By Patrick Guramatunhu- Last week government announced that it was going to increase the number of covid-19 tests from 40 or so per day to 1 000 per day.

This was a welcome move. “Long overdue!” many people rightly said because without testing and thus knowing how the virus was spreading in the country, we would never stop it spreading.

Two on the top of the list of criteria on who must be testing were “people with influenza like symptoms and all patients with fever symptoms”, Nick Mangwana announced. Now it seems government is going back on this undertaking! Government is not testing for covid-19 they many people who have reportedly died from malaria.

“This matter came up for discussion on Monday and while it was regrettable that Zimbabwe continues to lose life to Malaria, the statistics of infections and deaths are in fact consistent with trends in recent years,” said President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, George Charamba.

“What this says is that reports must be very careful not to confuse Coronavirus with malaria, merely because symptoms are largely similar.

“Secondly, while the worldwide hype on Coronavirus is warranted, this should not detract from the traditional killers of our people, namely malaria, Aids and cancers, which must continue to receive greater attention.” 

Charamba readily acknowledged that the symptoms of these malaria deaths are largely similar to those of corona virus patients, which is the criteria announced by his colleague Nick Mnangagwa.

Secondly, it is a well-known fact that the overwhelming majority of people who have died of corona virus also had other underlying health problems such as HIVAIDS, cancer and/or had compromised immunity because of their advanced age or some other reason. It is logical to add malaria as just of “other underlying health condition” putting those with malaria at increase risk of death if they contracted covid-19.

This claim that there is a serious malaria outbreak in the country when the same government has been attributing the food shortage in the country to drought does not make sense. There cannot be malaria outbreak when there is a drought!

So, whilst in the past many people would get malaria and would recover. However, if they should have malaria and corona virus infection too, it is a death warrant!

Since corona virus is a very contagious disease it is important that all covid-19 patients are tested and confirmed a.s.a.p. and from there on they must be treated as covid-19 patients whether or not they have malaria or any other underlying disease. The failure to do so will only help spread the virus because, in their ignorance, people will fail to take the necessary anti corona virus precautions.

This Zanu PF and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have one big thing in common – they both have no democratic mandate to govern and hence the reason they are very secretive. They would rather deny, falsify and/or conceal the truth; even if they know there is a heavy price to be paid for doing so: just to hide their weaknesses and failures. For all their posturing as great leaders, tough as an old boot; they are ultra-sensitive to criticism especially when the criticism is exposes them for the corrupt, incompetent and feeble minded they are.

CCP did not want the world to know about corona virus. Indeed, the party even recommended that Dr Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who first diagnosed the virus and raised the alarm, must be reprimanded. Even after acknowledging the corona virus outbreak, China has continued to be very secretive about how many people were infected, how many died, etc.

There is no denying that by failing to be open, truthful and transparent China has contributed to the spread of the corona virus across the globe. So far, there have been over 2.6 million confirmed cases of covid-19 and nearly 200 000 have died. The pandemic is yet to reach its peak in Africa and many other developing countries whose health service will be overwhelmed and are poorly resourced to contain the outbreak. The number infected and dead will increase five to tenfold!

The economic disruption caused by the corona virus pandemic will result in a 10% to 30% contraction of the economy in the industrialised nations causing a depression to last 10 years or so. The contraction will be even worse in poor countries and last even longer.

WFP has predicted that up 30 million people will soon be facing starvation!

Zanu PF has handled the corona virus threat with its characteristic blundering incompetence. The regime allowed the late Zororo Makamba, for example, to roam and mix with the rest even after the officials at the Airport had noticed he had the corona virus symptoms. Now the party is determined to falsify the spread of the virus and the suffering and deaths it is causing.

Zanu PF is loathed to test for covid-19 all those are sick or have died of malaria and other diseases because the party does not want the true number of corona virus confirmed cases and deaths to be known. The true cost of this deceit is that even more people are going to infected and many more will die because, had they known the true corona virus status of those around them, they would have been more cautious!

The world is paying dearly for CCP’s failure to tell the truth about corona virus to conceal its incompetence. Likewise, Zimbabweans are paying dearly for Zanu PF’s refusal to reveal the truth on how widespread corona virus is for the same reason – to conceal its blundering incompetence.