AT one time Zimbabwe went a week without recording any deaths from COVID-19 and new infections and deaths were declining.

But that has since changed.

In recent weeks, Africa has seen a sudden surge in cases and deaths, with several countries in the southern African region experiencing a third wave.

By July 12 2021, the nation had recorded a total of 70 426 cumulative cases and 1 236 cumulative deaths, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The highly transmissible Delta variant is now circulating in our communities.

And latest genomic sequencing results indicate that approximately 80 percent of the fresh cases in Zimbabwe are now due to the Delta variant that originated in India.

Unfortunately, complacency by communities in adhering to prevention measures, including the lockdown and basic World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols such as proper wearing of masks, washing of hands and physical distancing is fuelling the pandemic.

We will not tire repeating the message that victory against the pandemic is solely dependent on each and every one of us.

We cannot afford to be complacent.

If we do not change our attitude and behaviour at individual level, then it is a fallacy to think that we will beat the pandemic.

The fight against COVID-19 begins with me, with you, with all of us.

We all have a responsibility and role to play in protecting one another.

It is treating regulations and measures to fight the pandemic as mundane that is doing us damage.

While we all work with the idea of improving and making better our various arenas, uppermost must be safety.

At this stage of the pandemic each and everyone of us has lost someone close and dear to them.

And it appears more lives will be claimed if we do not change our behaviour.
All of us have a responsibility, not only to ourselves or immediate members of our families, but to future generations.

We are losing not just loved ones but some of the country’s finest minds whose work is critical to the development of the country.

Our thinking, as we operate in the various stations that govern our society, must be generational, vachauya vachati chii nemabatiro edu.

The future will be shocked with our carelessness and recklessness. As much as we need to survive, let us protect our families and the land.

It is heartbreaking to lose members of the family one after another.

Achachema umwe ndiani?

We are a resilient and determined people who have refused to be cowed and it will be sad to say that it is the pandemic that broke us.

We can do better.

We are an intelligent people.

The tide of the pandemic can be stemmed.

All it takes is each and every one of us becoming a responsible citizen abiding by all the measures to fight COVID-19.
And we cannot allow the pandemic to choke us.
We must fight for our past, present and future.