiotic thing to say!
We should be testing everyone with flue like symptoms and following up every positive case. This is clearly not happening if we have tested only over 550 since the outbreak!
ReplyDeleteThis Zanu PF regime is not up to the task and the country is going to pay dearly for having such an utterly useless government at such a critical time!
The Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital (BRIDH) has a capacity of 120 beds.
ReplyDeleteInnscor Africa has pledged to meet some of the requirements at Beatrice Infectious Hospital as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Critical issues at the hospital to make it a functional Covid-19 isolation centre include replacing the elevator, drilling two boreholes, tiling of floors, attending to toilets and bathrooms, repainting the walls and partitioning of wards.
Parirenyatwa designated isolation centre has a capacity to accommodate 425 beds.
This is a truly heart-breaking tragedy! Here we are, the pandemic is already upon us and the nation is only now doing something to have 500 bed ready by the end of the month. The two well publicised corona virus deaths in the country of Zororo Makamba and Ian Hyslop have shown that until now the country did not have a single hospital ready to deal with corona virus cases.
There is every reason to believe that a lot more individuals are infected out there and many have died way above the official 14 and 3 deceased. Zimbabwe has only done 540 tests.
If an infections person meets five people a day and they in turn meet five each the following day and so on. By the end of the seventh day there are 7 776 individuals to be traced and tested. With 14 cases this goes up to 108 864! At 540 tests, we have not even done 0.5% of the test demand in the last one week alone!
Since the start of the year, Mnangagwa allocated US$4.5 million to POLAD for lobbying to lift the sanctions and spent $23 million and $13 million upgrading National Stadium and Barbourfield Stadium respectively. Besides there is still the US$ billions per month being looted from Marange and Chiadzwa. With the nation’s very survival at stake and 1.5 million lives at issue; it is not too much to ask that every diamond dollar must be channelled to the common good. Why is it that Mnangagwa has not even asked the looters to contribute even one dollar!!!!!
Coronavirus infections and 3 deaths.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the report Harare has 7 cases, Bulawayo 5, Mashonaland East 4 and Matabeleland North 1.
The new cases have been classified by the Ministry as follows:
Case #15 is a 34-year-old female resident of Bulawayo. She has no recent history of travel or known contact with a confirmed case. She was referred for assessment by the local Rapid Response Team (RRT) after she was found to have a fever on routine screening. As part of our intensified surveillance, samples were collected for testing. She is stable, with mild disease and is self-isolating at home
Case #16 is a 52-year-old female resident of Bulawayo, who was a direct contact of the late, case #11. She consulted with the local RRT presenting with a 3-day history of headache. The RRT visited her at home for assessment and collected samples for testing. She is stable, with mild disease and is self-isolating at home.
Case #17 is a 79-year-old female resident of Bulawayo who stays in the same gated community where the late, case #11 stayed. She, however, denied any direct contact with the late. She consulted with the local RRT presenting with a history of cough and difficulty in breathing. Again, the RRT visited her at home for assessment and collected samples for testing. Currently, she is self-isolating at home, with moderate disease.
What one is finding frustrating is the sheer incompetence with the way this Zanu PF regime is handling this corona virus pandemic. To be fair the regime is corrupt and incompetent, still given the cost is in human misery and lost lives, one was hoping the regime would listen to advice for a change.
Zimbabwe has not admitted even one of the active 14 patience because it does not have any hospital equipped to handle corona virus patients. The few hospital beds it will have ready by the end of the month will be woefully inadequate to carter for number of patients. The best hope of fighting the spread of the pandemic is to test, trace and isolate.
We have 17 confirmed cases and done only 604 tests! This is just not good enough.
Why was Mnangagwa giving POLAD US$4.5 million for the anti-sanction lobby when he should have been buying more test kits?
Why has the regime done nothing to ensure clean water is available to all urban dwellers?
Why has the regime done nothing to ensure every dollar of the billion of dollars per month pocketed by the looting brigade in Marange and Chiadzwa up to now is collected and used in the fight to save lives? The looting is continuing as we speak and not even one dollar has been recovered from the looters. Not one dollar!
Melinda Gates, the Co-Chairperson of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has foretold that Africa is soon going to be littered with dead bodies of people who would have succumbed to the deadly Coronavirus.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking to CNN recently Mrs. Gates said, "It is going to be horrible in the developing world. Part of the reasons you are seeing the case numbers still do not look very bad is because they don't have access to many tests. Look at what is happening in Ecuador, they are putting bodies out on the streets, you are going to see that in countries in Africa."
She added that the poor African infrastructure will make it difficult for Africans to practice self-distancing and proper hygiene.
She is right! Countries like Zimbabwe that had an economy in total meltdown and a collapsed health service and to crown it all the most corrupt and incompetent government throughout the pandemic before corona virus outbreak are going to suffer the most!
40 years of Zanu PF misrule has left the country’s economy in ruins. Most urban dwellers do not have clean running water, the situation is even worse in rural areas. In this day and age and we still failing to secure something as basic as clean running water and sanitation!
Zimbabweans have had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but have wasted them all and now the country is going to pay dearly for it!
We are not testing widely enough! By now there should be standing instruction that anyone with flu like symptoms must be tested a.s.a.p. To have 17 confirmed cases and done only 604 tests shows we age not testing enough people! I agree the last case confirms there is someone with the virus who infected her and is not known.
ReplyDeleteThis is typical of this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime! It has ignore the advice to test, track and isolate aggressively until now. Now, when it is too late, the regime is promising (it is doubtful it will fulfil its promise) to act but half-heartedly too; for the sake of ticking the box and not making the difference.
ReplyDeleteCorona virus is set to cause heart-breaking human suffering and deaths in Zimbabwe. What makes the tragedy even worse is many of the suffering and deaths could have been avoided if only the country had a competent government!