MBARE vegetable market is a hive of activity. Thousands of people are mingling, selling and buying fresh agricultural produce oblivious of the social distancing regulations during the coronavirus pandemic.
For a week, Mbare was dead economically. The suburb is an economy in itself — the undeclared capital of informal trade.
One can get practically anything from Mbare — a site for informal trading from Mupedzanhamo for second-hand clothes to green vegetables market to Siya-So for all manufacturing and industrial trade.
All this had ground to a halt after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a 21-day national lockdown to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
The lockdown was effective March 30 to April 19 inclusive. All non-essential services were barred from conducting any business during the lockdown.
When Mnangagwa announced the lockdown on March 27, Zimbabwe had only three confirmed cases and one death.
Zororo Makamba, son of business mogul James Makamba, became the first victim to succumb to the virus.
The news melted the social media. He was case number two. Zoro, as people used to call him, was the only case with a name, all others were just numbers and it remains so.
Zoro’s death and South Africa’s lockdown, which started on March 27, prompted Mnangagwa to take similar action despite that the country had three confirmed cases.
Since then, the country had tested 438 people by sunset yesterday and most of the positive cases were people who came from outside Zimbabwe, with the exception of cases — 5, 6, 7, 8 and 11. Case 5 was a contact of case 2; cases 6, 7 and 8 were contacts of case 3; while information is yet to be released on where case 11 got infected.
The lockdown was rushed. Mnangagwa appeared to be a man in a rush. He made the regulations without a proper plan to deal with indigent persons, small businesses and informal traders who would carry the brunt of the lockdown.
The police were to enforce the lockdown and the military, which had been on standby amid reports of deployment in some suburbs, has now been fully deployed, particularly at main checkpoints.
