By Nomusa Garikai- “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a blog on the outbreak’s impact on Africa last month that “social distancing” was not realistic for the most vulnerable, and the notion of working from home was only possible for the few,” reported a local publication.

“The very measures that are crucial to slowing the spread of the virus will have a direct cost on local economies,” said IMF. “The disruption to people’s daily lives means less paid work, less income, less spending, and fewer jobs.”

In Zimbabwe the lockdown was imposed when the country had less than 10 known corona virus patients and most of whom had recently arrived from outside the country. It would have made more sense to trace, test and isolate all those the patients had been in contact with. A nationwide lockdown was certainly uncalled for at that stage.

If we assume there were a lot more people infected than the 10 the regime admitted, which is very likely, but even then a nationwide lockdown did not make any sense given people still continued to meet in numbers to collect water, queue to buy maize meal, vegetables, etc. as Mnangagwa himself witness during in impromptu tour of Harare Suburbs last weekend.

WHO has underlined the importance of washing hands regularly with clean running water as one of the key measures to stop the spread of corona virus. It is shocking that Zimbabwe is still failing to guarantee the supply of clean running water to 90% of the population.

Government has made no concerted to improve the supply of clean water, even major hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo Hospitals still experience water shortages.

Why Zanu PF jumped at imposing nationwide lockdown when it cannot supply even something as basic as clean water has to do with the regime’s autocratic tendency than sound scientific advice and common sense.

South Africa has tested more than 47,000 people, as of 3 April 2020, and has 67 mobile testing units. President Cyril Ramaphosa has decided, based on the data from field tests, to extend the lockdown by another two weeks!

Zimbabwe has only tested 400 people and has one fixed testing centre based in Harare. The country has only 500 test kits donated by WHO. A few weeks ago, Mnangagwa allocated US$4.5 to Thokozani Khupe and her fellow POLD member to travel around lobbying for the lifting of the sanctions, for example, but failed to spend even one dollar to but corona virus test kits! Mnangagwa will probably extend Zimbabwe’s lockdown too, based on his autocratic instinct, Caesar’s will!

If this corona virus is going to behave like the common flu, then we must expect the numbers of infected people to increase significantly as we get into the cold months of May, June and July. This is the time when a nationwide lockdown would have made sense. Assuming that by then the government would have done something to ensure there is clean running water, etc. and thus improve on basic hygiene and social distance.

Zimbabwe’s ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown was ill-advised. It will have little positive impact in slowing the spread of the virus, if at all. But worst of all, for a nation with no welfare system to help the most needy in society meet their basic needs, it is very hard to sustain a nationwide lockdown for a couple of weeks much less a couple of months.

Ending the lockdown when the infection is getting worse is insane and yet that is exactly what the country will be compelled to do to avoid people starving to death!

“Kupedzera miseve pamakuguvo, hanga dzisati dzasvika!” (We have wasted our arrows on the crows when the guinea fowls are yet to come!) Worse still, it is the man-eating hyenas, not the harmless guinea fowls, we have to fight off!