FROM HOSPITAL? PROVE IT - COPS

MANZINI – Casually strolling into the Manzini Bus Rank is now taboo as security forces demand proof of your visit to the city.
The public experienced a firmer grip exhibited by the security forces deployed to disperse crowds within the country’s busy places as the country was yesterday on Day 12 of the partial lockdown.

The partial lockdown, which according to government is to enforce social distancing and encourage the citizenry to stay at home, went a notch up as security forces manning the bus rank denied people entry to the rank.
The security forces, which comprise the three State agencies, stopped any person who was entering the bus rank in order to establish where they were destined to.

Demanded

In their quest to turn away people from the bus rank, the security forces, who comprised of members of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS), His Majesty’s Correctional Services and Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF), at some point, demanded the public to substantiate their claims with documentation.

This was mostly applied to those who claimed to have been from hospital. One man was seen giving his hospital card to a female police officer; which did not augur well with some of the people who were standing by.
They said the inspection of the card was an invasion of privacy and tampered with doctor - patient confidentiality.

While this was happening, on the terminus, members of the UEDF were telling people who were seated to vacate the bus rank.
This, it was said, was to ensure that people did not end up crowding the rank and in so doing dwarfing the efforts of social distancing which propose that people should be at least a metre apart from each other.

This is because the coronavuirus spreads through respiratory droplets produced when a sick person sneezes or coughs.
The droplets can land on people’s hands or in mouths and noses, and threaten infection.

Contact

In addition to saliva sharing, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said COVID-19 could spread through close personal contact, including touching and shaking hands.
Touching something—door handles, phones, remotes—with the virus on it before touching your mouth, nose, or eyes could also lead to transmission if the hands are not washed thoroughly using soap and running water. On the other hand, the effects of the curfew imposed on transport operators to ferry commuters between 5am to 9am and 3pm to 7pm left employees idling outside their places of employment.

Some were seated on chairs as there were no people seeking their services.
The same challenge was experienced by vendors who had their fruits and vegetables on display with no one buying them. One of them said: “You can see that we are seated and there are no people to buy.”

Challenges

Venting on the challenges posed by the partial lockdown, the vendor said as much as HIV/AIDS caused havoc, it never rendered them broke due to an empty bus rank.
Meanwhile, streets of the hub of the country had ample parking space as there was minimal traffic and most of the shops operating in town have been closed for over a week. On the other hand, the bus rank traffic started to peak just after 2pm when the police permitted public transport to rank.

This saw the flow of people as well who had been waiting for transport. Some were seen lodged in the vehicles as they waited for 3pm when they resumed servicing their routes.
This led to Meintjies Street, which leads traffic in and out of the bus rank, being the busiest.

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