Exclusive: Zim Writer in China Shares Situation On The Ground, Comments On Need For Coronavirus Preparedness Back Home
4 years agoThu, 20 Feb 2020 13:24:21 GMT
A Zimbabwean writer in China, has commented that there’s need for preparedness in Zimbabwe given the possibilities of the deadly Coronavirus spreading to the country.
The writer told Pindula News that she’s safe and has resumed going to work as the Chinese government has put measures in place to fight the spread of the epidemic:
As a reporter I can honestly say we are safe and the Chinese are doing the best they can to contain this.
However, I’m more concerned about the situation back home in Zimbabwe and I just pray the virus does not spread there.
I don’t know how we would manage without making some drastic changes. If it breaks out there it means for a while there may be no more gatherings like church, no more funeral gatherings, no going to school, no more misika (roadside markets).
My observations are not meant to create fear, but to say whatever measures our authorities have put in place, the general public also needs to have more information, to know what the challenges are should we have cases…in simple terms: are our health and other systems robust enough.
I think those in the rural areas would be safer perhaps as such areas are less densely populated.
How will we ensure all modes of public transport are disinfected down to even a bicycle like the Chinese authorities are doing. How do you lock down the ghetto in Zim? How do you ensure kombis are disinfected and that people are checked for temperature at every shop? How do we make sure everyone has a mask? How do we ensure that we install infrared thermometers everywhere? All these are things that we should prepare adequately for before we have infected people on the ground.
People on the train in China keeping a distance. This is during rush hour and it’s a train heading to a residential area with a population size of 400,000. As you can see there are few people on it and that’s rush hour it’s not the usual thing to have such few people on the train.
This was taken approaching rush hour. It’s one of the busiest subway intersections and in Harare, Zimbabwe this would be the equivalent of the fly over along Julius Nyerere or 4th Street Terminus. There are no people in sight because people are under lockdown.
As for students in China, their study has not been stopped by the epidemic. They can take online classes. So life is going on. Parents were told to connect with teachers so that schools can know the health state of students.
Most families here have access to the WiFi. And online classes are required not to learn new content but just review the past knowledge and it’s proving to be successful . Schools are required not to add too much burden to parents and students, while keeping students’ study uninterrupted by the epidemic.
