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Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

The Government has availed half a billion dollars for the procurement of protective equipment for public and council schools across the country to check the spread of covid-19, in readiness for the reopening of the educational institutions shut down during lockdowns.

Mr Taungana Ndoro, Communications and Advocacy Director in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, informed this writer three days ago about the Government’s precautionary measures as reports indicated that most rural schools, in particular, lacked face masks among other protective gear against the killer virus rampaging across the world and mowing down victims with no end of the global pandemic in sight.

Rural schools with adequate finances are known to be providing face masks to their students in contrast to poorer schools where students either report for school with their faces bare and therefore at risk of contracting the coronavirus that requires masks, sanitising and social distancing to protect one from infection.

A teacher at one school in Masvingo province reported that some pupils from poor families that could not afford masks reported for lessons at the school wearing “ordinary pieces of cloth fashioned into face masks” and were therefore at risk of contracting the killer virus.

Worse still, there are reports to the effect that villagers in some districts are being inundated with WhatsApp propaganda from Zimbabwean diasporans, especially in the United States of America, against anti-corona vaccines from China with which millions of Zimbabweans are being vaccinated.

People are reportedly being told that injections being administered to them will cause blood clots resulting in death.

It is known that some countries in the West which imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe to try to remove the Zanu-PF Government from power for introducing land reform to reunite the people of this country with the land stolen form them by white settlers, have long been waging an ideological war against the People’s Republic of China which supported the armed revolution that brought independence and freedom to our motherland.

It therefore behoves on the powers that be in our country to take such measures as will disinfect our people of infectious propaganda against our all weather friends, particularly so as Zimbabwe heads for general elections in 2023 and prior to which our enemies might go the whole hog in de-campaigning the incumbent Government.

What is more, Covid-19 has reduced the globe to a tiny village where mobility by its members swiftly spreads any infectious disease to other inhabitants of the village.

In this regard, therefore, our Government might wish to take swift and effective measures to counter any spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19 which is particularly lethal against young people that include school children.

News broadcasts by some American radio stations say some states in that country are against students wearing masks against the Delta variant and some politicians who were and are probably still aligned to former United States President Donald Trump who himself was against masking up, are said to be supporting the anti-masks states.

On the other side of the globe, in South Vietnam, radio broadcasts, like those from America, have also reported an outbreak of the Delta variant in Ho Chi Minh city, the capital, and said workers who lost their jobs during lockdowns were being prevented from travelling to rural areas as a way of trying to curb the spread of the disease there.

Our Government might wish to take a cue from Vietnamese authorities and control if not deck altogether any massive urban-rural drift by Zimbabweans out of work during lockdowns such as we have right now to swat the spread of Covid-19 and of the Delta variant to try to insulate rural populations against the killer virus.

At present the Government has restricted inter-city travel in the prevailing Covid-19 siege on our country which is all very well.

It is also imperative that rural populations are educated to be wary of embracing with both hands relatives or strangers from urban areas or from abroad who have no verifiable vaccination certificates as a way of protecting themselves against infection.

This therefore suggests that masking up, social distancing, washing of hands with water and soap and sanitising are also made golden rules for the survival of people in rural areas where masks are particularly an unknown quantity for saving lives out there.

In essence, this discourse is about educating our people, young and old, about the dangers to which they expose themselves should they thumb their noses at World Health Organisation protocols in the fight against the coronavirus or if the powers that be relent on throwing a protective blanket of educative information about the dangers of Covid-19 and its known variants or those that might breed in the future.

As the coronavirus rampages across the globe, laissez faire attitudes in protecting lives should stand banished from all segments of global societies.