"The statement adds that on Thursday, 1 350 rapid screening tests and 333 PCR tests were done in the public sector."
If this is true then Zimbabwe has stopped the spread of covid-19! Why is the regime not ending the lockdown?
If this is true then I will be the first person to take off my hat to President Mnangagwa and his regime for this truly historic accomplishment! I dare say, this is a regime renowned for boasting about its achievements. Why is it being so coy and nervous this time?
Zimbabwe’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic has raised many questions on the rational behind the regime’s decisions. The country imposed a 21-day total nationwide lockdown on 30 March 2020 when the country had 7 confirmed covid-19 cases out of a population of 16 million! The country had only done a 100 or so tests at the time.
Why the regime had not been testing aggressively is a mystery because this has been WHO’s clarion call! “Test! Test! Test!”
So, the decision to impose the nationwide lockdown was made without knowing whether there were only 7 cases or, the worst-case scenario, the 7 was the ears of the hippo!
Assuming the virus was indeed out there and spreading; then a nationwide lockdown made sense but it should have been followed by a ramped up testing. The regime undertook to do 30 000 tests by the end of April and by now it should have done 45 000 at least. The regime has only done 15 000 or so to date.
The regime has stubbornly refused to test target groups such as the unusually high number dying from malaria although the patients have the same covid-19 symptoms. In the last week, the regime has completely stop giving details of the tests carried out, what target group, breakdown of the numbers by province, etc. This is not a surprise!
Zanu PF is a corrupt and incompetent regime, its blundering incompetence in the handling of covid-19 and other issues is there for all to see. What the regime is no doing is making sure details of the spread of covid-19 and how many people die of the virus is kept a top secret.
20 000 is the estimated number of people killed by this Zanu PF regime during the Gukurahundi massacre. No one knows for sure how many people were killed because the regime’s activities at the time were heavily censored.
The regime has already passed a law designed to stop the truth on covid-19 ever coming out. Since only the government officials have the covid-19 tests kits, only the regime alone will certify a covid-19 death. And without the definitive covid-19 test result all deaths will be attributed to malaria or some other causes. Anyone reporting of covid-19 cases or deaths with no certified test results will face 20 years in jail for publishing “fake” news.
The regime is clearly nervous, it knows that is report of 34 confirmed covid-19 cases, 4 death, 9 recoveries and no new cases for the last 8 days is “fake” news. The regime is not testing aggressively and is deliberately targeting the wrong people! The regime is nervous because it knows the virus is out there and spreading. The rate of infection has been low but with the coming cold weather there is a real certainty the infection rate will go up.
If the number of people sick and dying reaches the same levels as happened in China, Europe, USA, etc. the Zanu PF regime will not be able to attribute the crisis to malaria or some other disease. After weeks of fake news designed to give the impression Zimbabwe has contained covid-19 the regime’s propagandists and apologists will have the impossible task of explaining what happened!
When hundreds of thousands of people are dying and you know this could have been avoided if the Zanu PF regime had been honest and transparent on the seriousness of the covid-19 outbreak; the last thing one would want to hear is yet another cock-and-bull nonsense from these Zanu PF thugs! Little wonder the regime is nervous!
On Friday, Police Minister Bheki Cele said 253 were infected with “this invisible enemy that is attacking our members”.
ReplyDeleteHe was addressing a joint meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Police and the Select Committee on Security and Justice.
“It is going to be much darker before it is bright. We hope our members will survive this time, we hope our members are going to be there to be part of the frontline to defend the rest of South Africa,” Cele said.
When you test aggressively you quickly know who has covid-19 and you isolate them to prevent them spreading the virus to others.
In Zimbabwe, Zanu PF has not been testing aggressively and so the nation has been blundering blindly. The country’s reported not even one new cases in the last 8 days. We are fooling no one but ourselves and will pay dearly for the folly!
The Ministry would like to report that today [8 May 2020], 624 rapid screening tests and 460 PCR tests were done in the public sector.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, 140 PCR tests were done in the private sector giving a total of 600 PCR tests done today.
One of the PCR tests done in Harare today was positive for COVID-19, whilst the National TB Reference Lab in Bulawayo is expected to resume PCR testing on the 9th May 2020.
Zimbabwe received 50 000 test kits three weeks ago, with more test kits coming. Why the country has only done less than 20 000 tests, when the regime had promised to do 30 000 by end of April, beggars belief!
Zanu PF does not want the true number of covid-19 cases and deaths known for the same reasons China has kept her figure under wraps. What China did was address the pandemic head-on by mobilising the human and material resources to stamp out the virus. Zanu PF has done no such thing, all the regime is doing is sweeping the dirty under the carpet. The virus is spreading and the number of cases and deaths will soar, the nation will be forced to lift the carpet and see mountain of covid-19 cases and deaths!
“18 buses with 476 Zimbabweans deported from SA will be arriving in Beitbridge,” Nick Mangwana has announced.
ReplyDeleteThe trickle of returnees is now growing into a flood!
The returnees are all to be kept in isolation centres scattering in all the country’s 10 provinces such as Beitbridge Hotel and Belvedere Teachers’ College, in Harare, etc. The hygienic conditions at the two centres were so bad; with 20 plus sharing toilet and washing facilities and, worst of all, they do not even have running water; there are a covid-19 hotspot in their own right!
A week to three weeks in these isolation centres will be hell-on-earth!
China was able to build a 1000 bed 5 star covid-19 hospital in 10 days. Zimbabwe has had six months to get these isolation centres up and running and has failed to install a water tank so there is running clean water! The regime deployed the country’s bloated Army, Police and CIO to harass people during the lockdown but failed to deploy just a few of these busy bodies to install a water tank!
No doubt, Zimbabwe need donors to install water tanks at these isolation centres.
Zimbabwe Urgently Needs US$800 Million To Solve Its Humanitarian Crisis.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, Zimbabwe produced enough food to feed its own people plus plenty leftover to be the breadbasket of the region. Mugabe seized the farms and gave them to his cronies, mostly, and ever since the country has depended on imported food aid – so impoverished we cannot even pay for it.
The people of Zimbabwe have wasted many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and 40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have taken a heavy toll. The country and people are desperately poor. The covid-19 outbreak could not have come at a worse time; the coming 8 to 12 months will be hell-on-earth.
Having this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship is only making a bad situation worse. The best thing Zimbabwe needs right now is a competent and accountable government!
@ Nomazulu Thata Thata
ReplyDelete“Wilbert Mukori was loud and passionate about election boycott. He wrote several articles on some media houses telling the opposition parties that they are falling into a trick by going for elections that are not winnable by opposition parties. No political parties who registered to take part in the harmonised elections understood his wisdom.”
I agree, the route Chamisa followed in takeover power after Tsvangirai's death was blatantly bullish and illegal. It is shocking that anyone could ever deny this and yet Chamisa and his entourage have done so. MDC leaders have already proven that they are corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless and who can dispute their well-earned reputation now.
Chris Dell, USA ambassador to Zimbabwe in 2004 to 2007 said in a leaked cable to Washington that Morgan Tsvangirai “was a flawed and indecisive character who would be an albatross round the nation’s neck if he ever got into power!” He could have said the same of the rest of the MDC leaders and they are indeed albatrosses weighing the nation down.
The MDC leaders have sold-out on reforms and hence the reason the nation is still stuck with the Zanu PF dictatorship. This MDC infighting has torn the MDC into tiny pieces even the vultures cannot find them. And this is happening at a time when the nation desperately needed even the mediocre opposition to stop the blundering incompetence of Zanu PF turning the tragic covid-19 situation into a catastrophe.
The Zimbabwe electorate must snap out of their sloth-like slumber; there really is no excuse for any Zimbabwean continuing to support MDC blindly like sheep to the slaughter. If they want to get out of the economic and political mess the country is in, then they must take the challenge of electing competent leaders with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands.