In Zimbabwe, ‘you win coronavirus or you win starvation’
HARARE, ZIMBABWE » “We are already ruined. What more harm can coronavirus do?” Irene Kampira asked as she sorted secondhand clothes at a bustlingmarket in a poor suburb of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
People in one of the world’s most devastated nations are choosing daily survival over measures to protect themselves from a virus that “might not even kill us,” Kampira said.
Even as the country enters a “total lockdown” over the virus onMonday, social distancing is pushed aside in the struggle to obtain food, cash, cheap public transport, even clean water. The World Health Organization’s recommended virus precautions seemfarfetched formany of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people.
“It’s better to get coronavirus while looking for money than to sit at home and die from hunger,” Kampira said, to loud approval from other vendors.
The southern African nation has few cases but its health system is in tatters, and the virus could quickly overwhelmit. Hundreds of public hospital doctors and nurses have gone on strike over the lack of protective equipment. Many Zimbabweans are already vulnerable from hunger or underlying health issues like HIV, which is present in 12% of the population.
Last year a United Nations expert called the number of hungry people in Zimbabwe “shocking” for a country not in conflict. The World Food Programhas saidmore than 7 million people, or half the country, needs aid.
Harare, like most cities and towns across Zimbabwe, has an acute water shortage and residents at times go for months, even years, without a working tap. Many must crowd communal wells, fearing the close contact will speed the coronavirus’ spread.
“If the taps were working we wouldn’t be here, swarming the well like bees on a beehive or flies on sewage. We are busy exchanging coronavirus here coughing and spitting saliva at each other,” said 18year old Annastancia Jack while waiting her turn.
The government has closed borders and banned gatherings ofmore than 50 people while encouraging people to stay at home.
But the majority of Zimbabweans need to go out daily to put food on the table. With inflation over 500% most industries have closed, leaving many people to become street vendors. Zimbabwe has the world’s second-largest informal economy after Bolivia, according to the International
Fund.
Police in recent days have tried to clear vendors fromthe streets, in vain. As in other African countries wheremany people rely on informal markets, a lockdown could mean immediate food shortages.
Once-prosperous Zimbabwe was full of renewed promise with the forced resignation in late 2017 of longtime leader Robert Mugabe. But President Emmerson Mnangagwa has struggled to fulfil promises of prosperity since taking power. He blames the country’s crisis in part on sanctions imposed on certain individuals, including himself, by the U. S. over rights abuses.
Daily necessities in Zimbabwemake social distancing an elusive ideal.
Monetary