STOP THIS MASS SPREAD!

Eswatini currently has the second highest infection rate per million people in Southern Africa after South Africa.

We also have the slowest rate of recovery and were the only country below 10 per cent recovery, despite most of the local cases being mild infections. A recovery jump was recorded yesterday but it does little to change our profile. Of note is that SA has rolled out mass testing while we haven’t, which means we could easily be perched at the summit of the infection rate stats on the continent. A grave concern, no doubt. Digging the grave deeper is the short supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) which is exposing our health personnel to infection. We ought to be wary of the international shortage of PPE and how 20 per cent of the COVID-19 deaths in Italy were those of health workers.  This is a statistic we cannot afford to add to our overburdened frontline staff shortages. 

It calls for determined efforts to reduce traffic to our health facilities by enforcing World Health Organisation (WHO) and COVID-19 regulations to the letter. However, we seem to be doing the opposite. Like sheep to the slaughter, people are being fully loaded in kombis, crowded without zero distancing at food distribution registration centres and shopping malls. Now the government wants to add to the numbers by encouraging large church gatherings. It will regret this. People must move from point A to B but it must be done safely. Risks must be reduced to a bare minimum.

If not, it is the Prime Minister, Ambrose Dlamini and his team that will, unfortunately, have to account for people’s lives at the end of the day, so they cannot afford to sit back and watch, or even encourage, uncontrolled mass gatherings for whatever reason while keeping the economy going and ensuring people don’t go hungry. Mobilising a nation to cooperate should dominate Cabinet’s time and effort, but it should do so without confusing the public with conflicting messages. Confusion will only lead us towards flattening of lives than the intended infection curve. 

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