Time for serious Corona mop-ups

Stephen Mpofu
Different sectors of Zimbabwean society will no doubt have reacted with mixed feelings to measures taken by the Government earlier this week to relax the curfew to 8PM and business hours to 4.30PM from the previous 6PM to 6AM and working hours for exempted businesses from 8AM to 3PM respectively.

Those to whom handsome dividends will accrue from the changes will obviously hug themselves with glee, as will happen to some extent for those deriving a modicum of joy from the new developments. Indeed, students and their parents will celebrate the adoption by Cabinet of the template used in this year’s June 2020 examinations for the forthcoming examinations in November and December.

But churches “will none” of the above or any further relaxation of the lockdown measures, obviously dismissing them as tragically ironic in the sense that they might cause a proliferation of shebeens and house parties about which the religious institutions in Bulawayo have already complained, as reported in this paper earlier this week.

Churches, or collectively the Church as an embodiment of humanity’s Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, operates within communities where it is difficult to fight the coronavirus pandemic, especially where populations, as in urban areas, are dense, with people sharing different mindsets due to different diverse traditional and cultural backgrounds according to the World Health Organisation.

Those blamed by the churches for the social activities in question are ordinary people ignorant of the boomerang effects of beer which decreases the immunity to attacks by Covid-19, or are hosts who know the dangers to which they expose patrons but act with impunity to cash in on the ignorant so as to make ends meet in light of our country’s depressed economy, throttled by illegal Western economic sanctions to try to effect a Zanu-PF regime change in order for the imperialists to govern this country by remote control.

The above discourse should therefore persuade those charged with fighting the spread of Covid-19 to mount intensive educational campaigns in all urban suburbs, assisted by leaders of residents’ associations to make people aware of the dangers inherent in some of their activities, such as shebeens and house parties.

Better still, law enforcement agents should be involved in the campaigns to stamp out activities, such as those cited above, which pose dangers to society with the aggrieved church leaders not just fulminating from their pulpits or pews, but going out there in the open personally or virtually as the case might be to stop what they obviously regard as the rot in society.

The carrot(education)-and-stick or the law approach to ending the drinking orgies, in-house parties and shebeens stands a better chance according to this writer, of safeguarding gullible members of society who pander to mob psychology by involving themselves to perilous activities.

A report also appeared in this newspaper a few days ago about scores of people suffering from chronic illness, especially diabetes, struggling to access medication due to the worldwide Covid-19 induced lockdown which has affected transportation of drugs.

Also reportedly affected by the shortage of the essential medicines or drugs are people with HIV, high blood pressure and kidney ailments, with those who have the drugs available charging astronomic prices to line up their pockets.

But surely Zimbabwe has a neighbour in South Africa with highly developed pharmaceutical industries where our government or other people or organisations charged with providing adequate medical requirements can obtain stocks from there by road in emergency cases such as those faced by our people.

And come to think of it, South Africa is reported to have come up with an anti-coronavirus vaccine already in the testing phases and, not only as a neighbour of that country but equally important as a member of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) which also includes South Africa, Zimbabwe is likely to reap benefits from that country should the vaccine become the hope for which Zimbabwe and the rest of the global village await with our fingers crossed.