The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
SANITISE, social distancing, masking up and vaccination have become the most used phrases in the global era of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, despite several warnings from global health organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Government for people to follow Covid-19 precautionary measures with detailed discipline in the wake of mutating variants that are continuously getting dangerous, the attitude among most Zimbabweans remains mild, casual, almost carefree.
The increase in the cases of the pandemic is therefore not surprising. It is doubtlessly putting to test the resources and capacity of health systems, not only in Zimbabwe but the world as a whole. Reports by the Bulawayo City Council director of health services Dr Edwin Sibanda that hospitals and their Intensive Care Units are struggling with a surge in demand of their services tell a sad story of a country locked in combat and seemingly losing the battle against the virulent disease.
Normal working patterns are being altered as the country fights to contain the pandemic with a number of frontline staff being affected as colleagues are removed from duty because of high exposure to the virus as they go into isolation while patients are now sharing oxygen points.
If nothing is done as a matter of urgency in the area of attitude change among the population, the country is likely going to see more lives being lost to the fiery fury of the pandemic.
The lockdown instruction is very clear, “those that do not fit in the definition of essential services should stay indoors.” At institutional and individual level, people should simply take precaution. In other words people are being told to lock themselves in their houses, to lock and stay away from crowds.
However, the meaning of the word lockdown has not been taken seriously. People have proved with a curious blend of malevolence and childish innocence that they are helter-skelter creatures who cannot by any means keep in the confinement of their homes even if they are being caressed by the competently spooky hand death.
In town, until recently and owing to the laxity of enforcement, things were almost getting back to normal. Streets that were swept clean in the first phase of the lockdown have now started accommodating a number of cars in their parking spaces. And cars do not drive themselves into town.
One wonders therefore, whether those people are all essential service providers or they are simply taking advantage of the lack of strict security to drive, hustle free into town for no tangible reason other than that home is boring.
There seem to be little bother as at what cost this carefree and irresponsible attitude is going to cause the nation as people seem to be respecting money more than life and have neglected the moral responsibility of being a brother’s keeper.
Reports of security details manning roadblocks getting kickbacks from those bent on breaking the rules are rampant and the country is slowly sinking deep into the abyss of the pandemic with projections of an alarming mortality rate of seismic proportions looming.
Money changers have suddenly become essential service providers who are allowed in and out of town at will. They spend the day parked at various points in the city and are often seen at ease and chatting with officers who should be duty bound to question them as to why they are in town.
The deterrent fines for breaking lockdown rules have since been overtaken by personal greedy where bribes are being accepted at the expensive cost of national good.
How people get the passes to move all the way from wherever they stay to town is anyone’s guess but that even banana vendors have the letters is no longer a secret. Reports are that there are certain kombis that are Nicodemously smuggling an overload of people out of town in the evening where passengers are even offering to pay the police so that they are not arrested. This is against a ban on intercity travel by all public transport operators.
In locations the situation is even worse. There is a blithe. People are just not on the prescribed Level 4 lockdown.
They are simply on vacation, both the young and old. Young men and boys will be playing soccer with reckless abandon, a contact sport that goes against the social distancing Covid-19 rules.
And the worry is that if one of the players gets positive of the virus how will they trace his contacts? Those that have cars simply drive to secluded places with their lovers for picnics while a number of Apostolic churches have never been affected by the lockdown as they still congregate in bushes in the outskirts of locations.
They will be praying for each other and singing like everything is normal. To them the pandemic is still foreign, it is still happening elsewhere not among them.
This is despite warnings from the Association of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe (AACZ) president Bishop Tsungai Vushe for members of the apostolic sect to violate lockdown regulations.
“We should adhere to what the Government has put in place. We have no culture of opposing the government especially when it is protecting people’s lives. We should instead complement and support its efforts,” he said.
Residents who spoke to Sunday News said there was a problem with the one-size-fits-all approach that governments have adopted without necessarily looking at the economic and cultural aspects of the two worlds — the developed West and the developing Africa.
They admitted that in as much as they might want to lock themselves in their homes and exercise social distancing, there were times when all those rules were thrown out through the window due to socio-economic circumstances.
“We are basically a hand to mouth nation. We do not have any savings, we live like birds, so we are forced to go out and look for food for the family, otherwise Covid-19 can spare us but what benefit will it be to be spared by Covid-19 and die of hunger in the confine of our homes,” said a resident Mr Watson Magovere of Pumula North.
The happy-go-lucky approach to the pandemic is not confined to the low income earning residential suburbs.
In town, social distancing is hardly observed as people spend long hours queueing for the Zupco buses and kombis that are evidently subdued by the number of people requiring transport after the 3:30 PM Level 4 business operating hours.
And because of large numbers of people, kombis that do not belong to Zupco and are therefore illegal capitalise on transport shortages and ferry people who will be rushing to get home before the 6:30 PM curfew.
The recent fare hike by Zupco has therefore not helped the situation as people are now opting for cheaper means of transport thereby risking their lives as they are hardly sanitized.
Funerals have been identified as superspreaders and the move by the Government to empower traditional leaders to ensure strict adherence to stipulations guiding Covid-19 lockdown in rural areas should be commended.
