“854 PCR tests done today (Wednesday), with the positivity at 2 percent. All 17 are local cases.
25 new recoveries reported: National Recovery rate stands at 94,5 percent and active cases go down to 212. As of 4 November 2020, Zimbabwe has now recorded 8427 Cases 7967 recoveries and 248 Deaths,” said the Ministry of Heath and Child Care.
Zimbabwe has not been testing for corona virus and so the extend of the virus in the community is an unknown. Zimbabwe has hardly ever carried out 1 000 tests per day even at the time when the official corona virus cases were high.
American has done a pretty good job of testing but not so well in tracing and isolating; the country has nearly 9.6 million cases and nearly 1/4 million deaths out of a population of 330 million. So less than 0.1% of the population in the US has died of corona virus. Even if this figure was ten times or 1% in Zimbabwe, it is easy to see how the corona virus death can easily be attributed to other causes.
Zimbabwe and the world at large is thankful that the corona virus has not been as deadly as ebola.
Corona virus has not only been a serious threat to one’s health and life it has also caused serious disruption to economic activities. Some economic sectors such as the air travel industry has laid off staff and scrapped many of the planes.
Many industrialised nation are projecting their economy will shrink by as much as 10% this year and the economic recovery to pre-covid 19 level will take 10 years or more.
For Zimbabwe the effect of covid-19 cannot be assessed in terms how much the economy will shrink because there was not much economic activity before the corona virus pandemic. The country’s economic was all but destroyed in the period 2000 to 2008 as a consequences of the collapse of the country’s agricultural sector and the hyper inflation soaring to 500 billion percent. The economy has never recovered.
Before the corona virus pandemic unemployment was already a nauseating 90% plus, basic services such as education and health care were barely functioning and 34% of the population was already living in extreme poverty.
A number of Zimbabweans who had left the country as political and/or economic refugees have been forced to return after the pandemic outbreak. These people will not be returning so time soon as there will be few employment opportunities in those nations whilst they too try to recover. The returnees will only swell up Zimbabwe’s mountain of unemployed.
By the end of 2019, two years after Mnangagwa seized power in the November 2017 military and launched his “Zimbabwe is open for business!”, it was clear the much hope for flood of investors would never materialise. Investors could see that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. And so they shied away.
Zanu PF has once again resorted to printing money to pay its bills feeling inflation which has soared to 838%. Education and health care have now but completely collapsed as government has failed to pay the teachers and health care workers a living wage. By the end of the years the number of Zimbabweans living in extreme poverty will have surged way above 34%!
The economic situation in Zimbabwe is simply intolerable. There is no future in this!
Zimbabwe’s economic mess is largely a man-made problem as it is the consequences of 40 years of Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. If Zimbabwe had been a healthy and functioning democracy, the people would have removed Zanu PF from power decades ago. Zanu PF has routinely rig the elections to stay in power and the people have wrung their hands in helpless despair.
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. None!
Zanu PF has dragged this nation to the very edge of the abyss; if the people do not end the dictatorship now, time is running out, the regime will drag them over the edge! And the people will only have themselves to blame for it because it has always been in their power to end the dictatorship if they really wanted to!
Thank God, corona virus has not been as deadly as Ebola. Still its economic footprint is huge, millions more Zimbabweans now live in extreme poverty and, without a competent government, the country’s future is grime.
7 comments:
Dafi, what you meant to say is Zimbabwe would impose sanctions of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris if the elections are free, fair and credible. Everyone in Zanu PF HQ joined in shouting "Stop the count!" in all those state Trump was leading and shouting the exact opposite in those he was behind.
Zanu PF was sure the 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora would not vote for the party and so the party denied them the vote. Period! No doubt Trump is trying to do the same with the postal votes in America!
In UK and many other countries the rule is if someone dies within 28 days of being covid-19 positive he or she is counted as a covid-19 death. In Zimbabwe even those in the main Hospitals with all the covid-19 symptoms are very rarely tested, it is therefore not surprising that many covid-19 deaths are counted as something else.
The price of not testing for covid-19 is that many, many more people would be infected with the virus because testing would have identified those with the virus, isolated them and thus stop spreading the virus.
Mnangagwa and company have often boasted of Zimbabwe's low official covid-19 death rate as proof of how well the regime has contain the pandemic. This is a lie. By failing to test, trace and isolate as diligently as they should they have help the virus spread and more people have died. But the official death rate has remained low only because the regime did not test for the virus.
Zimbabwe's economy was in total meltdown before the corona virus outbreak because of 40 years of Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. Whatever bright ideas Mnangagwa and his team had of reviving the economy after the November 2017 military coup had failed to do so. By the end of 2019 it was clear Zimbabwe needed democratic change as the only way to end the curse of bad governance.
As 2020 ends it is clear the Zimbabwe economy is in even deeper trouble as the result of the corona virus. The need for meaningful democratic change and good governance is more urgent now than ever. Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are not going to lead this nation out of this economic mess, they have no clue what to do to revive the economy.
Indeed, Mnangagwa is pouring resources into consolidating his hold on power by increasing the wages of the security services sector whilst neglecting education and health, corruption is expending from the diamond industry to platinum, gold and other areas, etc. Mnangagwa is dragging the nation even deeper into the abyss!
Zimbabweans have yet to wake up to the reality that good government is not like the sunshine or the air, free to all. Good governance is something that must be earned. We certainly deserve this corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of corrupt and utterly useless opposition parties!
Zanu PF has managed to bury its blundering incompetence in the handling of the corona virus pandemic by the simple act of not testing. Even if someone shows all the symptoms of covid-19, if they have not been tested for the virus they will not be counting as a covid-19 case.
Corona virus has turning a worldwide economic boom into a worldwide economic depression and it is going to take a decade or more to recover to where we were before the pandemic. Millions of people all over the world will suffer and many will die of poverty related illnesses and hardships.
Zimbabwe’s economy was one of the few in the regime that was shrinking and had been doing so for decades. When Mnangagwa seized power following the November 2017 military coup, he promised to revive the economy by ending the scourge of corruption and by attracting the much needed foreign investors.
By end of 2019, two years after the coup and a few months before the corona virus outbreak, it was clear he would not keep his promises and there was no hope of the economic recovery. was had failed to revive the economy.
Corona virus disrupted the little economic activity that was going on in Zimbabwe, dragging the nation into even deeper economic depression. The country will not get any remittance from the many Zimbabweans unable to get work in the post-pandemic economic depression. The pressure on Zimbabwe to sort its own problems and revive its economy is palpable and urgent.
Zanu PF has no clue what to do to revive the economy and so the pressure is on to find those who can. The idea that Zanu PF has the divine right to cover the country regardless of the overwhelming evidence that the party’s failures is now being put to the test like never before.
The grime choice for the people of Zimbabwe is to either find a competent government to revive the economy and live. Or be stuck with this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime and suffer and die! It is that simple and that grime!
In 1980 when the country attained her independence, Zimbabwe was a middle income nation with a robust economy and great potential to prosper and thrive. 40 years of Zanu PF misrule have taken its toll, the nation's economy is ruins and millions are now living in abject poverty. Zanu PF have proven beyond all doubt that they are not fit to govern and the reason the party has remained in power all these years is because Zanu PF rigged the elections.
The economic situation in the country has now reached a critical level with poverty levels soaring to 50% plus, education and health care services all but collapsed, etc. The situation is so bad the risk of social unrest and chaos are real. The country desperately need meaningful political change leading to good governance. Zanu PF is incapable of leading the nation out of this mess and the idea of the party continuing to impose itself on the nation by rigging elections is simply unacceptable.
Zimbabwe must implement the democratic reforms designed to end the curse of rigged elections once and once for all.
Irimai said the COVID-19 rapid response team was busy doing contact tracing at the parents' workplaces in the city, as well as the school where the two minors, who are in Grade 7, were going to.
"Our rapid response team is busy doing contact tracing to establish who the patients have been in contact with recently. The teachers and classes at the school where the kids are going are likely to be placed under quarantine, the other kids they play with in their neighbourhood, as well as the workplaces of the parents," he said.
"Let us not be complacent, there is a second wave of COVID-19 that is hitting other countries that had relaxed lockdown measures. We are not divorced from such countries as we do not exist on an island. We are not immune from a second wave which can be more dangerous and come with a stronger strain," Irimai said.
To date, Zimbabwe has recorded 8 444 COVID-19 positive cases, 7 975 recoveries and 248 deaths.
Zimbabwe has one of the lowest per capita covid-19 tests in the whole world and no wonder the country has one of the lowest per capita covid-19 cases and deaths too. So the real covid-19 cases and deaths could well be 100s times the official figure. The real saving grace here is corona virus has not been as deadly as Ebola!
The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) has queried why other public sector employees such as soldiers, police officers and prison guards are paid more than teachers.
ZIMTA chief executive Sifiso Ndlovu on Friday said it was unfortunate that the government has resorted to intimidatory tactics rather than addressing teachers’ incapacitation.
This comes after Primary and Secondary Education secretary Tumisang Thabela on Friday wrote a circular to provincial education directors (PEDs) to provide names of teachers that are not reporting for duty so that their salaries will be docked.
Ndlovu said: Unfortunately, it is an intimidatory tactic they are using to the unsuspecting educators who are toiling under poor salaries
The government has of late resorted to arm-twisting its poorly paid workers to make them report for duty. Recently, more than 1 000 nurses were struck off the payroll after they refused to resort to the normal 40-hour working week following the government’s unilateral decision to terminate the flexible working hours arrangement.
As to why soldiers, police and CIO are paid more than teachers, health workers and other civil servant; the answer is obvious - Zimbabwe is a Police State.
Zanu PF has always been obsessed about security. To every teacher and health care worker there is one soldier, Police officer and CIO. To every dollar spend in education and health the regime is spending 100 dollars or more in the security sector.
When Didymus Mutasa was Minister of State Security he once boasted that many of the teachers, waiters, petrol attendants, etc. are if fact CIOs and the government knew what everyone one of us was doing 24/7!
Zimbabwe’s education and health care services have all but completely collapsed. Schools closed in March following the corona virus lockdown and when they re-opened in September there were no classes because there were no teachers. Our clinics and hospitals have no staff, no equipment and no medicine.
What future is there for a country with a whole generation that cannot read and write! This Zanu PF madness must be stopped before the regime drags the nation beyond the point of no return.
"Zimbabwe has some of the lowest infection numbers in the region and this is partly due to the Covid-19 education and information drive by the subcommittee.
"There was a buy-in and tremendous support from community leaders, opinion makers, influencers and other stakeholders which made it possible for key messaging on Covid-19 to be disseminated timeously and smoothly.
"We will continue to spread the message on the need to adhere to protective and preventative behaviour because we are not yet out of the woods, despite having fared better than most nations so far," said the minister Monica Mutsvangwa.
The reason why Zimbabwe’s covid-19 cases and deaths are so low is because only those who have been tested and found covid-19 positive are included in the count and we have not been testing. The authorities promised to test frontline workers like health care staff regularly, for example, as per WHO recommendation. The country has hardly ever done a 1 000 test per day even at the peak of the corona virus cases and so some front line workers have never ever been tested for the virus.
Zimbabwe’s covid-19 tests is one of the lowest per capita covid-19 test in the world. By not testing we have allowed the virus to spread far and wide because those with the virus and should be in isolation never went into isolation and so continued to infect others.
There is no doubt that the real number of covid-19 cases and deaths in Zimbabwe are a lot higher than the official figures. The real saving grace here is that corona virus has not been as deadly as Ebola otherwise we would have turned a tragedy into a catastrophe of Biblical proportion.
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