I have listened to President Mnangagwa’s address to the nation three
times and still failed to understand what understand the purpose. Yes, the
number of corona virus cases have increased significantly these last two weeks
but is he saying the lockdown conditions are gone shot back up to level 4 or
are we still at level 2?
What is the purpose of the 6 pm to 6 am nationwide curfew?
“At least 21 Cimas Medical Aid Society staffers tested Covid-19 positive
at the High Glen Clinic in Harare forcing the temporary closure of the health
centre Sunday,” reported New Zimbabwe.
“In its Covid-19 update bulletin, Cimas chief executive (CEO) Vulindela
Ndlovu confirmed the development and said a receptionist had tested positive
for Covid-19 last Thursday following a routine and random testing of staff.
“The CEO said contact tracing and testing subsequently revealed that other
staff members had been exposed to the virus as they were in the same work area
with the receptionist.”
The report underlines one of the greatest weaknesses in Zimbabwe’s
handling of the corona virus – the failure to test, trace and track
aggressively, especially at local community level. The very fact that so many
individuals tested positive, especially from a health service institution shows
the folly of not testing aggressively.
All the country’s major clinics and hospitals should be testing all covid-19
suspects as a matter of course. One had hoped the President was going to
announce measures designed to ramp up the testing regime.
Zimbabwe’s health care service is poorly equipped, poorly staffed and
poorly resourced; it provided a zero-star services, at best, before the corona
virus outbreak. The service will be stretched beyond its limits with the
admission of just a few covid-19 patients. It is therefore shocking that
government has failed to resolve the dispute with the health care workers,
including paying them a living wage and the provision of PPE, and thus
depriving the nation of even the skeleton health care cover at the very time
the virus cases are soaring!
How ironic that the country is ramping up its response to the soaring
corona virus cases by deploying Police, Army and CIO to every corner of the
country, armed to the teeth, to impose dusk to dawn curfew but has no health
care worker or equipment to do something even as basic as check the covid-19
patient’s temperature!
For Pete’s sake, what we need is nurses and medicine, not soldiers and
guns. Even now, at this the 59th minute of 11th hour,
before the corona virus storm overwhelms us all; our leaders still to do have
the common sense to do the obvious thing, the common sense thing!
Zimbabwe is a mad, mad world!
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe has one of the biggest and best equipped Army, Police and CIO in the whole region. The country's health care and education services and even the country’s economy itself have all but collapsed due to decades of neglect. In the face of the corona virus pandemic, Zimbabwe has failed to mobilise resources to ensure hospitals and quarantine centres had clean running water to say nothing of PPE and ventilators. The little resources the nation could gather was all used to pay the wages and equip the bloated Army, Police and CIO.
What makes Zimbabwe such a mad world is Mnangagwa and company simply fail to see that an economic situation that have left 34% of the population living in abject poverty fuelled by the country’s worsening economic situation, which the regime has no clue how to revive, is socially and politically unsustainable. No amount of coercive power can ever subdue the restless populous forever.
Sadly, it is not in the DNA of a murderous dictator like Mnangagwa to give up power no matter how hopeless the situation happens to be. His instinct is to dig-in and fight to the bitter end.
The truth is Zimbabwe would be doing a lot better in containing covid-19 if the country had a more competent government paying attention on the country’s needs than this Zanu PF regime. Indeed how quickly the country will recover from this economic mess depends on how quickly the nation frees itself from the Zanu PF dictatorship. As long as Zanu PF remains in power, there will be no meaningful economic recovery in Zimbabwe. The madness will continue.
"About 200 nurses have tested positive to COVID-19," Dongo said.
ReplyDelete"It is saddening that there is an increase in the number of nurses who are testing positive for COVID-19. This goes to what we have been saying all along that the inadequate PPE is exposing frontline health workers to this deadly virus."
This comes as the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) yesterday wrote to Health acting permanent secretary Gibson Mhlanga expressing concern over the growing number of healthcare workers contracting the virulent disease at their workplaces.
"We have also noted that there is no priority in providing information in the ministry's daily updates on the number of health professionals, the bedrock of the response, who have tested positive, recovering or deceased," ZADHR secretary Norman Matara said.
"As ZADHR, we believe it is in the interest of health professionals and the public in general to be informed on the status of their colleagues and frontline staffers. We also urge the ministry to provide a brief on the numbers, region/ province and status of all health professionals who have tested positive for COVID-19 to date."
Zimbabwe's confirmed COVID-19 cases yesterday shot to 1 820, with 26 deaths.
Nurses have been on strike for the 34 days with only student nurses and those on probation reporting for work at hospitals. Other health workers, fearing to contract the deadly virus, are reportedly taking leave days, forcing some hospitals to shut down even casualty departments that had remained operational.
There is evidence to show that the regime has been under reporting the number of corona virus cases in the country and not just those of health care workers.
Zimbabwe’s covid-19 cases will be about 95 000, a ¼ of that of SA’s 381 798 given our population is of the same ratio. So, the official figure is nearly 50 times lower than the real figure out there! There is no doubt that many people would have gone into voluntary isolation the minute they know they had the virus. People would observe the basic hygiene such as washing one’s hands regularly once they know there is someone with the corona virus around. But because the nation was deliberately kept in the dark as to the how many Zimbabweans had the virus, this has only helped in the spread of the virus!
Zimbabwe’s health care service had all but collapse before the corona virus outbreak and all covid-19 patients are on their own, it is naïve such a feeble health service to do much for them. The country’s greatest hope of containing corona virus is doing everything possible to reduce the spread of the virus. Testing aggressively and making sure all those with the virus are aware of their condition and go into isolation a.s.a.p. It is therefore unforgivable that it is none other than the regime that has let the nation down on both fronts!
It is true that Mnangagwa is digging his own grave but before we finally bury him, we should be careful that he does not take hundreds of not thousands of innocent people with him. He has deployed the army to ruthlessly impose the curfew for the purpose of hanging on to power at all cost!
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