"Covid-19 dead will pile up on the street is an insult" says Gutu - eat your hat if it happens P Guramatunhu

Obert Gutu is just a corrupt, incompetent politician with a very large ego and a knack for saying all manner of nonsense just to get attention. Still, this time he has gone too far!  

"A Few days ago, Melinda Gates said bodies will soon be piling up on the streets of Africa as a result of Covid-19. This statement is not only disrespectful and insulting, it's also grossly racist. Some folks are disappointed that so far, there hasn't been an apocalypse in Africa," Obert Gutu said.

What Mrs Gate had said was "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.”

If Africa is spared the serious outbreak that has happened in other countries then we must thank our lucky stars and do something to make sure next time we are ready to deal with pandemic. To suggest that anyone would be “disappointed” that Africa was spare is a figment of Gutu’s sick mind!

The signs are the corona virus is spreading in Africa. In Zimbabwe we can expect the number of cases to continue to slowly increase and then grown exponentially as we get into the cold days in May, June and July.

The fact that corona virus has spared no one, means developing nations will have to contain the virus as best as they can without the usual assistance from the developed nations. Without an effective vaccine, most developing countries will struggle to stop the spread of corona virus.

Whilst measures like the lockdown, the widespread use of PPE and other measures have stopped the virus spreading in developed countries. The same measures have not worked in developing countries. A corona virus patient cannot self-isolate when he/she lives in a two-roomed house with five others. People cannot follow simple advice like washing one’s hands regularly because there is no clean running water.

In countries like Italy it is projected that corona virus infected 20% of the population with 3% requiring hospital care at it peak and 800 plus died a day. Less than 2% in total is expected to die of the virus.

In Zimbabwe the economy was in total meltdown and the public health care had all but collapse before the corona virus outbreak. There will be a lot more people infected, most of those requiring medical help will not get it and so there will be many sick, dying and died. Given corona virus is highly contagious many people, who would otherwise help will not, not without PPE.

As many as 10% plus will die and no doubt the personal equipped to deal with the virus will be overwhelmed. There is no doubt than many, sick, dying and died will go unattended! This has happened in Zimbabwe, or be it a smaller scale, during the 2008 cholera outbreak that killed 4 000.  

Gutu is angry with Mrs Gate not because there is no prospect of dead piling in the street; we all know it has happened in the past and is certain to happen again and again. He knows Mrs Gate is not lying, he just does not want her or any white person to say it.

The irony is Zimbabwe need not be in this mess, the total economic meltdown, the collapsed health care service, etc., etc. these are all man-made problems, the consequences of 40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The country has been stuck all these years with this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship than has rigged elections to stay in power.

Obert Gutu and his MDC friends have had many golden opportunities to implement the democratic reforms that would have ended the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Obert Gutu was even one of the MDC deputy ministers in the GNU, they failed to implement even one reform in five years!

Whilst every thinking Zimbabwean is worried sick at the tragedy corona virus has brought, made significantly worse by the country being stuck with this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime. We should be focused on corona virus and bad governance and all this idiot, Gutu, wants to do is play this race card to draw attention to himself!