Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu
The body overseeing the health of human beings on earth has said something that should, of necessity, leave a frightening tumult embedded in the minds of many to catalyse unmitigated global solidarity against a pandemic that almost daily leaves hundreds of bodies strewn around fresh burial places as if the dead were fumigated cockroaches or flies ready to be swept away from household floors and into rubbish pits.
It is “accelerating”, a statement from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) top echelons warned this week after the global virus infections topped nine million by Monday, June 22, as millions of children were being allowed to return to school in France, for instance.
Surging increases in the killer virus have been reported in Latin America with Brazil the second highest coronavirus infected country after the United States of America and with fears of more cases in Europe, India and in China where the deadly virus first broke out, while South Africa tops cases in the African continent.
WHO’s Director General, Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, said “the politicisation of the pandemic has exacerbated it” and warned that a divided world could not defeat the pandemic, what with its politicisation which saw some leaders likening the virus to a “little flu”.
What arises from the above discourse is a need for inter-state and intra-state co-operation in the fight against Covid-19 which no doubt also serves as a litmus test of humanity’s faith in our Creator’s ability to protect us by entreating Him for deliverance through unceasing prayers and fasting.
This newspaper has repeatedly called through these columns for inter-state co-ordination of people being deported from one country to another so that appropriate measures could be put in place to reduce the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
Tragically, however, some people in the political opposition in Africa and elsewhere tend to regard the coronavirus challenge as “their problem”, suggesting that those in power and they alone must deal with the virus.
Which in hindsight does not make these same people realise that they themselves also stand to be infected and killed by the virus before worming their way into power after which they spend sleepless nights plotting against their rivals.
In Zimbabwe’s case, kudos must go to organisations locally and abroad as well as to friendly governments that have and continue to provide aid in various forms to curb the spread of Covid-19.
However, such aid will be as good as wasted if beneficiaries of it do not make the best use out of the assistance to save lives so that ultimately the pandemic can become a proverb and our economy revived as normalcy returns all round.
As things stand right now in Zimbabwe and elsewhere abroad, repeated tests for infection should be regarded as a must in the fight against re-infections as more people return home from the diaspora after losing their jobs there to the coronavirus.
Equally important, people should not shield relatives sneaking back home from the diaspora to avoid tests at official entry points.
Such behaviour is obviously catastrophic as those shielded from authorities fighting the coronavirus may be infected and will therefore spread the virus to everyone else in the family.
This pen has previously suggested that with a measure of success achieved in checking the spread of the coronavirus in urban areas, rural border areas must now become a priority for anti-coronavirus educational campaigns as many returning residents from neighbouring states are reportedly returning home from neighbouring states by jumping porous borders.
Lastly, while many in our country have a propensity for sporting activities and other crowd-pulling events, the time may not be ripe yet to abandon social distancing to protect one another from Covid-19.
Online Reporter