There is no one out there who still believe Zimbabwe’s official corona virus cases and deaths are 26 109 and 666 respectively when figures in other countries better resourced to deal with the pandemic are soaring. Still the regime is determined to ram the lie down the nation’s throat!
“Vice President and Health and Child Care minister Constantino Chiwenga yesterday said Zimbabwe was still in good stead to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that public health facilities were still not yet strained,” reported News Day.
“But early this week, Medical and Dental Private Practitioners of Zimbabwe Association president Johannes Marisa urged government to decentralise COVID-19 testing and management as well as turn all council clinics into COVID-19 centres.”
It is no secrete that at the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic in March 2020, Zimbabwe’s economy was already in total meltdown and its health care services had all but completely collapsed. The country was ill positioned to deal with the virus and, now the number of cases are soaring, the few and feeble facilities out there are being overwhelmed.
"In light of widely circulating reports alleging that there is a serious deficit of hospital beds, let me point out that these were embellished social media allegations by some pen-mercenaries," was VP Chiwenga’s response.
Here we go! Instead of dealing with the message; blame the messenger!
Given Zimbabwe’s unfortunate starting position of a failed economy and collapsed health care service, the Zanu PF regime knew the country’s corona virus cases and deaths would be some of the worse in the world.
Whilst other nations discussed measures to stop the virus getting in the country number one; two, once there are cases in the country, test, trace, track and isolate and contain the virus and third be prepared to treat the very sick and bury the dead without making the bad situation worse. Zanu PF’s number priority was to make the truth about Zimbabwe’s corona virus situation remained a closely guarded state secret!
Only the Ministry of Health and Child Care and the designated Government official were the only authorised source of information on corona virus. Anyone else reporting on the matter faced a 20 year jail sentence.
Government has carried out most of the corona virus tests up to now and Zimbabwe has one of the lowest tests per capita. Last Month when SA was carrying out over 44 000 tests per day, for example, and Zimbabwe’s 1/4 SA’s population and therefore should have been doing 11 000 tests per day; Zimbabwe was barely doing 1 500 tests per day. By keeping the number of test low, Zimbabwe has also kept the official corona virus cases low.
The down side of not testing and isolating is that many infected people are never picked out and left to spread the virus far and wide.
After a years of falsely claiming Zimbabwe had contained the corona virus the chickens are coming home to roost; the number of corona virus cases are soaring and the country’s feeble health care service is overwhelmed. And the regime’s response is to deny the truth and to silence all those dare say otherwise.
The last weeks have seen the number of corona virus cases and deaths surge far above the official figures. There is no doubt that the Zanu PF regime is deliberately falsifying the seriousness of the country’s corona virus situation for the purpose of hiding government’s blundering incompetence in the handling of the pandemic.
Zanu PF has turned an otherwise tragedy corona virus pandemic into a Biblical catastrophe and is not only trying to pull wool over the nation’s eyes but is, as usual, threatening to punish all who dare open their eyes.
The corona virus pandemic has once again brought to the fore the heavy price the nation, any nation, has to pay for having a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical government such as Zimbabwe has. And we are not out of the woods yet!
Whilst other nations have already started vaccinating their people, Zimbabwe does not have the money to buy the vaccines and will be looking to free donations. It could be another year before the vaccination is rolled out. Another years of these frightening covid-19 cases and deaths!
Make no mistake about, the post corona virus economic recovery will be a serious challenge even to the developed nations. A corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF government will certainly not be up to the task to preside over the recovery.
Zimbabweans have allowed, for 40 years and counting, this demonic Zanu PF regime to ride roughshod over them, denying them their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life. The real big question here is “How long will Zimbabweans allow this madness to go on before they finally open their eyes?”
In the long run, nations get the government they deserve. Zimbabweans, by decades of omission, certainly deserve this corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. And by God, we are paying dearly for our folly, instead of just the usual price of sweat, lost treasure and human suffering corona virus has upped the ante - more sweat, more lost treasure, more human suffering and many lost lives!
People are dying in their hundreds a day of corona virus by now and yet we continue to be told the lie that only 666 have died of the virus since the outbreak a year ago!
ReplyDeleteChiwenga insists the regime has everything under control and yet the country is reportedly running out of oxygen!
"The Chinese, the disease is now on a fresh peak now. Cases are rising again. They are the ones who started their experiments and things got out of hand and now their experiments are costing us. They cannot control this now. They have costed us…. those whom we call our all weather friends, look at what they have done to us," she said.
ReplyDelete"We have to be strong. Indeed we have to be strong!"
Well, well! For nearly now the party has down played the seriousness of the corona virus so the leader can claim that they are handling the pandemic now the chefs are dying too and they finally admit the country's health service is being overwhelmed!
It is nonsensical to talk "have to be strong" when people are dying and the regime has no clue what to do to help them!
China Reaction To Oppah Muchinguri ‘s Allegation that It Created COVID-19: Zimbabwe Issues Statement | FULL PRINT
ReplyDeleteSo Minister S Moyo throws Oppah Muchinguri to the wolves!
If there is one issue the Chinese are super-sensitive about it is the corona virus issue. The world do not blame China for the outbreak of the virus per se but blame her for failing to report the outbreak for months!
China, just like Zimbabwe, is a very secretive nation and it did try to keep the corona virus outbreak a state secret. Until China did throw its economic and technological mighty at the problem and has largely contain the virus.
Zimbabwe has, for the last year, been sweeping the corona virus problem under the carpet. May people believe our corona virus trajectory is identical to that of SA and so Zimbabwe should roughly have 1/4 (same proportion to its population) or 250 000 cases and 6 000 deaths. And yet officially Zimbabwe has 2 600 cases and 700 deaths!
By failing to test and isolate Zimbabwe has made the situation worse because those who should have been in isolation have been spreading the virus far and wide.
It is one thing being secretive when you can at least contain the pandemic. It is foolish to be secretive only to make the problem worse!
No doubt Zimbabwe was hoping to get the vaccine from China and this insult from Oppah will just give Chinise an excuse to give Zimbabwe the middle finger!
Zimbabwean dictator Emmerson Mnangagwa will not attend next week's inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden, a list of guests seen by 7NN shows.
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa has been excluded from the proceedings at the U.S. Capitol Jan.20 along with North Korean despot Kim Jong Il and the blacklisted rulers of Iran, Vietnam and Belarus. Mnangagwa is considered a serious security threat after his Varakashi cyber-terror group was caught by the CIA encouraging violence that followed the police killing of George Floyd.
U.S. intelligence agency, the Office for Foreign Assets Control also found that Mnangagwa was involved in grand corruption, moving billions of dollars of state funds from the Treasury to offshore accounts run by his henchman Kudakwashe Tagwirei and a front company called Sotic International, registered in Mauritius but with secret financial dealings in the British Virgin Islands. Tagwirei was placed under sanctions by Donald Trump in August 2020.
Mnangagwa was first blacklisted in 2001, when evidence emerged that he was the architect of the extreme violence that accompanied invasion of white-owned farms and elections.
President Cyril Ramaphosa from neighbouring South Africa will lead the African delegation as AU chair, much to the chagrin of ZANU-PF, which has publicly clashed with him and his ANC. Ramaphosa has previously pushed for the lifting of U.S.sanctions against the Harare junta. However, in the wake of public recriminations via the SABC, Ramaphosa abruptly closed the Beitbridge border on Monday, a development critics say will cripple the Zimbabwean economy dependent on South Africa to market minerals that are keeping the economy functional. Ramaphosa cited #COVID19 to justify the border closure but senior ANC officials said the unexpected frontier closure was a sign of the deteriorating relations between the party and ZANU-PF.
Despite security concerns, the inauguration is expected to be a festive event attended in person or virtually by people from around the world, from government representatives to celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Demi Lovato, Jon Bon Jovi and Ant.
Now that America has had a first hand brush with what it means to have a megalomania in power, they will understand what we in third world countries like Zimbabwe are going through. The Americans had Donald Trump for 4 years and the country’s democratic institutions reined in Trump and yet he still did a lot of damage. What more damage would he have inflicted if he had been in power for 40 years with enfeebled institution as is the case in Zimbabwe.
One only hopes that the incoming Biden Administration will be taking dictators like Mnangagwa and his regime to task over they contempt for other people’s freedoms and rights. The sanctions imposed on the regime are long overdue for review in terms of making them bite. Other people like Professor Mthuli Ncube, Minister of Finance, and leading MDC leaders must be added to the sanctions list for working with the regime knowing fully well that it is illegitimate.
Everyone knows that China, being a nation obsessed about secrecy, tried to keep the corona virus outbreak a state secret and that delay in announce the outbreak gave the virus a head start allowing to spread fsar and wide. The Minister was only saying out loud what very few people dared to say!
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe's economy was in a real mess and its health care service had all but collapsed before the corona virus outbreak; a result of decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by this Zanu PF regime. It is naive to believe that the same corrupt regime can president over the nation's affairs through this very difficult period. Zimbabweans must take the challenge of good governance the seriousness and urgency the matter demands!
ReplyDeleteThis is the list of what the EU is paying:
ReplyDeleteOxford/AstraZeneca: €1.78 (£1.61).
Johnson & Johnson: $8.50 (£6.30).
Sanofi/GSK: €7.56.
Pfizer/BioNTech: €12.
CureVac: €10.
Moderna: $18.
Every country in the world has an interest in mass vaccination against Covid and there is a big effort to put together a programme to ensure all countries can access enough to vaccinate the vulnerable. But drug and vaccine prices have always been very closely guarded commercial secrets.
When you live on less than US$ 1 per day the vaccine is way out of their reach. Zimbabwe will have to rely on donated vaccines and for that we are looking at having to wait for a year or more. How many lives will be lost in the interim!!
ZIMBABWE has been barred from voting at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly as it is in arrears in the payment of financial contributions totalling US$81 770.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a letter from the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres to UN President Volkan Bozkir, dated 13 January 2021, Zimbabwe is one of the 10 countries that have also lost their voting rights due to the arrears.
"At present, 10 Member States are in arrears under the terms of Article 19 of the Charter of the United Nations, which states: A Member of the United Nations is arrears in the payment of its financial contributions to the Organisation shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears or exceeds the amount of the contribution due from it for the preceding two full years," the letter reads.
Before flights were cancelled Mnangagwa squandered as much money on a hired plane to fly from Harare to Bulawayo and back again!
@ Hugh Jarse
ReplyDelete“Well said, Wilbert! Unfortunately, ZPF's biggest cheer-leader, Nelson Chamisa, not only turned most people away from the polls, he guaranteed a zpf win, by his actions. Most voters have now thrown in the proverbial towel and given up, not only on any hope of change for the better, but also of anything positive, long or short term! I had high hopes of change occurring, until that greedy idiot Chamisa started bleating and dividing what was credible, viable opposition. Today, I honestly believe the chance(s) of positive change are gone for good. :-(“
Actually, by failing to implement even one meaningful democratic reform throughout the five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU MDC leaders proved beyond all reason doubt that they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. The events of the GNU showed MDC was not a credible and viable opposition.
Can I suggest that you read Tendai Dumbutshena’s article in last week’s The Independent and Bulawayo 24; he explained very well why MDC leaders are sell-outs and will never accomplish anything of note. Please read it, it is really that good!
What is Philip Chiyangwa wittering about! Zanu PF and its apologists are up in arms for two reasons:
ReplyDelete1) Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri let the cat out of the bag by admitting the country is being overwhelmed by the corona virus contrary to VP Chiwenga who had insisted the country has everything under control. Zimbabwe has lived a lie of containing the virus and now the chickens are coming home to roost. The regime's reaction is try to bury the truth, in Chiyangwa's case, by blaming Zimeye for not respecting Zimbabwe culture and interview someone in mourning.
2) Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri also bleated out a fundamental truth acknowledged by all but unspoken - that China is to blame for the corona virus pandemic. The Chinese did try to keep the corona virus outbreak a state secret contrary to the WHO guidelines.
Philip Chiyangwa knows too well that Zanu PF murdered over 20 000 innocent civilians in cold blood during Gukurahundi, for example. I do not remember him ever raising his voice to condemn it! So are we to conclude that our African culture allows the cold blooded murder of 20 000 innocent civilians but is outraged beyond words that someone in mourning is interviewed. What a hypocrite!
"the problem that we have is when a person is very powerful in politics they don't want to see him, so as they are saying Chinotimba is sick, with COVID, I am here, I am straight, straight here, no COVID no what. I'm the people's Chinos, those who wish me dead will be 1st to go”
ReplyDeleteCorona virus is real and many innocent Zimbabweans, with no political ambitions or ax to grind have had the virus and many have died. For the last year, Zanu PF has under reported the corona virus cases and deaths so the sake of political expedience, the regime wanted to give the impression it has contained the virus. The country is now paying dearly for the lie.
“I’m the people’s Chinos!” Yeah right! Then why have you done something to ensure the country’s health care services was adequately equipped and staffed to deal with the pandemic and prevented the chaos and tragic waste of human lives that we are now witnessing.
So you think covid-19 will not get you because you are “powerful in politics!” What buffoon!
Zanu PF ruling elite and the Chinese are friends, the Chinese are the ones who have kept Zanu PF in power all these last 40 years. In return Zanu PF have granted the Chinese a licence to loot the nation's resources, a privilege the Chinese have guarded jealously and will not want to ever see ended.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese are a curse to the people of Zimbabwe and their dream of freedom. liberty and human dignity!
ZANU-PF, says the governance of the country is premised on the rule of law.
ReplyDeleteThis comes after an article published by the NewsDay this Monday titled "Release Chin'ono, Mahere, Sikhala- ED told."
In a statement, ZANU-PF National Spokesperson, Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo said Zimbabwe is a constitutional democracy and not a banana republic, which implies the separation of powers as evidenced by the existence of the executive, the judiciary and the legislature.
Zimbabwe is a Banana Republic but, as one would expect, those ruling are denial of the truth. The regime blatantly rigged the last elections; it failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters' roll for Pete's sake!
"As at 13 January 2021, Zimbabweans has recorded 27 892 confirmed cases, including 17 372 recoveries and 773 deaths," reads statistics from the Ministry of Health and Child Care. Carried out 3829 PCR tests.
ReplyDeleteOf the 3 829 PCR tests carried out 3 478 of them were in Harare with 339 new cases. There have been reports of most workers in Zanu PF HQ, Munhumutapa Building (housing the President’s Office) and other government buildings being tested. And yet when Dadaya High School had corona virus outbreak only 47 individuals were tested in the first day at least out of over 1 000 students and teachers.
Many frontline workers like health care workers are supposed to the tested at least once very two weeks but many of then, especially in outlying areas, have never been tested ever since the corona virus outbreak a year ago. It is obvious see why this is so! The 8 province other than Harare and Bulawayo had only enough to do 57 tests and it is quite normal for them to have zero tests
So Zimbabwe is not only failing to carry out enough tests to track the virus but it is also clear that the few test kits are not being distributed evenly across the country. It is an outrage that a Zanu PF HQ worker should be tested first just because the ruling elite fear catching a virus which they are under reporting before a health care worker who works with corona virus patients all the time.
Zimbabwe is taking a cautious approach towards the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines that some African countries are set to roll out amid indications that government could delay the programme while observing the effects associated with the medicines.
ReplyDeleteThe vaccines, which some Western countries have already administered have been met with mixed reactions from across the world while some theories have raised questions about some of the medicines destined for Africa.
Some of the vaccines have also raised eyebrows over reports that they are not recommended from specific countries but specifically made for Africa.
Zimbabwe is set to receive more than three million doses of vaccines at a cost of US$25 million from the 270 million available for Africa. These are expected to cover 15 percent of Zimbabwe's population. Zimbabwe will, however, need to inform the Afreximbank within two weeks if it wants the vaccines which are being sourced by African Vaccine Acquisition Taskforce set up by the AU chairman and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
These would complement the vaccines secured via Covax, the globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort, which has clinched agreements to secure two billion doses.
Zimbabwe is expected to pay the US$25m by drawing down from the Afrixembank facility as each African country has an allocation based on its population size.
Thank God the vaccines are being distributed on the basis of the country’s population and not according to the seriousness of the corona outbreak in the country. If it was the latter, we in Zimbabwe will be getting a tiny fraction of the vaccine because officially Zimbabwe has had very few covid-19 cases and deaths.
Mukundu says "it wasn't ethical journalism". It was an intrusion in personal grief!
ReplyDeleteWhat is shocking here is how some people always jump through all manner of hops to defend the slightest wrong done to those in positions of power and authority. And yet the same idiots are as quiet as a mouse in a room full of cats when those in power ride roughshod over the ordinary people, denying them their freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life!
In her moment of grief over the death of her fellow Zanu PF bigwig Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri revealed two basic truths which the regime has been at great pain to hide from the people Zimbabwe - one that corona virus is more widespread than the official data on the virus would suggest; two, that the country's health care service in being overwhelmed.
Chiwenga had just been in the news just a few days before the Oppah interview denying the country's health care services was being overwhelmed. He dismissed the claims as "embellished social media allegations by some pen-mercenaries"!
Zanu PF has deliberately down played the seriousness of the corona virus in Zimbabwe for the purpose of looking good. The party has been boasted of how it has contained the pandemic whilst pointing at SA's soaring figures. The truth is by failing to test, trace, track and isolate Zanu PF has helped the virus spread far and wide. Many Zimbabweans will get virus because we failed to isolate these with the virus and many of them will die as a consequence.
All these Zanu PF ruling elite and their calvary of sanctimonious apologists are not up in arms that Oppah was in grief but at what she reveal - the tragic truth of the seriousness of corona virus in the country - because she was off her guard.
We are dealing with a very secretive regime here and the fact that it took speaking to Oppah when she had taken off her Zanu PF iron mask of indifference to the plight of the ordinary people to learn the truth does not devalue the value of what she said. To be wittering on and on about the ethics of interviewing someone in grief and ignoring the immediate problem of the corona virus spreading like wild fire goes to so how stupid some people are.
No wonder the country is in a mess, Zimbabwe has more than her fair share of penny wise and pound foolish people!
@ Dumi
ReplyDeleteDo you think Oppah or any one of her fellow Zanu PF thugs would have ever admitted that the nation was being overwhelmed by the corona virus when they are wearing their Zanu PF iron-mask of cold indifference to the plight of the common people? Simba was very lucky to catch Oppah with her iron-mask off.
You should be concerned about the seriousness of the corona virus in the country and not about Oppah's blushing she had her mask off!
Zimbabwe had the golden opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and the opportunity was wasted as MDC failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. All this nightmare of Zanu PF oppression and corruption would all be behind us if the reforms had been implemented.
ReplyDeleteTendai Biti was one of the MDC senior leaders throughout the GNU and as the party's chief negotiator in the Global Political Agreement that gave birth to the GNU he, of all people, must have understood the primary task of the GNU was to implement the reforms and stop the repeat of the blatant cheating and wanton violence that had marred the 2008 elections. It is all very well for him to be calling on the Zanu PF regime to end the misrule but does he ever regret selling out the nation by failing to implement the reforms!!! He should regret it and apologise to the nation. Indeed, he must apologise!
President Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed the passing of Gen (Rtrd) SB Moyo. Mnangagwa said he regrets to announce the passing on early this morning of Dr S.B. Moyo. He also confirmed that the late Minister succumbed to Covid-I9 at a local hospital.
ReplyDeleteActing Chief Secretary of the President and Cabinet, George Charamba, signed the statement.
"His Excellency the President, Cde E.D. Mnangagwa, regrets to announce the passing on early this morning of Dr S.B. Moyo, our Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The late Minister succumbed to Covid-I9 at a local hospital.
"The Nation will be kept apprised of further developments regarding this untimely demise of the late Minister, himself a decorated soldier and freedom fighter.”
I know corona virus is a disease and, like most disease, it affects everyone, the rich and the poor, the good looking and the ugly, black and white, male and female, everyone. Yes corona virus affects the poor more than it does the rich but only because the former live in crowded homes, are ill-fed, have poor sanitation, etc., etc.
Ever since Zororo Makamba’s death last March more and more Zimbabweans have died of corona virus; a hell lot more than the government bulletins have shown. If only 800 or so Zimbabweans have died of corona virus as Zanu PF says, then the regime must be counting the ruling elite and their cronies only!
Through their lawyer Rudo Magundani of Scanlen and Holderness, Misa-Zimbabwe said the information and coverage being disseminated on the current public health situation in the country was incomplete, uninformative, and inadequate.
ReplyDeleteIt contended that the current information dissemination had failed to take into consideration the requirements of all citizens in Zimbabwe.
Misa-Zimbabwe also argued that the quality of information being disseminated was poor, and was short-changing the citizens as no information had been disseminated on the new strain of COVID-19.
It said government also failed to release information from the statistics emanating from private health facilities.
"There is no information advising the public of the new variant of COVID-19, its pathology and whether such a variant has been detected in Zimbabwe.
"In fact, there is no information as to whether the first respondent is even testing for the new COVID-19 variant.
"The amount of cross-border interaction with South Africa makes Zimbabwe particularly susceptible to exposure" the media lobby group said.
It added: "Critically, there is no information as to the statistics emanating from private healthcare providers such as the number of tests that have been conducted by such facilities, the attendant results, various aggregations of those results around gender age and location.
"All this information is critical in regards to public awareness and well as determining the true state of the public health emergency."
Misa-Zimbabwe stated that government failed to provide information on the nature and quantity of equipment available in the designated public and private institutions in Zimbabwe to deal with the resurgent pandemic.
"We are in a second and more dangerous wave of the virus and it is important that the public is made aware of the state of preparedness," it said.
This application comes on the backdrop of an earlier one filed by the organisation in April 2020 wherein the High Court ordered the two ministries to publish and disseminate on all available platforms, COVID-19 daily updates in all the official languages
Zanu PF has been under reporting the corona virus cases for the sake of giving the impression the regime has contained the pandemic. It is truly shocking that health professionals, the media and the rest of society have all turned a blind eye to this blatant lying and this has only allowed the virus to spread far and wide and fast. The nation is now paying the heavy price for this folly with the soaring corona virus figures and deaths.
Thank God someone has finally woken up to the tragedy, better late than never!
THE United States (US) yesterday said Harare should investigate and bring to book the perpetrators of the January 2019 killings, where soldiers and the police allegedly shot and killed at least 23 people, according to civic society organisations.
ReplyDeleteHarare and Washington have been embroiled in a diplomatic spat, with the US constantly calling the Zanu-PF government to order over gross human rights violations, as well as alleged use of State machinery to abduct and silence critics.
We welcome the new President Joe Biden Administration and please to see the chaotic Trump era ride into the sun-set of history. We will give the new Administration time to sort out the mess gripping America and then, in time, turn the screw on tyrannical regimes like the one in Harare.
To stop the country’s economic meltdown, the root cause of the tragic human suffering and deaths; Zimbabwe’s next elections must be free, fair and credible. All pressure must be brought to bear of the Zanu PF dictatorship and its coopted MDC acolytes to implement the reforms or else have the 2023 elections declared null and void.
One of Zimbabwe's major hospitals designated to admit Covid-19 patients has run out of oxygen.
ReplyDeleteThe United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) says it currently has 22 patients admitted, and some of them require oxygen to stay alive.
"Our major crisis at the moment is oxygen. BOC Zimbabwe Gases which supplies us is having to outsource, they're facing all sorts of problems with ZESA," UBH acting CEO Dr Narcicious Dzvanga said on Thursday.
"We have a bulk tank that can take 10,000kg, but they came on Saturday and gave us 4,000kg which is already finished. Covid is about oxygen. No oxygen when you need it, count yourself dead. Once you are that sick to require hospitalisation, the therapy for Covid is oxygen and if it's not there, say your prayers and have your last meal."
Dr Dzvanga said they have a capacity for 150 beds, but the Covid-19 section has just 50 beds – raising new questions about Zimbabwe's preparedness to deal with a virus which had killed 879 people by Wednesday, with 733 new infections reported.
Dr Dzvanga said the Old Bartley Memorial Block which has been closed off for Covid-19 patients had to date received 142 patients since it got its designation on December 3 last year. Of those, 102 recovered but 40 died.
The hospital is admitting an average four patients per day, he said.
He bemoaned delays in opening the other Covid-19 facility, Ekusileni Medical Centre in Hillside, and the lack of capacity for Thorngrove which was heaping pressure on UBH.
"What's paining us at the moment is that our core partners in fighting the virus, nothing is happening there. We were asked to groom Ekusileni, we have nurses and doctors on our books ready to go there but nothing is happening," Dr Dzvanga said, speaking during a hand-over of 2,000 masks donated by the I AM Bulawayo Fighting Covid-19 Trust.
He added: "They keep demanding that the nurses be on site but they go there and are told to clean the place twice a day, and that is it. For some reason or another, the hospital just cannot get patients."
He said they were asked to deploy 20 nurses at Thorngrove but the institution is also not admitting patients for various reasons.
Anyone who has been following the covid-19 story, especially those in the medical profession, would tell you Zimbabwe has lost a hell lot more than 879 people to covid-19. Big hospitals like UBH alone has lost more than 1 000 by now!
One of the most shameful things in Zimbabwe today is why so many people have known Zanu PF was lying about the seriousness of the corona virus in the country and yet they have all said nothing. How many lives could have been saved if these people had spoken up! Shame! Shame on you!
21/01/21
ReplyDelete3 257 PCR 30 047 (639) and 917 (38) deaths
Zimbabwe's corona virus figures do not make any sense as it is now obvious the regime is not testing all the many patients who have been turning up at the hospitals and clinics. Why Zimbabwe is still testing only 3 257 people per day and therefore failing to carryout adequate tracing and tracking beggars belief!
There have been reports of United Bulawayo Hospitals is running out of oxygen! So we now have to rely on donated oxygen too!
Meanwhile, Mpilo Hospital acting chief executive Dr Solwayo Ngwenya expressed concern over the increasing number of health workers who were contracting the COVID-19 virus.
ReplyDelete"It is very worrying that an increasing number of staff members are contracting the virus. At least one or two staff members are infected each day by the virus. The virus is increasing in terms of infections and the death rates which we are seeing at national level," he said.
Dr Ngwenya added: "The virus has this tendency of lying low and letting people drop their guard and then strikes in large waves. If the population continues to disregard COVID-19 and lockdown regulations, we may be overrun because the staff members are going into quarantine leading to depleted staff in the hospitals."
If the people are dropping their guard and disregarding the lockdown measures, those in positions of power and authority must accept they are partly to blame for this. There is no denying Zimbabwe’s corona virus cases and deaths are much worse than the official figures of 30 047 cases and 917 deaths!
How many death certificates did Mpilo Hospital issue that failed to state the deceased died of covid-19 only because the hospital did not test to confirm this although the patient had all the corona virus symptoms? How many covid-19 confirmed deaths did the hospital have and yet these were never included in the official figures? One does not need to be a nurse or doctor to know these misleading figures would contribute to the spread of the corona virus.
Zimbabwe’s nonsensical official corona virus cases and deaths figures have contributed to the spread of the virus and turned a tragic situation into a catastrophe. One hopes that one of these fine days those responsible for this human tragedy will be held to account! We must not sweep this under the carpet.
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa says he is in "low spirits" as he buried two national heroes while mourning key ally, Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo, all in the absence of his two vice-presidents who are reportedly down with unspecified illnesses.
ReplyDeleteHistory will remember that this Zanu PF regime under reported the seriousness of the corona virus pandemic for the sake of hiding its blundering incompetence and in so doing helped the virus spread far and wide and fast. The nation paid dealy for it as many, many more people were infected and and many, many more died unnecessarily.
One of this fine days those responsible of this human tragedy must be held to account. We must not sweep this under the carpet!