“Mexico
has published revised figures indicating that the number of deaths caused by
corona virus is 60% higher than previously reported,” BBC reported.
“More
than 321,000 people are now believed to have died from Covid-19 in the country.
“The
revised toll places Mexico with the second highest number of Covid-related
deaths in the world, after the US.”
Mexico’s
President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has faced widespread criticism over his
handling of the crisis, notably the country’s failure to test, trace and track
as diligently as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Experts
have long warned that Mexico's true death toll is probably much higher due to a
lack of testing. It is also believed that a shortage of intensive care beds in
many states has led to a large number of people dying at home,” continued the
BBC report.
“The
new figures came after a review of "excess deaths" and a review of
death certificates.”
There
is no doubt that the real corona virus deaths in Zimbabwe are much higher than
the official figure of 1 519 for the same reasons as Mexico – not testing and
many people dying at home because there are no health care facilities.
In
mid December 2020, for example, at the peak of the corona virus variant first
identified in SA and was confirmed to have spread to Zimbabwe and other
countries in the region; SA was carrying out over 44 000 tests per day.
Zimbabwe, with ¼ SA’s population should have been doing over 11 000 tests per
day. The country was doing 1 500 tests per day or 10% of what it should.
As of
today 28 March 2021, SA’s official corona virus death toll stands at 52 663. One
would expect Zimbabwe’s corona virus death toll to ¼ that of SA or over 13 000.
If
you carry out fewer tests you have fewer corona virus cases and deaths; that is
common sense. If 10% tests resulted in 1 500 deaths, 100% would give 15 000
death; which would agree with the figure in the paragraph above.
Indeed,
one would expect Zimbabwe’s corona virus death toll to be much higher than the
straight forward ¼ that of SA. By failing to carryout the test, trace, track
and isolate as diligently as per WHO recommendation, it means many people with
the virus at every stage along the way were not put into isolation when they
should. These people would have helped the virus spread far and wide!
Whilst
SA has ordered enough vaccines to vaccinate enough of its population to reach
herd-immunity by the end of this year, 2021.
Zimbabwe
has less than 1 million of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine doses, enough to vaccinate
500 000 (two doses per person). Zimbabwe will be looking to donated vaccines to
reach its 10 million herd-immunity and will be very lucky to reach that target
by June 2022.
God
only knows how much economic disruption and human suffering and deaths the
nation will be inflicted in those 18 months!
“The
truth will set you free!” so goes the adage. In Mexico’s case the truth about
the country’s corona virus deaths will save many from the corona virus
infection and save many lives too – assuming pressure will be brought to bear
of President Obrador to ramp up the testing and vaccination programme, improve
health care facilities, etc. Mexico is a healthy and functioning democracy, the
people’s voice counts!
Zimbabwe
is not so lucky! The true corona virus death toll will remain a closely guarded
state secrete and President Mnangagwa will continue boasting of how well the
regime has handled the corona virus pandemic. Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party
dictatorship with corrupt and incompetent opposition, a toothless poodle at best.
This last year the MDC A has all but imploded as a result of the internal
factional fighting rendering the opposition utterly useless at the very the
nation needed the poodle to at least bark and raise the alarm!
It
was bad enough that Zimbabwe had the great misfortune of having had a corrupt,
incompetent and tyrannical government for 40 years at the onset of the corona
virus pandemic. The country was one of the least prepared nations to deal with
the pandemic because our economic was in a mess and the health care had all but
collapsed. Having the same corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF in power to deal
with the pandemic is a nightmare. The regime has handled the pandemic with its characteristic
blundering incompetence, turning the tragedy into a catastrophe of Biblically
proportion.
Officially Zimbabwe’s corona virus
death toll is 1 519 as of 28 March 2021. The true figure is probably 15 000
plus, 10 times as high. And we are not yet out of the woods, by the time the
country reaches its 10 million herd-immunity, June 2022, the death toll will
have surge up. Zimbabwe could well end up with one of the highest per capita
corona virus death rates in the world!
In 2008 Zimbabwe’s inflation rate
peaked at 500 billion percent the highest in modern human history! And now we
are in line to claim another world record! How I wish it was for something the
nation can be proud of and not to once again hold our heads in shame over!
President Mnangagwa was yesterday at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport to accept the first batch of 35 000 doses of India's first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, the first tranche of the 75 000 doses of Covaxin donated by the Indian Government.
ReplyDeleteThe President said the gift from the Indian Government was a welcome and timely intervention at a time the country was fighting the pandemic.
"This generous gift is welcome as a timely gesture of friendship, support and solidarity in the midst of these unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic. As you are aware, my Government has put in place measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Key among the strategies is the rollout of the vaccination programme to target 60 percent of our population towards the achievement of herd immunity," he said
Indian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Vijay Khanduja said the donation was testimony to the strong relations India shared with Zimbabwe. So far almost 60 million doses of the Covaxin vaccine had been injected in 75 countries across the world.
"Millions have received the vaccine in India alone and that should put to rest any doubts and scepticism about the vaccine. The vaccine has proved to be 81 percent effective in the clinical trials we have done so far and it has proven to be effective even against the mutant strains," he said.
To date, Zimbabwe has received vaccines for 600 000 people, at most, and we need to vaccinate 10 million to reach herd-immunity. It is now four months since the Pfizer vaccine was approved in December 2020. If Zimbabwe is going to rely on donated vaccines, which seems to be the case, the country will be very lucky to reach the herd-immunity by June 2022!
Many nations in the developed countries are reaching their herd-immunity in the three or so months and we in Zimbabwe are going to wait for 15 more months! The difference between them and us is that they paid for their vaccines and we wanted charity!
Zimbabwe is rich enough to buy all the vaccines the country needs if only it would stamp out the wholesale looting that has been going on for decades now! In 2016 then President Mugabe admitted the country was being “swindled of US$15 billion in diamonds alone!” He never arrested one swindler and never recovered one swindled dollar.
President Mnangagwa vowed “zero tolerance on corruption” when he took over from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup. It is now over three years and he is yet to arrest one diamond swindler and recover one swindled dollar.
Indeed, the wholesale looting has since exploded into other areas such as gold, fuel procurement, etc. under his watch! US$ 1.2 billion per year in gold is being smuggled out of the country.
Zimbabwe will have enough money to pay for all the vaccines the country needs if only Mnangagwa could stop the gold and diamond looting for just one month! A looting moratorium for just one month and the nation will be saved the agony of 15 more months of this corona virus pandemic. Is that too much to ask!
NO Covid-19 related deaths were recorded yesterday, but 17 people tested positive and all of the cases were local transmissions.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a statement from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, 1 240 people received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine yesterday bringing the total number to 69 751 people who have received the first dose.
1 231 received their second dose bringing the total number to 11 859.
This brings to 69 751 people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 countrywide.
Contrary to WHO recommendation and common sense dictate, Zimbabwe has not been testing all these with covid-19 symptoms and therefore it is almost certain that many of the people who died of covid-19 have been missed in the official count.
We need to vaccinate 10 million people to reach herd-immunity. If we are vaccinating 2 500 per day it is going to take 4 000 days = 133 months = 10 years to give the 10 million their first dose!
It is now over 4 months since the Pfizer vaccine was approved on 8 th December 2020 and we have vaccinated 70 000. At this rate, it will take 142 months = 12 years to vaccinate 10 million.
Vaccinating as many people as quickly as possible is the best and quickest way to contain this corona virus. Whilst other nations have hit the ground running and rolled out the vaccination programmes as soon as the first vaccine was approved. We in Zimbabwe are running a different race to a super slow drum-beat!
Other nations are reaching their herd-immunity targets in the next three months we are reaching our target in next 18 months, if we are really lucky!
The sheer blundering incompetence with which this Zanu PF government is handling this corona virus pandemic is shocking! The regime is not even concerned that the longer it takes for us to reach the herd-immunity the greater the number of people at risk of the corona virus infection and death!
African Union Special Envoy for COVID-19 and Pan-African businessman Strive Masiyiwa has spoken on the role he played in helping put together an agreement signed early this week for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to manufacture 400 million doses of vaccines for Africa, worth nearly US$4 billion.
ReplyDeleteThe deal will allow all African Union Member States access to 220 million doses of the J&J single-shot COVID-19 vaccine, with the option to procure an additional 180 million doses.
Writing to his over 5.6 million Facebook followers, the Econet group founder and billionaire entrepreneur said every entrepreneur must make the transition from "How do we fix this?" to "I can fix it".
Well done!
The number one challenge for Zimbabweans has to be to get the democratic reforms implemented so the country can have free, fair and credible elections! As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs; the country will remain stuck in this hell-hole.
"I can fix it!" = I can demand reforms and end this curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
Zimbabwe will receive about one million doses of Covid-19 vaccines per month from additional purchases so as to reach the 10 million herd immunity target, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has said.
ReplyDeleteHe said this in a statement this afternoon.
This comes as the country received 1 056 000 doses of Covid -19 vaccines purchased from China this week.
The vaccines are being availed to Zimbabweans for free at designated vaccination centres.
More citizens have embraced the vaccines with 76 995 having received their first dose while 14 885 had gotten their second dose as at yesterday.
On 24 February, when Zimbabwe received it first covid-19 vaccine, VP Chiwenga said the country will vaccinate 54 000 people in 10 days. 35 days latter and we have only vaccinated 76 000! This is a far cry from vaccinating 1 000 000 every 30 days!
The prospect of another 10 months of this corona virus is frightening but clearly it would be a great achievement if this regime was to achieve herd immunity by June 2022! This is the price the nation must pay for having a corrupt and incompetent government like this Zanu PF regime!
THE number of people that have been vaccinated in Zimbabwe rose to 87 000 yesterday, a day when no Covid-19 death was recorded.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, 87 791 people have been vaccinated when the programme started last month.
This is simply not good enough! Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube announce that the country was going to get 1 million vaccines a month and we should be vaccinating 1 million a month! It is now 36 days since this government rolled out its vaccination programme and has vaccinated only 88 000!
For a nation whose health care facility has all but collapsed and therefore cannot look after the sick much less the more demanding corona virus sick, we should be spending all our energy on vaccinating as many people and as quickly as possible.
As of now Zimbabwe has over 1 million vaccines since receiving the first butch in February. And after two months we have only used 10% of the vaccines! Are we will going to have people sick and dying of the virus whilst we stockpile the vaccines!!!!
It has also widened its vaccine choice after buying one million doses of Sinovac, also from China, and receiving a donation of 35,000 Covaxine doses from India.
ReplyDeleteDaily vaccinations have moved from an average low of 500 or so to several thousands, with 16,024 people getting their first shot on Friday, bringing the total of initial dose recipients to 103,815.
Those who have received a second and final shot grew to 20,938 after 3,422 immunizations, the ministry of health said in a daily update.
Many countries are looking at achieving herd-immunity in the next month or two and we have only vaccinated 100 000 or a paltry 1% to reach 10 million herd-immunity! At this rate Zimbabwe will be very lucky to achieve herd-immunity by June 2022. In the next 15 months we can expect two or three corona virus waves! Many Zimbabweans are going to be infected and many will die!
THE Government has introduced more Covid-19 vaccination sites across the country as part of efforts to decentralise the process and decongest existing service points.
ReplyDeleteWilkins Hospital, which has been the main vaccination point in Harare, was last week overburdened by the increasing number of people coming for their jabs.
As a result, vaccination sites have been increased to 24 as part of efforts to ensure every citizen has access to the vaccines.
The new centres, which started operating on April 2 include Parirenyatwa Hospital, Mbare Polyclinic, Sunningdale Satellite Clinic, Highfield Polyclinic, Southerton Satellite Clinic, Mufakose, Kuwadzana, Warren Park and Kambuzuma polyclinics.
People can also get their vaccines at Mabelreign, Marlborough, Avondale, Belvedere, Mt Pleasant, Hatcliffe, Borrowdale, Highlands, Mabvuku, Greendale and Eastlea clinics as well as Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, among others. The decentralisation of vaccination sites will ensure that citizens get their vaccines at a centre nearest to them.
Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care Dr John Mangwiro said the Government realised that the numbers of people coming to get vaccinated was increasing and this was causing congestion at Wilkins necessitating the establishment of more service points. He said the same would be done at all vaccination centres including in the rural areas where sites situated in clinics would be complimented by others at business centres and growth points.
"What we will do further is to increase the number of outlets so that we reach our target figures quickly. We will have fixed outlets so if there is a clinic, we might have another outlet at shopping centres to make sure that people get their vaccines and we avoid long queues," he said
Government has so far brought in 1,2 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine purchased from China to boost the donations of 400 000 Sinopharm vaccines received from China and 35 000 Covaxin from the Government of India.
Treasury has already made payment for more vaccines, which are expected to arrive in the country soon. About US$100 million was set aside for the procurement of vaccines targeting 60 percent of the total population as the country fights to achieve herd immunity.
This is typical Zanu PF swinging from one extreme to the next! There were not enough vaccination centres one day and so people were forced to queue. The next day the number of vaccination centres is increased to 24, a staggering 2 400% increase! There is no doubt that most of these centres will be under-utilised as it will take time for the people to know of their existence! It is the staff who will be waiting for people to vaccinate.
No doubt most of these centres will slow down or even closed without notice as the stock of vaccines run out and we swing back to queuing again! This is just a nightmare.
@ Uvencio Dindingwe
ReplyDelete“90% of voters who voted Zanu pf were forced. If it wasn't that people are forced to vote for Zanu pf, Zanu PF will get the least votes against all parties!”
Ever since the first elections in 1980, Zanu PF has rigged elections to stay in power. What is infuriating is that MDC leaders had the best opportunity ever during the 2008 to 2013 GNU to implement the democratic reforms and end the curse of rigged elections. Morgan Tsvangirai and company wasted the opportunity and failed to implement even one reform. That was our get out of jail card and we wasted it!
You are not the only one to say Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections; the EU, the Americans, the Commonwealth and all the other observers with any democratic credentials worth a spit said the same thing. However, your and everybody else’s condemnation of the elections did not count for much since the overwhelming number of Zimbabwe’s opposition participated in the elections.
Mnangagwa was able to point to 23 presidential candidates, 130 political parties and thousands of independent candidates contesting the parliamentary seats! He pointed to all the Zimbabweans who had freely participated in the elections as irrefutable proof the process was free, fair and credible.
The real reason why the opposition had participated in the flawed elections was because they were after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF was giving away. Like it or not by participating in the elections the opposition gave the process credibility and gave the results legitimacy.
No one with half a working brain was ever fooled by Chamisa’s claim that Mnangagwa was illegitimate. He was only using the claim to get Mnangagwa to create the position of Leader of the Opposition plus a few shadow cabinet posts complete with the ministerial limos and salaries for him and his MDC A friends!
Zimbabweans must wake-up to the political reality that MDC leaders are no longer fighting for free, fair and credible elections and hence the reason they will continue participating in flawed elections. Stop supporting the MDC and all those participating in the flawed elections and Zanu PF will lose legitimacy and thus forcing the party to finally accept the need for implementing reforms.
TWO schools in Matabeleland South have reported 106 cases of COVID-19, reigniting fears that schools remain hotspots and that authorities were not adequately prepared for their reopening.
ReplyDeleteSacred Heart Girls High School in Esigodini was closed on Thursday after 51 pupils tested positive to COVID-19.
The Health ministry also reported that 55 pupils at Umzingwane High School tested positive to the virus on the same day.
According to the situational report released by the ministry, Umzingwane High School cases were part of the 68 new cases recorded countrywide on Thursday.
Late last month, seven pupils at Prince Edward High School in Harare tested positive to COVID-19 after undergoing PCR tests at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals.
Zimbabwe does not a reliable system to track any corona virus outbreak. Central to any reliable tracking system is the ability to test, test and test for the virus. In UK and other developed nations, students are tested twice a week. Zimbabwe’s test regime has always remained wilfully inadequate.
"We tested 136 students and 51 tested positive. Among the positive cases, two are staff members, while four are day scholars and 45 are boarding students," an Education ministry official, who preferred anonymity, said
Every student and staff at the school should have been tested!
“Reports were that the cumulative COVID-19 positive cases at the Roman Catholic Church run-girls high school stood at 55 while staff members that tested negative were vaccinated.” Well that is worrying because it is pointing to very low efficacy of the vaccine!