Everyone remembers the powerful world leaders who derided the coronavirus threat or even denied its existence in its early stages. U.S. President Donald Trump said the virus would disappear “like a miracle.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson boasted cheerfully about shaking hands with “everybody” at a hospital, including COVID-19 patients. Chinese officials arrested or muzzled doctors who tried to warn of the danger.

But what about other leaders around the world? Some have performed admirably under pressure – educating their citizens, advocating good health measures, taking brave action to protect lives.

Others were, er … less helpful.

Who were the deniers, the minimizers, the blithe mockers, the confident believers, the vodka promoters, the unconcerned and the uninterested?

The Globe and Mail looks at some of the most dubious responses to the pandemic, and Emmerson Mnangagwa is one of the notorious none.

Here is what they said about Mnangagwa:

In mid-March, as the pandemic grew, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa took action: he announced a series of measures, including an immediate ban on gatherings of more than 100 people.

A day later, he held a political rally and gave a speech to several hundred people at a school in northeastern Zimbabwe, blatantly violating his own decree. When asked about it, he claimed his ban on large gatherings didn’t take effect for two days, even though his own government had made it clear that the decree was effective immediately.

Mr. Mnangagwa, a former vice-president who replaced the long-ruling Robert Mugabe after a military coup in 2017, has shown little interest in improving Zimbabwe’s decrepit health care system to deal with the pandemic.

Its first victim was a well-known broadcaster, Zororo Makamba, who died in a Harare hospital that had been designated as the main isolation facility for the coronavirus – but lacked any ventilators to treat patients. His brother said the government was unprepared for the virus.

As of April 15, just 716 coronavirus tests had been conducted in Zimbabwe, a country of 15 million people. In one case, a test was delayed for so long (reportedly because of transport problems) that the patient died three days before the positive results came back.

But police and soldiers in the authoritarian state have been enthusiastically enforcing the national lockdown. In one raid, police confiscated and destroyed several tons of fresh fruit and vegetables by setting fire to them – because the vendors had broken travel restrictions. In a country plagued by malnutrition and hunger, it was a shockingly irrational response.