The country imposed a 3-week total nationwide lockdown 30 March 2020 with 7 confirmed cases. The lockdown was eased to level 2 and extended by 2 weeks. The 2-week end 17 May and authorities will now have to decide whether to extend the lockdown or end it.
If we assume that the government has been testing aggressively as it should and it promised to then imposing a nationwide lockdown does not make any sense when the number of new cases has gone from 34 to 42 in two weeks in a country with a population of 16 million and the majority of the cases have a history of having travelled outside the country.
It would make a lot of sense to restrict movement of people in those provinces with reported covid-19 and also in and out of those provinces. Those provinces which have had no reported cases should be allowed to carry on as normal.
The level 2 lockdown allows most economic activity to go ahead but not the informal sector activities. It is clear that there has been no meaningful adherence to the physical distancing in the shops and people queuing to get on the buses, in the buses, etc. It is therefore unfair that vendors have been singled out when everyone else is allowed to operate violating the physical distancing rules.
The vendors are generally the poorest of the poor and they have no political voice and hence are the easiest to pick upon!
No one should have to face the impossible choice of starving or violate the lockdown restrictions and face the brutality of the state! If Mnangagwa is going to extend the lockdown on 17 May 2020, then government must have a demonstrative plan to make sure all those who need such basic needs as food, water and medicine are all going to get it!
There is growing evidence to suggest that this government is not testing for covid-19 as aggressively as it should. Some provinces such as Midlands and Masvingo had 3 and 0 tests carried out in 15 May report and have consistently reported low tests. It is inconceivable that there have been no reported deaths with covid-19 like symptoms in these provinces.
It seems Zimbabwe has not been testing aggressively to keep the covid-19 cases and deaths as low as possible. The low covid-19 figures will give the impression the country has the virus under control when in reality the virus is spreading even faster than it should otherwise. If people knew that malaria patients are in fact covid-19 patients, for example, then they will be a lot cautious than otherwise.
Covid-19 is a virus just like flu and winter is flu season. Watch out!
The tragedy for Zimbabwe is the country has imposed a nationwide lockdown too early and, because the lockdown was poorly planned, it failed to stop the virus spreading. By failing to test and track covid-19 cases aggressively nation has failed react and stop the virus spreading far and wide.
Covid-19 has wreaked economic and humanitarian havoc the world over. Even those nations with vast economic wealth and five-star health care services have been hit hard economically and their health care services have been stretched to the limit and many people have died of the virus.
40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption meant Zimbabwe was an impoverished nation whose health care had all but collapse. The country does not even have clean running water even in urban centres so people can wash their hands regularly, a basic covid-19 hygiene requirement. So, we know the country is going to be hit particularly hard.
The worst case scenario projected covid-19 death toll in the developed countries is 0.1% of the population. In most developing countries the figure will be ten times that, 1%. Given Zimbabwe’s sorry economic state and Zanu PF’s continued blundering incompetence in the handling of this pandemic, the country will be very lucky to get away with 2% or 320 000 death rate!
3 comments:
THE African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $13,7 million grant towards Zimbabwe's COVID-19 response.
The funds will provide a lifeline for targeted frontline responders and health personnel and boost the country's global health security index in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The grant was approved on May 13, after a request from the Zimbabwe government, AfDB said in a statement released on Thursday.
The funds will go to Zimbabwe's COVID-19 response project (CRP) to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CRP will focus on 15 high-density suburbs in Harare as well as satellite townships and targeted health facilities in other areas of the country.
Activities under the project include boosting capacity in COVID-19 prevention and management protocols for healthcare personnel and populations.
There is something worrying about this Zanu PF government. Ever since the covid-19 outbreak the country has been out there begging for money to help fight the virus. When the regime is talking to the potential donors the virus is a serious threat to the nation.
“Zimbabwe desperately needs urgent international support. The global pandemic will take a heavy toll on the health sector, with many being lives lost, and raise poverty to levels not seen in recent times, including worsening food insecurity. A domestic collapse also would ha, potentially adverse regional effects, where spill-overs are significant,” Minister Mthuli Ncube said in a recent begging letter to IMF, WB and AfDB.
And yet Zimbabwe has, on paper at least, only 42 confirmed covid-19 cases, 4 deaths out of a population 14 million compared with other countries in the region like SA and Zambia with 13 524 and 679 confirmed cases, 247 and 7 deaths with population of 58 and 18 million respectively.
Many people believe there are a lot more covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe than the 42, the regime has not been testing aggressively and has down played the true covid-19 cases and deaths because it does not want its handling of the virus closely examined. By the same token, the regime will be very secretive on how it is spending the money and resources raised to fight the virus.
There is no denying that covid-19 will take a heavy toll on the nation’s economy bring untold human suffering and deaths, the more so given the country was already in economic ruins and its health care in tatters before the pandemic. If the regime is going to be allowed to be secretive about virus and how it is spending the money then we can be certain the regime will continue to blunder from pillar to post – the root cause the country is in economic ruins.
The WB gave Zimbabwe US$7 million recently on condition “strict transparency and accountability measures” will be observed. The AfDB must impose similar conditions.
With 42 confirmed cases, 8 new cases in the last four weeks, Zimbabwe's nationwide lockdown is certainly over the top. Harare and Bulawayo are the hotspots and some provinces have not had even one confirmed case. The lockdown comes with a huge price tag; it disrupts the children's education and the nation's economic activities; and therefore must be imposed and extended when it is absolutely necessary.
Mnangagwa imposed the lockdown and now extended it "indefinitely" willy-nilly. There is no scientific evidence to justify any of his decisions. None!.
Indeed, Mnangagwa is hell bend on pursuing his own selfish agenda of keeping the seriousness of covid-19 from the public scrutiny. The regime receive over 50 000 test kits by mid April and the regime promise it would do over 30 000 tests by the end of the month. We are already half way through May and it still has only done 27 059 test!
There is no doubt that there are a lot more than 42 confirmed covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe and the penalty for failing to test and establish the truth is it allows the virus to spread far and wide. The cold months ahead are the normal flu months and if covid-19 should do the same then the country can expect covid-19 hotspots everywhere!
It seems Mnangagwa extended the lockdown indefinitely because he knows that his 42 confirmed cases is a lie and knows the storm is coming!
Fortune Nyamande, head of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, said the country was still far from ready to lift its lockdown. He said he sympathized, though, with the unemployed, who have had no source of income since late March, when restrictions were imposed.
“The WHO [World Health Organization] specifies that for a country to a lift a lockdown, a country must not have a widespread community transmission,” Nyamande said. “It must have conducted adequate testing so that it can reflect on the extent of the disease. The health system should be well-equipped to respond to a surge in cases of COVID[-19]. Then finally the government should have the capacity to test, isolate and trace all the contacts of all those who test positive for COVID 19.
“Basing on this criteria, we still think that there is still a lot to be done. But however, extending the lockdown without addressing these four fundamental issues raised by the WHO is futile.”
What Dr Nyamande has failed to ask is why has failed “to conducted adequate testing so that it can reflect on the extent of the disease”?
WHO has advised the authorities to “Test! Test! Test!” Zimbabwe received over 50 000 test kits by mid-April and promised to “ramp up its testing to 30 000 by 30 April”. As of 16 May 2020 the country had only done 27 059 tests. Many of the tests are on workers returning to work as per government directive; they are not on the target groups of those suspected to have covid-19.
The regime is just shooting in the dark, its decision to impose the nationwide lockdown and extend it for 7 weeks and now extending indefinitely is not based on any test results. There is no evidence to suggest the lockdown is having the desired effect.
It seems covid-19 is not as contagious during the hot months as it is during the cold months. The fear is covid-19 has been spreading far and wide and the next three cold months will see covid-19 hotspots breaking out everywhere!
Time will tell whether the regime’s failure to test aggressively and to deliberately falsify the spread of the virus has indeed backfired with disastrous consequences to the nation!
Why neither Dr Nyamande nor any of his follow ZDHR members have never asked the Zimbabwe government why is has not been testing aggressively beggars belief. We not only have a blundering and incompetent government but some of our civic organisations are shockingly incompetent too!
Post a Comment